Feminism Stole My Virginity

by ~AlexSaysHello

Feminism Stole My Virginity: Drowning in the 3rd Wave

           It's no surprise that feminism found me. As the last of his three daughters, my dad claimed me early. While Kristn was a distant being somewhere in the realm of college, and Claire had given up on athletics, my dad saw to it that I rode a bike, went hiking, and played sports, and I would damn sure love it. I kept my hair cut short. I mean, my name is Alex—it's not Alexa or Alexandra or Alexandria. My folks named me Alex, with Ann thrown in the middle in homage to the middle name shared with just about every woman on my mom's side. My dad even said once that I was the son he'd never had.

            None of this makes me bitter. I was a weird kid, as everyone was a weird kid, and a tomboy. Of course I loved the Spice Girls and wore glitter eye shadow in the 5th grade but my knees were constantly scraped from some adventure. I had priorities.

            I also worshipped the ground my sister walked on, as do most younger siblings, it all just varies in degree. When I was in middle school, she was in her punk rock prime. While she was certainly sporting leopard-print micro-mini's and streaks of eye shadow that could make some drag queens say, "Damn," she was tough. Her hair was cut short, and yeah, she wore red lipstick, but she was usually wearing it in a scowl, surrounding a cigarette pinched between her teeth. She wasn't like the punk skank girls now, with their pompadour/bandana hairdos and their pin-up make up. She was Pat Smear in a dress.

            It was also during this time that she planted the seeds of, we'll call it, to generalize, "ivil rights awareness" in me. Homophobia was lame, racism was lame, sexism was lame, police brutality was lame. I started listening to Propagandhi and Ani DiFranco, and they told me if I wasn't harping about a problem, I was the problem.

            What's a girl in puberty to do? Feminism came to me like a leprechaun at my doorstep—fun and exciting at first, only to evolve into a royally destructive pain in the ass.

            At the age of 12, I could talk openly about things that make most grown women squirm—everything from sex toys, to alternative feminine hygiene products, to pap smears, to the female circumcision practices in Africa—with the same comfort and confidence of announcing my favorite flavor of Skittle. Soon my sister's old Doc Marten boots were handed down to me and it was love—I was woman, hear me roar. I had read the magazines, I had watched the documentaries, and I was down with it.



            If first wave feminism was Martin Luther King Jr., third wave feminism is like Tyra Banks—watered down, insincere, and something people generally can't find a use for. We can vote, wear pants, No Means No and working mothers are Officially Approved by the Representatives of the Politically Correct. Let me clean this up for those of you who spent your middle school years practicing kissing your fist instead of reading Bust Magazine: First wave feminism refers to the OG Fems: the ladies of the '60's who traded in their house dresses for jeans and burned their bras; Second wave feminists blessed us with their presence in the 1990s, a phase I'm sure some of you can remember—it was called Riot Grrl and left us with Bikini Kill, L7, and a whole bunch of Pro-Womyn 'zines from Portland Oregon. Third wave feminism is the so-called activism happening now. I don't think I need to say this, but this "wave" clearly is a waste of lung and brainpower. While most women in the world endure rape and domestic violence every day in other countries, in America we've got it made. Sure, we're made to feel fat and ugly thanks to the dancers on MTV and mannequins at the mall. What's unfortunate, though, is these modern day "feminists" focus on these inevitable and petty snags in our society, rather than focus on the big guns: nearly-international sexism.

            I'll end this mini-tirade with this: I am still a feminist; I've just learned to hate feminism.



            So, back to Alex as a 12 year old.

            There I was, wearing Doc Martens and listening to Not a Pretty Girl by the Righteous Babe herself, Ani D.: I am not a pretty girl, that is not what I do/I aint no damsel in distress, and I don't need to be rescued/...wouldn't you prefer a maid in fear? Isn't there a kitten stuck in a tree somewhere?"

           

            Feminism was a good thing for me in countless ways. I had a profound comfort with things lots of pubescent girls spill tears in their Lisa Frank trapper keepers about, like my period and nipples and body hair. I respected hard-working women and aimed to be one. I didn't get caught up on the snags of dating drama in school.

            After reading essays by women who pontificated for pages about how their menstrual cycles were affected by the moon and their first experiences masturbating, you'd be pretty OK with yourself too. One woman, I remember, spent the duration of her Rag Time at home boycotting any method of absorbent. She described being, lets call it One with her Crimson Thighs like she had seen God after eating Peyote in the woods (which I'm sure she wasn't above either, quite frankly). In another, a young lady talked about her most recent case of carpel tunnel, which she developed from masturbating too much. I saw the Vagina Monologues and heard the invasive stories of brutal rapes beside ten-year-old girls telling the audience that her vagina smelled like snowflakes.

            Yes, these uncomfortable creepy-crawly things were a backdrop to my middle school education, and their severity could be strangely comforting. I had stretch marks and I got my period and boys could be really mean sometimes and that was all good with me--at least I wasnt getting raped with a broomstick by a soldier, like that first act.



            But, feminism turned evil on me, just like that damn Leprechaun.

            It made me guarded. I had heard so many horror stories of abusive husbands, I made sure I was safe. I swore to myself I would never be a stupid girl, the sorts who cry over boyfriends who cheat. I promised myself I would not back down or buffer my opinions to impress guys. I watched my female peers pitch their voices higher and laugh like idiots in the presence of their counterparts, making themselves into idiotic puppets until they left, and I swore, with one hand on a stack of Bitch Magazines, that would never be me.

