The Fight for Feminism

Whenever I see the "dare to say the f word" t-shirt hanging in the window of Barnard Hall, my first instinct is to say "fuck." I'm not dense-it's the first word I don't get. I might have been "dared" to kiss Tony Rugani during 4th grade recess, but I've never needed any nudging to speak on behalf of women. That is until recently, when I worried about the consequences of writing a column about women's issues for Spectator. Write about abortion or catcalls in a Barnard Bulletin column and I receive a pat on the back, but do the same in the Columbia paper and I risk being typecast as a "Barnard feminist."

When stating the slew of Barnard stereotypes, a Columbia student, male or female, rarely leaves out this label. But what exactly do they mean by "feminist"? If personal experience has taught me anything, it is that these students aren't thinking in subcategories-liberal feminism, Black feminism, Marxist feminism, to name a few-but in extremes and stereotypes. Earlier this year, after overhearing a conversation in Pinnacle between two Columbia guys bad-mouthing Barnard women, I looked up from my book and gave them the obligatory glare. "Sorry, we didn't mean to offend you ... it's just that Barnard girls have a certain reputation ... really arty, earthy, feminist types." At the time I was wearing a Ralph Lauren sweater and Citizen jeans. Earthy? Arty? Not exactly. Feminist? Well, if their narrow definition of "feminist" meant that I stick pins in male voodoo dolls wearing Columbia t-shirts, scoff at the only guy in a Barnard women's studies lecture, or spit at males I see walking through the college gates, then no, by all means, I am not a feminist in their sense of the word.

I was, however, raised with the notion that regardless of my gender, I was capable of pursuing any goals I had set before me. For other women, such as my mother, the possibilities were more limited. "Just marry a vet," my grandparents would tell her whenever she spoke of her career aspirations. Well, she did indeed marry a veterinarian-my father-but only after becoming one of the first women accepted into the University of Pennsylvania's Veterinary School. My mother was and is a feminist in the sense that she believed she was just as capable as any man was of practicing veterinary medicine-but she didn't need to burn any of her bras to get her point across.

Actually, no scholar has been able to find evidence that bra-burning ever occurred. Most likely, the same sexist media commentators who coined the condescending term "women's lib" fabricated this myth during the 1968 Miss America Pageant protest (in which some protestors burned Miss America effigies) in order to make the feminists seem like nut jobs. In the same sense, some might label me a "Barnard feminist" as a way to undermine any issues I raise. To those few, I say this: Hate my column, but hate it in its own right. Hate it because you don't agree with the opinion or hate it because there's a typo. But know this: when I am discussing gender issues, I am not speaking as a Barnard spokeswoman; rather, I'm writing as an over-achieving, slightly insane yet intriguing student who happens to attend an all-women's college-in a word, as Abby.

But I will inevitably write about women. And when I do, I hope to dispel rather than affirm the Barnard femi-nazi or man-hating stereotype. I like men but I like myself-in a non-narcissistic way of course-too. So when I hear that the top women CEOs are paid less than the highest-ranking male CEOs, or that a woman is refused emergency contraception by a pharmacist, I of course will protest. But the issue isn't just about me; it extends to equal opportunity in general. Just as African-Americans fought for desegregation during the fifties and sixties, just as homosexuals are fighting for marriage now, women are continuing to argue for the same rights that men have in society. If by using this term, Columbia students mean to say that Barnard girls are advocates for women's advancement, then yeah, I'm a feminist. In that case, aren't they feminists too?

As Erica Jong once wrote, "I would like to see a world ... in which phallocentric mythologies were perceived to be as bizarre as the most absurd excesses of militant feminist rhetoric, and in which consciousness had become so truly androgynous that the adjective 'feminist' itself would be puzzlingly obsolete." Unfortunately, our world consists of a pro-life president who ironically proclaims "W. stands for Women" as he tries to overturn Roe v. Wade and promote the ABC (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms) plan in an AIDS-stricken Africa. And, in the aftermath of an unnecessary war waged in the rhetoric of women's rights, a still-present Taliban can disembowel a teacher for educating girls in Afghanistan, and legislators can murder women for honor crimes in Iraq. When women across the globe cannot leave their homes without fearing rape or abuse, why should we, here at Columbia, be afraid to say we are feminists?