I have certain… interests and personality traits and opinions that may not fall in line with mainstream feminism, but I am still a feminist. I am not as well read in key feminist texts as I would like to be. I am not terribly well versed in feminist history.
“I openly embrace the label of bad feminist. I know this because she admits it in the first chapter. I made mistakes, and I still make mistakes. And when I moved back to the ‘States, I really began to educate myself. I think it came with a greater understanding of cultural differences and sensitivity. I don’t think I really started to understand intersectional feminism until I went to Japan. It was still, even in some places at UC Santa Cruz, a dirty word. Toward the end of my second year of college, I started to secretly think of myself as a feminist.
We were all about “ humanism ” and “equalism,” as though those things aren’t compatible with feminism and can possibly be a replacement for it. When I was in high school, “feminist” was a dirty word.
