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CHICAGO (GAY AND LESBIAN) FREE PRESS
June 10 2005

HEAR ME ROAR
OPINION
By Jennifer Vanasco

I am a feminist.

For about 13 years I have said that without
hesitation.

But then, last week, I saw a documentary by Therese Shechter called "I Was a Teenage Feminist." And, for a little while afterward, I thought I might need to change my mind. This is most certainly not what Shechter's documentary is trying to do. Basically it traces 40-year-old Shechter's journey to understand herself. Why does she avoid calling herself a "feminist" when she happily wore that label as a teenager growing up in Canada in the 1970s?

In voiceover, she says, that feminism gave her the power to be smart, to be independent and to be herself. "But lately I've had this feeling like I don't measure up. I'm not a wife. I'm not a mother and I'm not a supermodel. What I am is a woman who feels incredible pressure to live up to a standard that I don't even buy into."

I watched with irritation. Right, I thought. That's why I'm a "feminist" and why you should be one, too. You see, up until I saw her film, I used to shake my head at women like Shechter. Every woman should be a "feminist," I thought. To be a "feminist" is to believe in the legal and economic equality of women -- and certainly every woman believes in that. Early in the film women explain why they don't consider themselves "feminists" and basically, they are the same old reasons: Feminists hate men. They are angry. They are lesbians.

I gave a startled laugh when Shechter interviewed Nancy Scibilia, a woman who clearly does woman-centered work. She left a major record label to found 28 Day Records, which signs mostly politically active women. She was trying to explain why she has never called herself a feminist. "I guess I have those thoughts that I'm not aware of -- everyone will think I'm gay or whatever," Scibilia said. "I mean, I am gay, so that has nothing to do with it." Yeah, right, I thought.

But when a young woman said, "I don't think we have that many gender issues in my generation. I don't feel discriminated against because of my gender," I started to think maybe "feminist" is an outdated term, like "suffragette." Maybe feminism is a label that describes a historical movement instead of what women are currently fighting for today. Maybe that's why young women, women who clearly don't mind if everyone knows they are lesbians, have migrated instead to terms like "queer." After all, if piles of women who are clearly women-centered, many of whom do women-centered work, don't consider themselves "feminists," then maybe their instinct is right. Maybe feminism simply doesn't describe where the women's movement is now. Our foremothers won a lot for us and I am grateful. Employers can no longer advertise jobs as being for men only. Women serve in combat. Women can get legal and safe abortions (though yes, that right is always threatened). More women than men graduate from law schools and in colleges. We have powerful women in Congress and in boardrooms across the country. We have women mayors and governors, women pilots and firefighters, women rabbis and ministers. We no longer expect that if a woman has to work, she will probably work as a secretary. Legal discrimination seems to be a thing of the past. And we can thank feminists for that. No, what we are fighting for now is something that is more amorphous: Cultural parity. Women and men get family leave but it is almost impossible to leave the workforce to raise a child for a few years and then expect to rise in a traditional company. Women musicians are under-represented on large radio stations. Abortions are less accessible and fewer doctors are trained to provide them. And women may be CEOs and senators but we don't achieve those positions in numbers that even approach equal.

We're fighting for social equality now -- a change in mind, more than a change in laws. And perhaps using a word like "feminist," which seems to sharply divide men from women, excluding them, isn't the best way to go about it. Or maybe it's simply that the women's movement is now many, many movements, working to achieve very different things -- and feminism is simply too narrow a term to describe them all.

And yet, after all that contemplation, I find myself back where I began: I'm a feminist. What the word "feminism" gives us, I think, is the right to be angry. For this is where people who deride feminists as "angry" get it wrong. Anger against social injustice is good. We should be angry, because it's unfair. And feminism says, Go ahead and rant, girl. You are right to be furious. You are not where you should be, and that's wrong. Anger fuels social justice movements. Anger is what steels us for argument and action.

So yes, I am a pissed-off feminist. What's changed is that I don't expect you to be one, too.

Therese Shechter attends a Chicago screening of "I Was a Teenage Feminist," the Pride kickoff for Chicago Filmmakers screenings, at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. June 11 at Filmmakers, 5243 N. Clark St.

Write to Jennifer Vanasco at vanasco@chicagofreepress.com