I believe feminism is central to my finding a semblance of understanding and direction in my life. Feminism provides an alternative way of viewing and feeling the world around me, an alternative that relies on cooperation instead of competition and that rejects the dynamics of hierarchical power as a means of establishing itself. This semester I have again, as happens with any gender oriented, feminist class I take, experienced a shift in my feminist thinking. This shift for me focuses on identification of power structures, language, and cooperation. Feminism is something I carry with me in both my personal and professional lives. It informs me about events I have lived both personally and professionally but it also informs me about the life I am leading now. I feel more attuned to my surroundings and equipped to deal with my world as it changes.
As I move through my experiences and events that life is sure to bring, I know that I will be unable to ignore the presence of certain power structures, the influence of language, and the importance of cooperation. bell hooks’ concepts in The Will To Change found a deep seating in my soul. I cannot acknowledge patriarchy as a simple “patriarchy” as I have in the past. Patriarchy is a multi-appendaged mechanism with arms and fingers in nearly all aspects of our existence. We cannot turn without running into what bell hooks termed an “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” (hooks, 17). Patriarchy no longer occupies a furtive space, for me it is palpable and much clearer than it was at the beginning of the semester.
I have learned the importance of language and its role in helping us to cooperate with rather than compete against one another. Maria Lugones, bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins, and Sally Gearhart have reformed my understanding of language as it relates to my individuality as well as my membership within communities. Lugones revealed for me the silence imposed on individuals by language differences and barriers between groups. As she says, “I will swallow my tongue “a medias,” halfway” (Lugones, 45). Lugones articulates that language can and often does divide us. Patricia Hill Collins echoes this assertion when she, through Audre Lorde’s words, identifies the dual consciousness African-American women must adopt in order to feel protected, “Black women ‘become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor,’” (Collins, 107). Collins informs me of my status of both an oppressor and an oppressed individual, I am now looking toward my own consciousness and wonder how many different consciousnesses I must posses and how I might engage them in such a way so as not to oppress others. Finally, Sally Gearhart provided me a foundation for changing the way I view intention in language, her writing has forever altered the way I interact and listen to others. She argues, “that no intent to enlighten or persuade would be made but rather that each party would seek to contribute to an atmosphere in which change for both/all parties can take place” (Gearhart, 198). While I think there is a lot of work to be done before we can reach this ideal Gearhart has given us, I think it is of the utmost importance and I am committed to achieving it in my own life.
Feminism had changed my life before I got to Colorado. It once again changed me after I arrived. Having spent a year working in a corporate setting in which language and patriarchy were the standard tools of oppression and control, I want to become stronger in my identifying and calling out those structures which seek to control us. My feminist thinking is that I exist as an interdependent man, who is aware of his gender and the power afforded to him by his particular intersectional existence. I know that I am favored in many ways by the patriarchal mechanism hooks lays out and that I am in a position to exploit people through my use of language. But I will reject this because I know that such actions hurt others as well as myself. Oppression and power influences afforded by patriarchal structures actually oppress everyone, even those who seem or feel in control of such structures.
To end this semester I will give my definition of feminism, knowing that this definition is never final and embraces the changes it’s sure to experience. Feminism is a way of living that appreciates all people as valuable and important influences in one another’s lives. Feminism is a collective approach to change, committed to identifying and calling out those structures of power and oppression that harm all people. Feminism is an understanding of gender’s role in the struggles we face and the control we have of our own bodies, minds, and hearts.
This writer is a heterosexual, white-male, born in 1985 and was 25 years old when he wrote this reflection. He enjoys reading, travelling, and spending time with his partner and family. His favorite hobbies are fishing and canoeing on the backwaters of the Mississippi. He is a Communication Studies graduate student focusing on media and rhetoric as they apply to issues of gender and difference.
Works Cited
Gearhart, Sally Miller. “The Womanization of Rhetoric.” Women’s Studies International Quarterly. 2.2 (1979): 195-201. Print.
Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge Classics, 2009. Print.
hooks, bell. The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. New York: Washington Square Press, 2004. Print.
Lugones, María. Pilgrimages Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003. Print.