Feminism is a dirty word.
Not because it brings to mind radicalism and anger and hate. That's the result of the world being a dirty place.
Because it exists. That someone needed to define the concept of women wanting rights and equality is dirty.
I didn't call myself a feminist until halfway through college. I recall once explaining to a girl in my sophomore dorm (which was a "pro-women" living-learning community that I joined purely to get a spot in a beautiful, coveted house) that I was "for women's rights, but I wouldn't call myself a feminist." She gave me a look and walked away. We have not remained friends.
Because of that community, I had to take Women's Studies 101. My professor was one of the most frustrating I've ever experienced -- in one class discussion, she dismissed a female student's opinion that wearing high heels can also make a women look and feel strong and more powerful -- but my TA was incredible.
Our first class, she asked us how we should define feminism. I raised my hand and said that I want to consider women like my mother to be feminists, but always hesitated because of the inferred meaning that lives in the word.
Which is when it hit me that feminism is not about the definition created by people who are afraid of feminism. It's about women standing up for women in whatever way they feel empowered.
At the tender age of 8, after a year of playing soccer badly and a move to a new neighborhood in the bustling outskirts of Charlotte, NC, I tried to sign up for rec league baseball.
My mom took me and, when she asked about signing me up for coach-pitch, we were quickly corrected.
"Girls can't play baseball," said an idiot. "How about softball?"
I rolled my eyes. Softball is a respectable sport, but softball is not baseball.
Soccer? Basketball? Both of those have girls' leagues.
I left the Matthew's Athletic and Recreation Association fields dumbfounded and without a sport. Why couldn't an 8-year-old girl, adept at tee ball and raised running around a park of baseball diamonds, play baseball with scrawny, stupid boys?
I pondered this question as I grew up, each sexist jab cracking my apathetic exterior more and more.
Why did I deserve to be told that girls shouldn't play rock music when the dumb boys in my classes were praised for it? Who decided it was okay to give me a judgmental once-over when I went to pick up my medical birth control from the pharmacy? Why should I have to worry about whether or not I can pay my bills this month while my male co-workers are able to sustain themselves and their families without a second thought?
It was the 2012 election in North Carolina that truly swayed me to realize that things were not right with the world. The now-defunct Amendment One -- an anti-women campaign disguised as an anti-gay marriage amendment -- passed, stripping single women under 30 of basic human and health rights. Gay marriage was and remained illegal constitutionally.
It fit so easily, realizing I could debate people on the merit of women's rights for hours and hours, use my voice as a writer to comment on what was happening and why.
Now, I'm a full-fledged feminist. I hope I'm not one forever; I hope no one is.
My mom is still my feminist ideal. She climbed from the bottom, went to college, got her dream job, got married on her time (literally wearing jeans at a chapel in Las Vegas), had two exceptional children, went back to school, and is now working to change a huge piece of education for the better. She raised me to be polite and respectful but not a pushover. She encouraged me to find what I wanted out of life, then go get it without boundary.
She doesn't juggle work and life and kids and relaxing any different than the next woman. We find space in our heads to manage what we have to do in our lives and fit those pieces together like Legos. Who cares?
On International Women's Day, we should redefine and restructure feminism. I can't wait until this word doesn't exist, and instead can become an empowering trait, a fem-ism. We deserve health care and rights and baseball and equality as much as the next man or woman.
Until then, find your fem, embrace it, and fight for it.
