Letters to the Editor
-
Feminism is political and social, dislike of individuals is personal.
I don't think that there's any real conflict between being a feminist and not particularily liking women personally. Feminism is about political and social equality and as long as one recognizes that women are in every way socially equal to men, that is all that is required to claim a mantel of feminism.
As an adolescent, most of my closest friends were male (despite the fact that I went to an all-girls' school), primarily because interactions with my female friends always seemed to devolve into catty judgements about others behind their backs. It made me wonder what was being said behind my back when I wasn't around. In addition, I became infuriated at the way that the other female students at my highly regarded private school hid their obvious intelligence when it suited them, in order to attract men and get what they wanted.
The feminist in me is in fact enraged at both of these behaviors, knowing as I do that they are primarily produced by an upbringing in a society in which women are felt to be intimidating if they are too open about their intelligence, and in which girls are always supposed to be sugar and spice, even when we have an axe to grind (and thus we tend to be duplicitous and sneaky). It is similarily the feminist in me that is unceasingly annoyed at the nailpolish and gossip set, feeling as I do that engaging in that kind of preoccupation is playing right in to the hands of the male hegemony.
Besides, why is it that when I go anywhere with my female friends (which I have several of at this point in my life) we have to stop so one of them can pee every 10 minutes?!?