Amy
I get the joke.
Q: How many Feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's not funny!
Anything goes in the name of humor. I am as diversity-embracing and
rainbow coalition loving as any chick you'll meet, but I love a
well-told racist joke. This, however, comes with the huge qualifier:
When it's not told to me by a bigot. (Conveniently, I make it a
point to not have such people in my life.) The humor is found in the
stereotype itself. What has been gained in equality if we can't notice
that we're not all the same? Where's the joy in diversity if we lose the
ability to laugh at what makes us different? America is NOT a Melting
Pot, it's a Patchwork Quilt-- and thank the goddess for the beauty of
our differences.
One of my favorite movie lines ever was from As Good as it
Gets. A woman asks Jack Nicholson, a writer, how he writes women so
well. He responds in that killer voice, "I think of a man-- and I take
away reason and accountability".
This is me. I was raised by a woman who embodied the essence of the
word "Feminist." I was trained to smell a sexist comment from a mile
away. Not only was I schooled in recognizing even the most subtle forms
of misogyny, I was taught to get really pissed about it as well.
Such connotations that the word "feminist" has taken on. The 20-year-old
college student doesn't want the label, because she had so much
fun flashing her tits for beads in New Orleans last spring break.
The young woman still wants to be pretty, and sexy, and flirtatious. She
doesn't want to adopt a term that creates the image of a man-hating,
pick-up driving, flannel-wearing, hard-assed, utterly un-amused bull
dyke*. (*I use the term with love, I adore chicks who are into
chicks.)
But while she doesn't want the label, she still finds herself holding
firm to every belief associated with Feminism. How many times do I have
to hear some sheltered chick suddenly be struck with the wisdom, "How
come if a guy sleeps with a lot of girls, he's a stud, but if a girl
sleeps with a lot of guys, she's a slut?" They always think they're the
first to say it. A ground-breaking discovery--the double standard. I
STILL am subjected to this exact statement-virtually verbatim- too
often. "Yes, honey, that occurred to me when I was 10. That is Phase 1-
Realization. You have a LOT of catching up to do."
Young women are no longer feminists. Instead they're Riot Grrls, or
Angry Chicks, or Heartless Bitches.
And I, for one, am excited as HELL about it. The time had come to
evolve. This is not your Mother's Movement. What they did was crucial,
and I'm eternally grateful for it, but we cannot afford to stagnate.
Society definitely needs woman to start making some noise again.
Complacency is the enemy when we have so much further to go.
Yes! I want to read more from Real Life Heartless Bitches
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