In Celebration of Bad Feminists
Summary and Response for Roxane Gay's TED talk, Confessions of a Bad Feminist
In her TED talk, Roxane Gay explains how she has come to declare herself a Bad Feminist.
Despite having misgivings in her youth about feminists (seeing them as rebellious, audacious, angry women), Gay came to recognize and embrace her feminism. She believes that “women are equal to men” (1:44), and asserts that women should have the right to economic equity, reproductive and bodily autonomy, and freedom from violence and harassment. Gay also states that feminism must expand to include women of all social locations in order to be valid. White, middle-class, heterosexual feminists are not the only ones whose voices should be heard—full inclusivity is required.
Gay believes herself to be a Bad Feminist because there are plenty of areas where she partakes in activities that might be seen as problematic to the cause, such as her love of explicit and chauvinistic rap. Gay believes that society expects too much from feminism and its representatives, and that many people fear identifying as feminist for fear of doing feminism wrong. She proposes that the solution to this lies in moving from recognizing our limitations to being accountable for them, and ultimately making choices that better align with our values. These “small acts of bravery” (8:52) can have a great impact.
Gay encourages us to “boldly claim our feminism” (9:16), no matter how imperfect it may be, because feminism empowers us to be resilient and brave. She shares a story of a time when she was degraded by a group of boys, and led to believe she was worthless. Gay found solace in reading stories of other women with similar lived experiences. She learned how to write, and through her writing—and her feminism—Gay was able to discover a strength that allows her now to reach out to yet more women in need of empowerment.
Gay acknowledges that her feminism is a work in progress. She has reconciled that she wants to make positive changes in this world, but that such pursuits don’t have to mean lambasting herself for not being perfect all the time.
“I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all”
— Roxane Gay
I agree with Roxane Gay that too many women feel unreasonable pressure to be perfect representatives of the movement (2:46).
“I am full of contradictions. There are many ways in which I’m doing feminism wrong.”
— Roxane Gay
While “thuggish rap” (2:56) isn’t one of my particular guilty pleasures, there are many areas where I, too, am a Bad Feminist: I took my husband’s last name; I left the house the day after my daughter was born to buy her pink headbands (my midwife politely reprimanded me with “Do you like having a pelvic floor? Yes? Then headbands can wait.”); I have an Instagram account devoted to makeup transformations; I watch The Bachelor and its myriad offshoots (hello, Bachelor in Paradise, you delightful brain-cell murderer, you); my father walked me down the aisle; I’ve made pronoun mistakes; I’ve been lazy about my adhering to my feminist principles at times when it just feels too hard to fight.
And this list is hardly exhaustive. Thank goodness I’m not famous. I’ve had the luxury of fumbling around and growing in my feminism without any lasting scrutiny.
I feel terrible for feminists in the public eye, whose every statement, every outfit, is fodder for Good Feminists to criticise. This includes “professional feminists” like Jessica Valenti, Gloria Steinem, and Roxanne Gay herself, as well as “celebrity feminists”, such as Lena Dunham (of HBO’s “Girls”), and Beyoncė. In her TED talk, Gay noticed that when Beyoncé embraced the label of Feminist in recent years, the “cultural critics … graded her feminism” (5:31). I’ve seen this judgement firsthand on websites like Thought Catelog, where Anne Marie Sink wrote, “[Beyoncė] is no riot grrl or pussy riot member. Instead, Beyoncé’s strand of feminism is safe. Worse than safe, it’s trendy” (Sink, 2014). So, unless she’s a part of a Russian punk-rock protest group, and jailed for her social disobedience, Beyoncé’s feminism doesn’t pass? Come on. This is a business-minded, driven woman who boldly proclaims, “Who Run the World? GIRLS!”. She has written about the gender pay gap for Ms. Magazine, and sung about the pain of sexist beauty expectations in our society. I think we should all be proud to have her on Team Feminist, despite her inevitable flaws and mistakes.
“Who run the world? GIRLS!”
— Queen Bey
Not only is it insulting and unfair to judge other women’s feminism, it also exacerbates the problem of folks not feeling welcome in the movement unless they’re perfect ambassadors of anti-oppression ideologies. We should focus instead on creating an inclusive movement that endeavors to inspire others and lift them up. I’m not interested in clambering my way to sit atop a Good Feminist pedestal so I can judge other women. I’d rather join Roxanne Gay down on the ground any day.
Sources:
Confessions Of A Bad Feminist. (2015, June 22) Retrieved October 11, 2016, from http://www.ted.com/talks/roxane_gay_confessions_of_a_bad_feminist
Sink, A. M. (2014, April 01). “Flawless” Feminism: Unpacking The Beyoncé Brand Of Feminism. Retrieved October 11, 2016, from http://thoughtcatalog.com/anne-marie-sink/2014/04/flawless-feminism-unpacking-the-beyonce-brand-of-feminism/
Photo Cred:
Taking a Stand with Roxane. (2017, January 26). Retrieved April 05, 2017, from http://therumpus.net/2017/01/taking-a-stand-with-roxane/
