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rabbleprochoice:

The honest answer is I don’t know.

There are days where I do and days when I don’t and the number of days when I don’t is becoming a lot more common than the days that I do. I believe in a lot of feminist ideals but I think feminism is a failure for an overwhelming amount of people who should be included and usually aren’t or are forgotten about when they ARE included.

I don’t want to call myself a feminist when such a large portion of them ignore the fact that women of color do not have the same experiences as white women because of race. Racism affects the kind of sexism women of color face and far too often, I see white feminists ignore that and I don’t want to be connected to that.

I don’t want to call myself a feminist when there are so many who want to block trans women from certain spaces or who purposely misgender them or refuse to acknowledge them as women, as if  just the mere presence of trans women is some kind of threat to feminism. I don’t believe in that and feminism really needs to step up in all areas that deal with trans people, genderqueer people, etc. I think it’s disgusting, what some feminists do to trans women and I want no part of being connected to that.

I don’t think feminism does enough when it comes to recognizing that there are issues outside of sexism. And while I know that there are feminists out there who ARE trying to do more with that and be more inclusive, the majority of the feminist icons right now aren’t. A significant number of current popular feminist icons are white. Jessica Valenti, Laci Green, pretty much everyone on Jezebel’s writing staff fails so hard when it comes to being the best feminists that they can be.

The reason I don’t want to label myself as one of those feminists who tries to be as inclusive as possible is because when I label myself as a feminist, that’s not the idea people have (if they even have one outside of the negative stereotypes associated with feminism). They think of people like those I mentioned above and I don’t want to be associated with that kind of feminism. I am guilty of erasing people and being oppressive but I’ve learned from that, apologized, and have worked to avoid ever doing that again; meanwhile, I feel like feminism and feminists don’t try to do that at all, ESPECIALLY the popular icons.

So, the real answer is I don’t know how I label myself. I certainly believe in equal rights for everyone and acknowledging the experiences of others but I’m not really sure feminism does that. I know feminists will tell me that that’s the definition of feminism, but actions speak louder than words. It often seems like feminists only want equal rights for white women and everyone else can come as long as white feminists are not inconvenienced by the existence of trans people, people of color, people with disabilities, genderqueer people, etc.

So my answer is that I don’t know. I used to label myself as a feminist proudly but now I’m more aware of just how problematic feminism can be for people who are not cis, white women and that pride I felt is no longer there and neither is the desire to use the label.

Love,

Rabble

Rebloggable was requested

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR ME TO READ BECAUSE IT JUST EXPLAINED TO ME SO MANY THINGS THAT I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT I NOW UNDERSTAND AND LIKE WOW GLAD 2 LEARN

also this makes me realize how i showed my ass on the internet a lot previously because i didn’t really get that feminism was ignoring poc/trans women.

i have so much to leEeEEEEEARRRN