I didn’t realize I was a feminist.

Posted on May 13, 2008
Filed Under Bodies in Public

I, like millions of women, cringe a little at the term feminist. Don’t get me wrong, I support zealots and feel they are a necessary cog in the machine of society. They get things done, they make us think. They’re important.

But I watched my great-grandmother (who was an avid, avid activist for women’s rights) become vice-president of a company in Chicago only to give so much of herself over the years to her family, to her job, that she is now a 93 year old depressed shell of a woman that just wants to die. I heard stories of her being a feminist "back in the day" but never saw it in action during my 32 years on earth. It was very, "Do as I say, not as I do."

I pictured hairy women that didn’t wear bras and yelled all the time. Or the flip side, the academic feminist that doesn’t know about how the world actually works and lives in some graduate-student nirvana instead of having to work within the very real framework of society.

But after that Twitter conversation I had yesterday, I kept thinking, "How many people are going to see that?" Some poor woman just having lunch while some bitch spews vitriol about her over the Internet. It’s disgusting. Then I found myself wondering if they would react the same way if it was a 250lb man sitting there? Or was it that she was alone that made her an easy target for hate? If she was with a friend there wouldn’t have been another seat available instead of the woman being in between two others.

Women should not be so hateful. I mean no one should be hateful, but women just have it a little harder in this society of ours. To accept one another would make life easier for all of us - so why can’t we accept others for who they are? Judging and making fun of the ugly, fat, short, tall, skinny, or different is just so unnecessary. There are other things to spend your time on.

Or so one would hope.

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