"Are you some sort of feminist?"

This was the question asked of me today. It wasn’t the question that left me speechless, it was the disgust that fairly dripped off the word feminist. I might have expected that from a man. I do work in a machine shop in the middle of the Bible Belt. But the comment did not come from a man. It came from a woman.
It came from a woman who is only twenty-nine—too young not to have felt the tremors of women’s liberation. It came from a woman who, while not a genius, is certainly not mentally deficient—smart enough to understand the inequalities that wrack our world for every human being. It came from a woman. This is 2004. The 21st Century and women still view the word feminist as something dirty. They speak of it in hushed tones and whispers; they liken it to Leprosy, a disease that if it gets a hold of you will be the cause of your banishment and eventual painful, deformed, lonely death. 2004 and this is still an issue.
We forget when something isn’t on the news or plastered on a billboard or painted across the naked body of a supermodel that it still matters. We forget that just because we aren’t directly affected by it every day (or obviously affected in this case) that our lives are still changed. We forget our past.
I had my roommate read my Hooter’s blog the other night and it sparked quite a conversation. He is not biased or bigoted in any way. I have never witnessed him mistreat a woman or felt judged by him concerning how I look or act. In fact, he might be the only man I have ever known with whom I have felt so at ease, it doesn’t even bother me to cry in front of him. With the exception of a few family members I have never felt I could cry in front of anyone and not be judged as weak.
And yet, this friend of mine, this fantastically intelligent man for whom I hold the utmost respect did not agree with my view of Hooters. He would never take a woman in there given a choice,but he felt no sympathy for the women working there because they made the choice to do so.
I would say that is a reasonably general consensus. I myself have even written those women off as just a different breed of female than myself. But what if the problem isn’t that they make the choice willingly, but that they simply don’t know any better?
Consider this:
When the Europeans came to this country they bought Manhattan and most of New England from the Natives for jewelry and toys. It was a monstrously vicious deal that led (in part with many other events) to the eventual downfall of the Natives of North America. No one ever says of those original natives that it was "their own fault." No one ever argues that "they made the choice so I feel no sympathy for them" because we all know they were taken advantage of. And yet, they did make the choice. They were completely aware that the land was being exchanged for the trinkets and items given to them by the Europeans. They knew the white man would live there and they would move on. To them it seemed like a good idea. But it wasn’t their fault because the entire situation was so completely foreign to them. There was no possible way they could have been prepared for what was coming. They were taken advantage of by people in power, and anyone that disputes that is someone incapable of dealing with reality.
Trading with the natives was easier than fighting them. Giving them the illusion of "bartering" allowed them to feel empowered and in control of the situation. It was okay that they gave that little bit up because they still had so much more land to hold on to.
But don’t you see? As women when we use our bodies for power we mimic those original natives. We allow ourselves to be objectified (sell Manhattan) and used (sell New England) and trick ourselves into feeling empowered by the situation and until we find ourselves living in poverty on a withered reservation that used to be our soul. We think that because this rich white man is drooling all over us and handing us so much of his money that we have used him. We have got the best of him. It’s okay that we work at Hooters or fuck a guy here and there because we’re working our way to the top. We never see the prize for what it is. Cheap plastic trinkets that appeal to only us and our fellow girlfriends. That man has more money and power at home than we can even imagine and thus it is not possible for us to comprehend that what he uses to buy us, our bodies, our integrity, costs him no more than that pathetic jewelry cost the first European settlers.
Women have fought so hard for so long and we have underestimated our enemy. Our greatest enemy is not men, but ourselves. We have lost sight of the point of feminism. We have become so wrapped up in our own anger and hurt that we just want to hurt back. We think we can become the subjects instead of the objects if we work at a place like Hooters. We think by strutting our stuff in a restaurant, or mud wrestling, or posing half-naked on the cover of a magazine, or bragging about our abilities to give the best blow-job that we have gained something. But we haven’t. We’ve gained nothing but crudeness. Like a two-year old placated by a plastic toy after a temper tantrum we have allowed the inequalities against which we fought to silence us. Feminism isn’t a fight of women against men—it isn’t about getting back at anyone or starting a war.
It’s about waking up and realizing that all PEOPLE are created equal.
Sex is fun and sex is exciting and sex should be something we embrace and enjoy. It is not a god-damned power trip. It should not be a tool or a weapon or a way to get ahead. Women fight against each other to be the prettiest and the smartest and the most fun and the most pleasant and never realize they’re miserable. Human beings are extraordinary creatures and yet we constantly urge ourselves to be lower than what we are. And then, in moments of extreme arrogance we have the gall to state we "don’t feel sorry for her/him because s/he made that choice." If you see a child about to hurt herself because she hasn’t learned not to play with knives do you take the knife away? Or do you stand back and scoff, feeling superior because "she made the choice" to play with the knife? What sort of pompous asshole are you to assume that just because you know the truth you are relieved of the responsibility to ensure everyone knows the truth?
Why do we abandon people to stupidity instead of trying to lead them away from it?
Now, I know I have stated multiple times I hate stupid people and they do annoy the piss out of me. There is nothing more frustrating than a person that won’t wake up. No genetic reasons, no traumatic childhood, just plain stupid. It’s frustrating and it’s a bitch but I am not going to stop fighting for awareness just because the people around me refuse to admit we’re standing in shit.
And this is a fight for awareness. This is a fight for a willingness to make things better. There is nothing wrong with living the life you lead so long as you choose to live that life freely. The reasons we don’t take home Hooter’s girls and strippers to mom is that they are childlike in their lack of awareness. They are infants on their spiritual journey. Most men wouldn’t admit or even realize that is why they cannot take those women seriously, but that is the truth. On a subconscious level men see the truth of it. They know what is being done to these women and placate themselves with the conscious idea that "she choose to do it."
Why won’t you consider settling down with a girl like that? Not because she’s easy, or a whore, but because you recognize the fundamental lack of perception a woman has to have to behave that way. Whore and easy are just the easiest, least threatening titles we can all attach to them to make us feel better.

