Being a bad feminist

Being a bad feminist.

Writing those four words made me smile. I was scared of feminism when I was turning 20 – and had no excuse as I was on a uni course where we talked about everything and studied cultural movements and literary theory over beers and curly fries.

I think I probably did say ‘I don’t need feminism’ – not realizing that I was the most bolshie ‘women can do shit too’ defender I’d ever met. But it’s tough being someone who doesn’t take no for an answer, who when she fails just dusts herself down and goes ‘ach well, something cooler will come out of this’, someone who’s not afraid to accept failure but as equally uninterested in being told how to do anything. It just happens I am a guuuurl and I fudging love it. It has meant I’m obstinate about feminism and presume everyone has that experience.

I once said to my wisest feminist friends Lauren and Hana ‘I’m not scared of sexual harassment as I’ll just run/kick and I don’t want to live in fear’ and they explained to me it’s not as simple as that. Ok ok. Of course it’s not. Finally I feel like I’m part of a dialogue where my white, self-starting, we’re gonna just do this attitude is brilliant but doesn’t define my feminism. I recognise I am extremely lucky, my job involves liking people and theatre and talking about things and these are my three boldest natural attributes. I’m lucky I worked out what I want to be at this stage in my life. I’m also lucky no men want to be theatre publicists – am I right ladies?

I have gained a terrifying propensity to see what I want and run at it – from work through to play – but again I realize this isn’t how every woman’s experience is or can be without some kind of seismic change.

On my flight to Australia for work as/for a company I’d set up (madness) I sat next to a Jordanian 29 year old. Born in the same year as me, on the other side of the world there sit two wee newborn girls. She was now a UN escort for refugees with legal and diplomacy degrees in bundles, fluent in four languages, travelling the world for work on a weekly basis, responsible for the future of people’s LIVES and yet she’s not allowed to have a boyfriend. She watches her friends get married so they can do it and have a partner and then watches that partner sleep around and take his wife for granted while she’s trapped – as ‘women don’t end marriages’. This is madness.

Here’s me, strident British feminist having just ended a relationship with a perfectly wonderful man as we knew we didn’t want the same things, feeling my heartbreak keenly but knowing we’d given it the best chance and that we were making a mutually aware CHOICE. AND THEN – I hear first hand my co-passenger isn’t even allowed to have that chance to try it out.

When I arrived in Adelaide I met the Hot Brown Honeys who I have the extraordinary privilege of working with. They stick a hot poker of ‘fuck yous’ into the feminist debate. All women of colour, they take stereotypes and expectations and toy with them until all lies shredded on the floor of a wooden tent. I love them. I love the anger and the messiness and the skill and the laughs and the tears and, I just love it all. And there is this moment, this chill that runs through one in that tent, a chill that makes the grin spread itself back across my face. A moment that says, now is over, change is coming, and it’s everyone’s job in everyone’s world to be a equalitist and fight for it.  

International Woman’s Day 2015

“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Audre Lorde

International Woman’s Day 2016.

“2016? Wow. Are we still doing this?” Erm. Me.

We need to keep meddling and fighting and arguing and being bad feminists. Word.