An Atypical Anti-Feminist Feminist

I am beginning the month of May with Feist, a mixed CD made by a friend called More Than Boobies, and Marie Howe. I plan on continuing through the month with Cat Power, Mates of State, Yo La Tengo, Sleater-Kinney, Smoosh, Tori Amos, Billie Holiday, and poetry by Kim Addonizio and Jesusland by Julia Scheeres. I’ll have to wait to listen to the new Bright Eyes and I can’t start reading Lolita like I’ve been planning to for years.

There’s a place for everything. When I was growing up, I kept all of my Barbie dolls in a pile on the floor, sometimes they were shuffled under my bed or kept in the closet. I only had two Ken dolls, both of which were hideously ugly and misshapen, so when my friends and I coupled off the dolls we had two women together most of the time. Even with their weirdly small waists and pointy feet, they just looked better together. The Ken dolls just threw everything off and most of the time we didn’t even bother to get them out to play with. Things just seemed better that way.

Yesterday after I bought the new Feist CD, my friend and I went to lunch together. It was one of those cool-in-the-shade types of days, and we sat outside, eating rare tuna and French fries. The fact that I had to be somewhere at a certain time drove me crazy. And that’s when I told her this idea, an idea I’ve had for years, was finally coming to fruition. I was going to only listen to or read or watch TV or movies with women as main characters or authors or the driving creative force behind the material. Last time I told her this she asked me why I didn’t just incorporate more women into my life. Why make a deal out of it. She admitted to being an atypical anti-feminist feminist.

After I graduated from college I moved to Boston for a boy. In the locker room at yoga I have to kick myself every time I say I’m sorry when I need to get by someone or I feel like I’m in the way. On the back of the bus in first grade I told a boy that I had a crush on that my best friend (who also had a crush on him) liked him. I’ve allowed a friend to be in an abusive relationship because I thought she was strong enough to take care of herself and it turned out she was strong enough not to ask for help. I resented my mom when she went back to work after our first couple of years in Virginia because it meant I had to stay at the babysitter’s house who only gave me one cookie as a snack. When people told me that I reminded them of my grandma Lois I resented it, thinking that she was difficult and self-absorbed. I slowly allowed my back to peel over, not wearing a bra even after I really needed to. After spending hours and hours in the library of plays in high school, I realized that the world shared my limited view that women had no real voice when I couldn’t find any monologues for class. So instead I wrote my own.

I always say the day I became a true feminist was at the beginning of middle school when I threw all my old Barbie dolls on the roof over and over again until they became scratched and worn; their eyes no longer recognizable and their tan thighs became torn and ugly. Then I left those dolls in the attic to melt in the hot, summer sun. I had the idea that I couldn’t just be a woman, because just women are weak. Feminists are strong.

Maybe it’s the thinking that when you are with a group of women there’s a high chance that at least two or three of them have been sexually assaulted or abused. Maybe it’s the vulnerability I feel when walking even in the safest places alone, or the way my heart beats when a man accidentally walks too close behind me and I gladly let them pass. Maybe it’s the condescension in older male voices when they offer to help you carry something heavy or the naïve tone in my dad’s voice as he tries to tell me that I wasn’t built to carry a window air conditioner down the attic stairs. I don’t plan on changing the world or making myself feel safer by holding my keys between my knuckles, and I don’t plan on carrying a window air conditioner up and down stairs so that I can be strong enough to help my dad. After all, we got central AC a couple of years ago, so those clunky, awkward window units can sit in the attic and collect dust, waiting for someone to come and take them to Goodwill or throw them out.