This isn’t a rant directed at any one person or even any one thing, unless that thing be inequality. This is a soulful plea for all of you, male and female alike, to open your eyes to the world around you. Stop putting things in the easiest perspective. Please, stop judging and making excuses for why others behave the way they do. We are all responsible for each other because we are all part of the same race. Responsibility has nothing to do with guilt. I will not feel guilty when you cut yourself with the knife. But I will feel guilty that I laughed at you while you played with it instead of trying to take it away. I can only affect those few people around me, but I am now begging you. Listen to what I’m saying. If you can think of a twenty-nine year old woman saying the word feminist with disgust and not feel horrified by that concept, then reevaluate yourself. Why doesn’t that bother you? Empowerment comes from within. Everything else is only material. Don’t you want your fellow human beings to be empowered? Don’t you want to be? Why are you fearful of the truth?

The truth will set you free and it will beat the shit out of you doing it. But at least you will heal from that fight cleanly instead of dying slowly, your own wounds festering inside you until you collapse upon yourself. A great oozing wound where a soul used to be.

I found it was easier to be a woman when I stop listening to men telling me how. I found it was easier to look at myself when I stopped basing my worth on my judgement of others.

"The Glass Bracelets"
I know I can only speak for myself
but after reading a simple story in The News
wish I could speak for a ninety-four-year-old woman
who on a day of the full moon of Magha in 1907,
at age seven, was led by her parents
to the Saundatti Temple of Karnatakaa
and given to the Hindu goddess Yellamma:
the childish glass arm bangles broken,
a nuptial necklace given her—
wedded to the deity Dev, Murali must never
marry a mortal, has never washed or cut
her long hair, a stiff mat of gray—
her duty was forever to be fucked
by those who came to the Temple.
At onset of menstruation the child was,
and still is, auctioned for the privilege
of tearing her hymen often times
by one with syphilis or gonorrhea—
virgins believed to be a certain cure.
It is difficult for me to like men at times,
any man, when such atrocities are sanctioned
by the religious. Atrocities for male pleasure.
And I doubt a woman concocted
the legend of this goddess. I am fucking mad
and want my daughters
to never leave our small Brooklyn apartment
though I know any room can be the residence
of secrets—like that of a man in Ocala, Florida
infecting six of his fourteen children
with venereal disease, fathering his daughter’s babies,
beating their faces, beating their faces. This
while the religious target abortion clinics
and rude art. Who
can believe in a god in such a world
when god is made by man for men –
I will not respect a moment of silence
in my children’s public school for the sake
of semi-automatic politicians wishing to purchase votes
with their small public piety.
And if you think this is not a poem
because I’ve ranted without benefit of a metaphor
think again: the story of Murali
is the story of any infant female or male
until the arteries of the status quo, of the silent,
of those who silence, or those who seek
solution in prayer, of those who limit choices—
until the varicose veins of the "religiously correct"
are slit and drawn. Until then
you, reader, are the five-year-old boy,
genitals severed and flesh neatly
folded back into a tiny cunt, or
the ten-year-old girl with second-stage syphilis
now lodged in her central nervous system.
Hear me: I will not pray. I will not pray.

~Kimiko Hahn