I have been thinking about feminism lately. Actually, I think about feminism a lot, but some of it is apparent, and some of it is just part of the way I think. Some of it is stirred up by comments like, "I'm not a feminist," or "I don't think of myself as a feminist," uttered by women of all ages. I read a version recently, "I'm not sure if I feel comfortable calling myself a feminist," over on Feministe, from a blogger responding to a chunk of racist folly enacted by Seal Press last week. The blogger of that entry, Holly, felt that her issues with the feminists she has dealt with on race and continuing to call herself a feminist are mutually exclusive. Those people had not responded to issues presented to them by people of color (I've heard this before, particularly in the comics sphere last year and this, resulting in walk-outs by comics critics who were people of color). And so you get women, be they people of color or others, who for one reason want to disassociate themselves from feminism.

Here's how it looks to me.

I have been a feminist since the boys came right for me when we played "Red Rover" (the game in which everyone on each side links hands and the runner called from the other side must break through a linked pair), because I was the girl playing with the boys. I have been a feminist since no boy ever broke through my part of the Red Rover chain.

I have been a feminist since I was forbidden to choose the bass violin in sixth grade. It was a boy's instrument. They offered me the cello, but I didn't want that. I wanted the bass violin, because I liked its sound.

I have been a feminist since I began to write, and what I wrote with my first story and ever since was girl heroes.

I have been a feminist since I told people I wanted to be the first American president, and they laughed at me, because girls can't be president.

I have been a feminist since I sent to the FBI in seventh grade to find out what I had to do to become an agent, and received all the materials, including the list of requirements, one of which was "the Bureau does not accept women applicants."

I have been a feminist ever since I was cut from the eighth grade talent show because my act, a recitation of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," was deemed "unlady-like."

I have been a feminist ever since my principal clapped me on the shoulder and told a visitor I was "our little women's libber."

I have been a feminist since I fell in love with the comics hero Black Canary.

I have been a feminist since I searched libraries and bookstores all my life for women heroes. I have been a feminist while reading every book I could find on Elizabeth I.

I was a feminist before I ever walked into the Penn Women's Center. I was a feminist even when it was made clear to me that I annoyed some of my fellow feminists because I wasn't serious enough about the work. Because I wrote funny book reviews. Because I made fun of Erica Jong. Because I had a long term relationship with a man. I was a feminist while they called me to long, boring meetings and told me I could represent the apathetic women on campus. I was a feminist while we were all warned to expect to have our homes searched because one of us had taken in one of the people who was traveling with Patricia Hurst. (They never came. So disappointing.)

And I remained a feminist as those who disagreed with the goals of the others, who wanted to have a life beyond meetings, awareness seminars, retreats, stuffing envelopes, and staffing the center, were criticized, and driven away. I remained one when it was made plain to me that I was no longer welcome. A sense of humor and popular writings were no longer welcome. Germaine Greer was out. Andrea Dworkin was in.

I remained a feminist debating St. Augustine and women's rights with an ex-Marymount employer and writing a novel about a girl who really wanted to be a knight. I still remained one in Idaho, while my father told me women had no place as soldiers and men tried to prey upon the girls in my group home. I came to New York City as a feminist, and published books and stories with female and male heroes, and married a man who had peculiar ideas about feminists before he met me.

And I travel, and speak, and write more fantasy books, and live in Syracuse. I do not belong to any organizations, though I am happy to donate to Bitch Magazine, because it is wonderful, feminist, and entertaining, and I look forward to attending Terminus in August, because the same people did The Witching Hour in Salem, MA, where I found out how wonderfully cool Third Wave Feminists are.

I am still a feminist. I will always be a feminist. I am female. I want the women who come after me to have it better than I did, and without so damn many questions and objections. I want to see fewer things on the news that make the vein in my left temple pound. I want to see dealings between the sexes get easier for everyone. I want men to be able to do what they want without fearing those jeers that they are unmanly. I want to see the statistics on sexual violence to go down. I want to see the statistics on femicide go down. I want to see the statistics on child abuse go down, and on teen pregnancy. I want to see literacy rise. I want daycare and health care. I want support for mothers as workers and safe conditions and benefits and health care for sex workers. I want hate crimes to go down.

So you see, I do not understand how anyone can say "I don't want to be a feminist" or "I don't want to call myself a feminist." If you are a woman of color, or a woman transgendered, a gay woman, a straight woman, a celibate woman, you are a woman. How can you not be in favor of some manner of improvement in the lives of other women? How can those of them with brains not be in favor of improvements in your lives?

Who says you have to stay with one group and follow that group's agenda? Their group does not define all feminism, any more than yours does. One person and that person's thinking does not define feminism. Feminism is all of us. All of you. All of our work, our writing, our dreams, our kids, our issues. Groups may help us to focus, but they do not define each of us. The Second Wave of Feminism did not define me, nor does the Third Wave. We are who we are.

People say they don't like to call themselves feminists because of the reaction they get: the rolled eyes, the "oh, you're one of those." If it helps, I have been getting that reception for all of my life: "you're one of those women's libbers/bra burners/feminazis/man haters." I just go on doing/saying whatever I'm there for, and nearly every time I am told, "Hey--you're not like that." My reply is, "Most of us aren't."


edited to remove "bull dykes" from the last paragraph. In no way did I want to imply feminism is exclusive to straight, attractive women. Or white women. My intent is to say that we aren't a cartoon stereotype that doesn't exist in real life. We're people.