In anticipation of Women’s Equality Day tomorrow, I am posting an essay I wrote shortly after returning home from the National Young Women’s Leadership Conference in March.

April 4, 2009

This is what a feminist looks like

Growing up in the Midwest, I thought feminist was a bad word.  Feminists were zealots like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan who wanted special and unnecessary laws like the Equal Rights Amendment passed.  Feminists were lesbians (also a bad word) who hated men, burned their bras and refused to shave their legs.  Feminists were not smart, determined, independent women and girls who accomplished anything they set their minds to.  As I grew up, graduated from college and entered the workplace, I gained more respect for feminism.  If asked, I would probably even describe myself as a feminist but until recently, I couldn’t really explain what that meant.

In March, I attended the National Young Women’s Leadership Conference (NYWLC), where we discussed how women are affected by the economy, health care, reproductive rights, education, global warming, international relations, war and domestic violence.  We talked about how to improve conditions for women and girls everywhere. Women like Dolores Huerta, Eleanor Smeal, Lilly Ledbetter and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis told us we could change the world simply because we were women and feminists.

As the conference continued, I kept thinking about the “feminist” label.  The conference’s sponsor, the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), sold t-shirts and tote bags that said, “This is what a feminist looks like.” The shirts and bags went like hotcakes and everywhere I looked, women of every size, shape and color were proudly wearing their new conference swag.

“This is what a feminist looks like.”

“Wait,” I thought. “Am I a feminist?”

It was a light-bulb moment.  These women, over 500 of us who had gathered to find ways to help  women in the United States and around the world, were just like me.  We may have had different ethnicities, religions, incomes, abilities, family backgrounds and life experiences, but these were women I would have met at college, work, Wal-mart, church, the doctor’s office, or a family reunion.

In-between breakout sessions, I went to the restroom and looked at the woman staring back at me in the mirror.  If all of these smart, savvy, beautiful women were feminists, then I must be a feminist, too. The light-bulb moments continued as I began to understand feminism was not the idealistic extremism I used to believe it was.  I started to form my own definition of feminism: women working to improve living and working conditions for all women.

I was proud of my newly-claimed title of “Feminist” but I wondered what my family and friends back in Wisconsin would think.  They probably wouldn’t be surprised, as I’ve always been pretty liberal.  Would they think I had become even more partisan than I already was?  I wanted people to realize the word “feminist” really meant “women’s champion”, not “leftist rabble-rouser,” so I began to make a list of why I am a feminist.

I am a feminist because I believe:

• Every woman should have access to affordable health insurance
• Every woman should be able to go to a doctor when she is sick and obtain prescription medication when necessary
• Every woman should be able to find work that pays a living wage so she can provide for herself and her children
• Every woman should receive equal pay for equal work
• Every woman should be able to choose her own spouse, when and if she chooses to marry
• Every woman should be in control of her own family planning, which includes the right to decide whether or not to have children
• Every woman has the right to freedom of speech
• Every woman should have the same legal rights as men
• Every woman has the right to an education
• Every woman has the right to own property

I also believe:

• No woman should be discriminated on the basis of her gender, age, income level, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability or other life circumstance.
• No woman or girl should ever be raped or sexual abused, period.  Rape against women and girls should never be used as a weapon during war.
• No woman or girl should be subjected to genital mutilation.
• No woman or girl should be a victim of human trafficking, sold into sexual slavery or work in a sweatshop.
• No woman or girl should be forced into marriage without her consent.
• No woman should die in childbirth or as a result of pregnancy-related complications

Above all, every woman and girl should have enough food to eat, clean water to drink and a warm place to sleep at night.

Looking over this list, I realize my girlhood notions of feminism were wrong.  Fighting for women’s rights is not outrageous.  Women’s rights are human rights.  We are entitled to our rights and we must fight to help ourselves and our sisters.  As Mavis Leno, chair of FMF’s Campaign to Help Afghan Women and Girls, said at the conference, “When you are asking someone to give you your human rights, you are talking to someone who stolen them from you.” We have a lot of work to do, but feminist and labor advocate Dolores Huerta declared at NYWLC, “We can do this. You know why? Because we’re women.”

Yes, we can.  As Dolores would say, ¡Si, se puede!