            And this was all fine and good until one day I realized I was hard as a rock. It was like all of these women who had been done wrong had instilled in me that if I ever had anything more than promiscuous sex (because that makes you a player, not a slut, fuck the double standards!) I'd be letting them down. It was like falling in love with some boy in my math class was putting that smoldering 1965 bra back on and adding a burka just to be safe. I had spent so much time telling myself it was okay for me to be a girl that I forgot it was okay for them to be boys, and they became threats instead of opportunities. Suddenly, chemistry could not exist between me and a male; I was too busy eyeing his every move, trigger-happy and anxious to point out his chauvinistic preferences for skinny hairless giggling girls.

            I had developed, along with my hips and boobs, a phobia of femininity. Feminism taught me that being a woman meant strength, but expressing my femininity was a weakness, it was being oppressed. Being a woman meant wearing the pants. It meant being angry about the long history of sexism and determined to break through the glass ceiling. My XX chromosomes meant I was stronger and fiercer and smarter, but left no room for the weaknesses that human beings—not just women—must learn to live with: things like vulnerability and having crushes on famous musicians. I was to lace up my boots, read my 'zines, and give the finger in response to catcalls.

            I was so hell bent on being the paragon of Womyn that men faded into the din. They were in my way, and besides, so few could be trusted. I used feminism as an excuse to hide from all the risks that put butterflies in your stomach. It catered to my insecurities.



            And so when a construction worker harmlessly whistled at the skinny blond girl walking past, she got pissed. But even more ironic, she felt a deep sting of insecurity.

            Hormones rapidly fluctuating, I wanted crushes and flirtation, but they were the Do Not Trespass zones of being manipulated and used and so I resisted. Because I didn't identify with the modern girl culture, when I was treated like a part of it I considered the statement a sick mockery. I had sabotaged my own femininity to such a degree that it was my biggest shame, and so when men pointed out the fact that I was a girl to me, I took it as an insult. On the surface, I was a Guarded Feminazi. On the inside, I was what I had always run from: a Stupid Girl, one desperate for approval from the opposite gender.

            I wanted fairy tale romances. Of course I wanted a boy to hold the door open for me and give me his jacket when I was cold. But that was wrong—that was just my inner weakness, created by the sexist media, which hypnotized me into thinking I needed it!



            It was feminism that gave me self-respect and feminism that made me ashamed of myself. I would find myself mouthing off to guys who had expressed any kind of interest, yet feeling wounded when they got the hint and left me alone. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, "Don't you get it?! I am woman hear me roar—and I need to be loved just like everybody else does!" I was waiting for someone to magically see through my facade and pick up the tiny, dress-wearing damsel in distress inside, but never gave them the chance. I made them feel like animals just for liking women, because I hated women. I hated them for being weak and worldwide victims, and I hated them for ruining society for me. I hated them for getting raped and wanting to lose weight and wearing make up. I hated them for being strong and successful and demanding respect. I hated them for telling me I had to be tough and strong and independant. I hated all of these things because both were ideals I felt I could never live up to—being a girl-girl, the kind who modeled Guess jeans and showed their boobs in Cancun was blasphemy; but being a womyn, a Grrl-girl, was exhausting. It was hard.

            Of course I was conflicted.

            I too was the victim of so many add campaigns, the sorts of media people blame eating disorders on. But I also had this other militant standard influencing my every decision.

            Can I wear this skirt, or do I look fat?

            Do I think I might look fat because of the sexist society I am forced to live in?

            By wearing a skirt am I simply going along like a sheep to the slaughter with the regression of womanhood in America?

            By boycotting this skirt am I denying my gender, and fearing judgment simply from my clothes?

            Will boys like me in this skirt?

            And...Is that really such a bad thing?



            It's been a long time since I've visited Vday.org, read poetry comparing vaginas to bomb shelters, or listened to the ladies of the 90s sing about lesbian revolutions. I still have the engrained tendencies towards defense around guys, but I like to think I'm getting better. I've learned to indulge in the joys of seducing boys in bars in Europe and dancing with my butt against their junk. I like going to Sephora and wearing push-up bras, and when men whistle at me, I smile at them, because I imagine that it sucks to be a construction worker.

            And it is these things, the broad spectrum of what makes me a lady, that in fact, makes me a lady: I wont ever take no shit from them oppressive, chauvinistic sons of bitches, and I will also not live with the burden of mistrust. I will celebrate the fact that I live in a generally gender-equal and progressive nation by allowing myself the risks of love. I will get blisters from wearing high heals but still think they look cute enough to wear and I will make bold statements that reflect my beliefs, and I will also flirt.

           

            If I could give any message to young girls, it would be the product of both of my opposing XX-chromosome educations. Women do get raped, and that's not okay. Boys might like you, and that is. In other parts of the world, we wouldn't get to choose whom we marry. In America, sometimes models are too skinny, but ignore them.

Wear what you want, flirt with who you want, listen to what you want, and think what you want, because it is these rights that our great grandmothers had to fight for. It is this, the basic ideal that women should have the same rights and abilities, both legally and in the standards of society, as men, that is feminism. Whether or not you shave your armpits has nothing to do with your femininity—it was feminism that saw to it that these superficial aspects don't hinder your sense of self.

In the end, though, I do thank feminism for giving me my own license to be loud mouthed and opinioned. So to celebrate, I leave you with this: Betty Friedan, eat your fucking heart out.