Emma

Here it goes, some self-reflection and brutal honesty:

Being a Women and Gender Studies major, working in the Women’s Resource Center, and being a loud advocate for social justice sometimes leaves me without a sense of reality. To me, it is not enough to be progressive, I better be deconstructing, problematizing, criticizing (the non-liberals, less–than-liberals, and latte liberals) questioning my own privilege, and of course articulating all of my perfect and unproblematic feminist opinions with brilliance. It’s no wonder that I’m exhausted all the time, because obviously, this is not possible. And obviously it’s alienating.  I am always trying to be a better feminist, a better advocate, a better organizer. But in doing so, in always trying to be inclusive, intersectional, and sensitive,  I run the risk of becoming too politically correct and too intense—please, fellow feminists, forgive me for saying that .

I learn all sorts of theory, and that theory becomes a stepping ladder for my feminist high horse. Yes, I have a feminist high horse. Her name is Gloria Butler-hooks-Halberstam and she is badass, but I have to be really careful when riding. I wish she came with a disclaimer: “Ride and appear to be a pretentious, self-righteous man hater at your own risk.” I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to explain Judith Butler’s theory of gender performance and the discursive recreating of the closet to an unsuspecting dinner party, but I have, and I wasn’t ever invited back. I understand, ...