8 February 2020: “When you get sworn into office, yell, 'I'm a feminist,' and then throw your fist in the air like you're Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club....Don’t be trifling about being a feminist…[do] the actual work of trying to make things equal for everybody. You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in order to create a society that takes women as seriously at the men. The type that encourages us not to define ourselves by who we go to bed with at night, but by who and what we see reflected back at us in the mirror in the morning. The type that recognizes that women are not a monolith and that they have wildly different experiences informed by their race and/or sexuality. Be that beacon of light that we can look toward. Be the feminist who will help normalize the idea of Feminism for society. Be the feminist everyone needs. No presh.” --Phoebe Robinson, You Can't Touch My Hair...
I am re-reading Robinson's book for my Gender and Humor seminar. In her blog post last week, one of my students wrote that she wasn't really "very feminist," but if you know her, you know that's not true. Like so many young women, she just doesn't really know what the word means. I can't wait for her to get to this section of the book.
[A really interesting addendum: Robinson notes that if this first female president is a woman of color, she'll need to "chill out." "You need to be hella low key about your feminism, at least during the first term. This sucks, but them's the breaks, Madam President."]
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