Dani Blum | Yes, you're a feminist

The Danalyst | We all access the feminist movement at our own pace, on our own terms

By Dani Blum 09/22/14 11:05pm

F our w eeks into college, I feel obligated to measure myself against the person I was in high school. My friends back home are struggling with college apps, and as I read over their essays, I remember how difficult it was to package myself with neat catchphrases and college-accepted terminology. In a school of 10,000, though, I’m constantly meeting new people, and I look for easy ways to define myself. For me, “feminist” is an easy term to tagline my self identity.

I’ve identified myself as a feminist since middle school, but it’s difficult to apply that passion into real social settings. I note trends, but I don’t see the significance in them. I spend too much time trying to determine if a friend’s joke or a passing comment is anti-feminist that I end up letting it pass. I want to practice what I preach — or more accurately, what I share on Facebook — but I over-rationalize my way into inaction.

Furthermore, it’s difficult to put the more idealistic points of feminism into place at college. I consider myself a feminist, but I compare myself to other women. Few of my conversations are about women’s issues, and I have no plans to take a gender studies class. Eighty percent of the music on my workout playlist is overtly misogynistic. I don’t freak out when “Blurred Lines” comes on at a party. I go to the gym not so I can release endorphins, but so I can fit into my skinny jeans.

There’s a concept of “analysis by paralysis”: the state of overthinking things so much that you never actually act on them. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t feel justified in adopting the label of feminist — I believe that women should receive equal pay for equal work, that gender discrimination is wrong and that our society still needs the feminist movement. To me, that means that I am a feminist.

I don’t mean to undermine the importance of advocating for women’s issues. Real change comes when people do more than think about ideas, and there are women — and men — across Penn’s campus applying feminism to make a difference in our society. But a movement as important as feminism should be accessible at every level. People who believe in gender equality but aren’t sure about how to translate that belief into action shouldn’t feel guilty for calling themselves feminists as well.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon excerpts from Roxane Gay’s essay collection “Bad Feminist,” her attempt at “raising my voice to show all the ways we have room to want more, to do better.” She admits, “I am failing as a woman. I am failing as a feminist,” for not adhering to every rule of the pro-women movement. However, she suggests that it’s okay to not subscribe to all the beliefs of the “capital-F” feminists — complete devotion isn’t necessarily the only path that does the feminist movement justice. Gay’s essays gave me the validation I didn’t realize I needed. I’ve found that, while I still have to find the best method of applying my feminist ideals, I can still safely call myself a feminist.

Feminism shouldn’t fall into categories. Some of us may be more active in the feminist movement than others, but everyone who supports gender equality should feel comfortable calling themselves feminist. If you’re passionate about egalitarianism, you’re one of us, too.

As Gay says, “I’d rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.”

Dani Blum is a College freshman from Ridgefield, Conn. Her email address is kblum@sas.upenn.edu. “The Danalyst” appears every Tuesday.

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