Refusenik

Elle m’a dit: “Garde tes tresors,
moi je vaux mieux que tout a
Des barreaux sont des barreaux, meme en or
Je veux les memes droits que toi
Du respect pour chaque jour,
moi je ne veux que de l’amour ”

She said to me: “Keep your treasures,
Me, I’m worth more than that.
Bars are still bars even if made of gold.
I want the same rights as you
and respect for each day,
Me I want only love.”

I’m a feminist. Capital F, -eminist. I’ve been a feminist my whole life but it’s only relatively recently that I’ve learnt to claim the term for myself and have begun to actively identify with a movement of women all over the world who have one thing in common: the tenacity to fight for full equality and the audacity to be content with nothing less.

Until that magical moment, known in the world of feminist activism as the “click moment” in which I affirmed my own feminism, I lurked in the murky reservations of “I’m not a feminist, but…”, woefully ignorant of the work feminism had yet left to do. Like so many women, I had bought into the great myth: that the feminist mandate had expired with the end of formal oppression; that political equality means social equality. And like so many other women, I was completely unaware of the biggest myth into which I was buying: femininity.

There are times when I feel I need to take a step back and rethink my feminism. In studying law, religion, politics and history from a gendered perspective, has it become inevitable that I see oppression in everything? Do my perceptions of male privilege and gender constructs border on hyperbole? At times, I suspect that maybe this is the case. Surely if so many other women can’t feel as passionate about feminism; surely if so many reasonable people sigh exasperatedly everytime I decry any hint of gender essentialism as a social construct (or at how I seem to blame every other thing on The Patriarchy); surely if we’ve got the vote – surely, feminism can be said to be picking a bone over any and everything? Thus, the old debate: is feminism still relevant?

Feminists tire of the same, stale arguments: We live in a post-feminist world; we have equal rights now; feminists have taken it too far; it shouldn’t be ‘feminism’, it should be ‘humanism’”. Any feminist will be able to tell you why feminism is still relevant. Why suffrage doesn’t mean that we have social and cultural equality. How society is constructed on the notion of male as default and the female as an abberation. How women are still bound and gagged by the fetters of arbitrary gender constructs. How this is all too often exacerbated by the myth of femininity which compels too many women to unquestioningly cling to the roles the patriarchy has designated them; and in doing so, rejecting the liberty feminism fights for and instead remaining content with a limited, patriarchy-approved Autonomy Lite.

Today, I have no wish to talk about any of these ideas fundamental to the feminist manifesto, as compelling and important as they are, because so many have said it before, so much better. Instead, this post is a personal reflection, an account of how feminist has empowered me and how it has given me the strength to love myself in the same way that my spirituality and faith has given me the grace to love others.

Feminism taught me, first and foremost, that I have inherent worth as a human being and that being a woman didn’t mean that worth was in any way dependent on my ability to fulfill any of the numerous expectations society has arbitrarily placed on those of my gender. Feminism taught me that demureness isn’t a mark of maturity in a woman any more than it is in a man; that I don’t have to temper my passion when I speak; that I should not – cannot – do so because it might scare off the perfect guy who for all his egalitarianism, is himself constrained by traditional ideas of masculinity. Feminism taught me to stop apologizing for being a woman, to stop gagging my mouth and binding my feet to be what society has conned us into thinking we need to be to be the Ideal Woman. Feminism taught me to be outraged at the way society polices the bodies of women like me, and to be appalled at the way society has trained women like me to police our own bodies. Feminism taught me that I am a full human being – not “like a man, but different”.

Feminism taught me to zealously guard my liberty and autonomy. Feminism taught me what it’s like to feel truly free. Feminism imbued me with a fierce independence and taught me that I have too much to offer, too much to contribute, to let myself be silenced. Feminism freed our mothers from the prisons of the feminine mystique. Feminism frees us from the beauty myth. And that is the beauty of feminism. The miracle of finally being able to break free and lash out against everything that has been whispered in our ears since we were 8-year-old girls, watching our mothers and sisters perform femininity, and waiting for our turns.

But feminism helped me to rediscover the voice I never quite realised I had. I am no longer apologetic. I no longer cower. I no longer feel inadequate. I am no longer trapped in an endless cycle of self-hate and discontentment. When I look in the mirror, I no longer see the things that need to be airbrushed away. I see a strong, intelligent woman; beautiful on her own terms and ready to face the world, with everything to offer and nothing to fear.

Even more importantly than that, though, is what feminism had taught me about the world beyond my immediate surroundings. In scrutinising gender constructs and identifying instances of male privilege, I have become far more conscious of privilege and its role in perpetuating oppression. There are many good people in this world, who play a part in oppressing others, not necessarily because of any malice or evil, but merely by failing to acknowledge their own privilege. As a woman and as an ethnic minority both in my homeland and in the country I now call home, I have felt the pinch of male privilege and racial-majority privilege. Seeing how male privilege hurts women has forced me to open my eyes to how my privilege as an able-bodied, middle-class, educated, Christian heterosexual contributes to the oppression of others. It is only when I first paused to consider my own privilege that I began to see how I would never be able to love all people in the manner my faith requires of me, without first confronting my own privilege. It is only when we face our own privilege – and remove the planks in our own eyes – that social change can begin.

Feminism made my world rich by opening my eyes to the wisdom of Aisha: bars are still bars even if made of gold. And it is this conviction by which I bear the marks of a feminist – filled with a thirst for social justice and the audacity to reject as unacceptable the compromises that have thus long been conferred upon us. I will not accept anything but full equality and respect for the dignity of every human being. Not for myself. And not for anyone else.