When I was first approached to write this piece, simplicity and call to action were the main given prompts. Writing this, in a sense, was the first time in months when I felt myself practicing truly, freely, lovingly, and mundanely, my feminist acts.
Both my bachelor’s and master’s have been in the humanities, for at least the past year of my life, I have been deconstructing and reconstructing the world through feminist lenses coming from every imaginable school of thought.
“When a boy I met, working for the military, asked me what applying a gender lens meant, I blanked out.”
I could not explain to the military man that the very institution he is working for is banking on his economic status and racial identity and has financially compelled him to work for it. Because I was trained to think in tongue-twisting terms.
“Feminism is much more than theory: it is the ability to feel the discomfort in the room and address it.”
I stopped and realized that in being trained by the academic knowledge production machine: I lost hope. Feminism is being able to, in the words of Sara Ahmed, be a killjoy, to address tone-deaf and problematic behaviour in your group of loved ones.
Everyday feminism is keeping yourself informed, practicing kindness towards yourself and others, educating (even though at times tiresome), and implicating yourself in your immediate community.
“You have to care, read, hope, and not let yourself be told your action will not change the grand scheme of things.”
That is what the individualistic capitalist way of thinking, the machine, is telling you. What can one person do? One plus one equals two, equals community, equals the first step forward.
If your acts changed a person’s life for the better, if they made your mind healthier, if they made the more vulnerable parts of your community feel safe and accepted, trust me, you have already practiced feminist resistance.
