I feel scared most times when people call me a feminist and it’s not that the movement frightens me. I’m eternally grateful for all the ways it has advanced women’s rights. I’m scared because every day I grow more and more cognizant of how I fall short of being one. Roxane Gay’s book “ Bad Feminist”, which I finally had time to finish last week, thanks to my mother-in-law relieving me of all my household chores so I could relax, made me comfortable for the first time.
Gay’s book is vulnerable, honest and a little heartbreaking. I breathed a sigh of relief to know that I can exist with all these contradictions and still have genuine interest in the movement. I think my favourite part of the book was when she interrogated Tyler Perry’s movies and got to see how casually we overlooked the many tropes and stereotypes that project the myth of the perfect and pious woman. Perry gives women roles where the take-home message is they need to be satisfied with where they are in their lives and that exploration based on personal preferences doesn’t always with end in chaos. This was evident in his movie Temptation: Confession of a Marriage Counselor.
I am now ashamed to say that years ago when I first watched Temptation, I thought it to be a brilliant movie. Gay’s book encourages you to reflect, to humanise your experiences and most importantly gives varying detailed analysis on how patriarchy has been interwoven in popular culture, media and by extension ourselves. Thus leading us to be believe there is some fixed way to do this.
The housewife feminist
I enjoy cooking and taking care of the home. Personally, I feel this is how I can best support my family unit and if I am to be honest it was what I always craved, “since ah know mahself ”, as Guyanese would say. However, to say this out loud in certain circles somehow manages to make me feel less than. I feel the judgement. The awkward silence after I announce I’m no longer in a formal job makes me feel as if the conversing parties have little or nothing to say to someone this unambitious; a woman throwing all her opportunities to engage in “formal work” through the window in this day and age. Household labour has always been work and I’m thankful to have a husband who sees it as such. It is gruelling and draining work to cater to the needs of a family. Much more so when there are children involved.
Household chores look different for so many of us. Some have machines to help with washing and some have to fill buckets with water and fetch them for long distances (sometimes on their heads). Some women shop in the supermarket and buy their greens pre-cut and others labour in their gardens to gather the fresh produce they planted. This is labour. To vilify women based on the type of work they do and to use it as a measurement to decipher who is more worthy, reinforces class stratification. All work is work and all women must be recognised for the labour they produce.
The militant feminist
A while back there was a trend on Instagram with women posting pictures of their unshaven underarms. I believe the reason was to provoke the beauty industry on the unrealistic standards they hold women to. There was this sense of rebellion that made me feel that if I wasn’t following the anti-beauty industry trends that I was somehow selling out the cause; or selling myself short. There was the feeling that to engage in things that concerned beauty was to worship at the altar of frivolity and submit myself to distractions that would pull me away from the movement. The truth is, I hate body hair. I never miss a wax appointment. I love pink and anything that sparkles. I could spend days looking at Vintage Vogue magazines. I love girly movies. I spend way too much money on my skincare routine. There will always be trends, some with well-intentioned messages, but once we seek to subscribe to an idealistic view of what feminism should look like on the outside we run the risk of further marginalising and icing out women. This is so evident in France where the war on Muslim women and how they should dress rages.
The relationship perfectionist
Feminist women don’t always date the most perfect partner who embodies the movement themselves. Some had pretty toxic relationships and some engage in regular briefings to ensure their significant other understands and respects their views. It is a work in progress. Feminists by their very nature are flawed, as are all human beings. There are people with individual life experiences that shape their choices and they are simply people who are deconstructing and learning like everyone else, who probably move their bodies to the raunchy lyrics of a Vybz Kartel song.
