Volume 08

WHAT
DOES
A
FEMI
NIST
L O O K L I K E ?
Written by Anaiah Lupton
When I was nine years old I wanted to be friends with a boy named Robin
who did not want to play with me. Older female role models taught me that
being sexy would make him be friends with me. I did not have the vocabulary
to apply this doctrine to my behavior but nonetheless I understood somehow
that my sexuality would make me seem like a suitable playmate. I wrote him
a irtatious letter, sealed with hot wax, pressed with my initials and spritzed
with my mother’s perfume. It was very sensual, and it worked. As the years
went on I began wearing clothes I thought boys would like, putting on
makeup and stuffing my shirt to look as though I had breasts. When I was in
the 7th grade I got my period before any of my friends and celebrated alongside
them because somehow I was a ‘real woman’ and was somehow more valuable
and accepted than before. I was the rst of my friends to have a boyfriend
which made me cooler based on the boy’s status. Before I lost my virginity I
was teased for being a prude and innocent, but once I had sex, girls called me
a “whore” and a “slut”. ere have been times in my life where as a human
being I felt capable and relevant, but as a woman: disposable. e need for
positive female innuences and role models is imperative to women and men
of all ages, because sexism negatively affects both women and men.
roughout my life, female friends and I have swapped stories and shared experiences
involving some kind of harassment, sexual abuse, rape, molestation, and
sexual discrimination. As my friend Ana Stina describes it, sexual abuse has
become a rite of passage. As I grew up I understood the term feminism to be
associated with women from the early twentieth century demanding the right
to vote or my friend’s mom who had nipple piercings. ankfully my examples
of feminism have broadened and I am passionate about learning and teaching
different forms and branches of, humanism, and equality.