The F-Word
Feb 11th, 2008 by nick
Here’s another excellent column by Leonard Pitts, in which he laments the refusal of most people to call themselves “feminist” even when they agree with, and benefit from, the goals of feminism. He compares this phenomenon to a similar one with the word, “liberal,”
“Feminist,” it seems, has ended up in the same syntactical purgatory as another once-useful, now-reviled term: liberal. Most people endorse what that word has historically stood for — integration, child labor laws, product safety — yet they treat the word itself like anthrax. Similarly, while it’s hard to imagine that any young woman really wants to return to the days of barefoot, pregnant and making meatloaf, many now disdain the banner under which their gender fought for freedom. They scorn feminism even as they feast at a table that feminism prepared.”
He ends with a powerful defense of feminism, both the term and the movement:
“We have lost collective memory of how things were before the F-word. Of the casual beatings. Of the casual rape. Of words like ”old maid” and ‘’spinster.” Of abortion by coat hanger. Of going to school to find a man. Of getting an allowance and needing a husband’s permission. Of taking all your spirit, all your dreams, all your ambition, aspiration, creativity and pounding them down until they fit a space no larger than a casserole dish.
“‘I’m not a feminist, but . . . ?’ That’s a fraud. It’s intellectually dishonest. And it’s a slap to the feminists who prepared the table at which today’s young women sup.
“So for the record, I am a feminist. My daughter is, too.
“She doesn’t know it yet.”