Feminism Makes Me HOT!

Here in Atlanta there's a bookstore called Charis Books. It's the oldest, largest, feminist bookstore in the Southeast and one of only 14 independent feminist bookstores left in the U.S. A sad fact but true, and I know this because last night I donned my take-me-seriously cat-eye scary feminist glasses, a chartreuse sweater dress that in retrospect may have been a poor choice, and marched my sensibly shod feet to the opening of Charis' 35th anniversary celebration: "Feminism, Books, & Beyond: Celebrating 35 Years of Charis Community."

The talk "Founding the Future: A Conversation with Beverly Guy-Sheftall & Gloria Steinem," was a brutal wake-up--like the irritating buzz of the neighbors alarm, the one that never shuts off because the guy's a junkie or a DJ and sleeps till two. You know that asshat; you hate him too.

I'm a sucker for revolution. No, not a sucker. I'm a disciple. I want it. I want to tear down the goddamn master's house. I live to bring down the patriarchy, to knock down the man and pry the boot off the neck of women toiling away, ignoring their own oppression in order to survive from day to day. Sure, sure, sometimes I sound a little like Valerie Solanas on meth. Sometimes I'm fervent, foaming at the mouth, screaming, crying and talking about a revolution in a world that's mostly decided all that work is a bunch of bullshit. I bet I even seem irrelevant, angry, man-hating and retro to a whole generation of girls younger than me.

Funny, though. I might be a pissed-off feminist but I make my living writing and talking about sex. I like to think I put the femme in feminist. I've written books with titles so post-post feminist you'd think they were penned by a frat boy, (Box Lunch anyone? Yes, I really wrote that book.) And I can't for the life of me figure out why every woman on this planet doesn't feel the same way I do. Let's let go of those outdated stereotypes. Be whoever the fuck you are, and run your mouth about your rights even while you're teetering on vertiginous stilettos. That's what I do, and fuck anyone who cares.

Guy-Sheftall, scholar, writer, badass and editor of many brilliant books including the groundbreaking anthology Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, said the very words last night that make me cringe. Her students, she said, think racism is over because we have a black president. They say feminism is irrelevant, and everything is just fine now. "Young women don't give a shit," she said. She believes she's not seen as a part of the woman's movement because she's an African American woman, and the women's movement is still seen as a straight white women-only club. The rest of us queers and minorities are something else. We're othered by too many qualifiers: Women of color feminists, lesbian feminists, disabled feminists, transgendered feminists. Fuck a lot of that. I'm a woman before I am anything else. Or maybe I should say I'm a woman and a whole lot of other things. Gloria Steinem nixed that bullshit the best when she said to Sheftall, "Tell me who says you aren't a leader in the women's movement and I'll break their kneecaps." Badass.

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