Creating Real Feminist Space

In the last two posts, I have in some way attacked the dictionary definition of feminism and went against the definition of feminism that many gave at our graduate orientation that feminism is everything and anything. Being someone that likes tidy definitions that definition never sat well with me. This morning while reading the introduction to Rebecca Walker’s anthology, “To be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism”, I found myself agreeing with her views. She describes her life before beginning the anthology as being a world where she carefully considered every decision she made, person she met, word she uttered to ensure that it measured up to belief in what was morally and politically right according to her vision of feminism which she thought was defined as “feminist empowerment”. Because of this she found herself being unable to truly be her self. I believe that many so called feminists suffer from this problem of either thinking that by being a feminist they cannot be themselves or think they cannot be a feminist because they are being themselves. When describing our feminist practices we need to shy away from using “either/or” to describe ourselves but instead use “and” and stay true to ourselves. In doing so we will create feminist spaces in which we can be real instead of trying to live in feminist spaces where we cannot be ourselves.