This is what a [post] feminist [poet] looks like

Gina Myers, a teacher, a poet, and an all around amazing human being, has a piece up over at Delirious Hem, a blog for women poets. Myers’ piece, entitled “This is what a [post] feminist [poet] looks like,” explores her relationship with feminism in a so-called “post feminist” society. 

As she puts it: “My body is something I take with me everywhere I go. I have been called post-feminist, post-avant, post-punk, and post-modern. My heroes include Joe Strummer, Nina Simone, and James Baldwin. I identify as being human before I identify as being a woman, and that shapes everything I do.”

Myers’ poetry is an inspiration to all who read it, and in he piece, she reflects on her work co-directing the Vagina Monologues at a small town community college in the middle of a corn field and overflowing with sexist, homophobic ideologies that only a select few seem to want to fight against.

I did not see one cause as being more important than others, nor did I necessarily see them as being separate causes. The larger issue is social justice, and I have continued to live my life committed to this one cause.

Although I see these various struggles as being one cause, it does not mean I can address them all at once. Perhaps it is a commitment issue, but I devote my attention to whatever cause seems most urgent at the time. Recently, I have witnessed misogyny, sexism, and violence against women and the LGBT community of students at the school I teach at and in the surrounding communities. When working on a week worth of activities–teach-ins, films, panel discussions, and performances of The Vagina Monologues–benefiting three local shelters, I was shocked time and time again by the reactions of people and the various forms of resistance we met from administrators, faculty members, and students. I had never felt so baffled. It became clear that this fight is urgent here.

I urge you all to check it out, along with the rest of the feminist poetics forum that is going on there this month!