It has been a while. I am continually honored to be a part of the the Feminism and Religion Project. I hope you enjoy it.
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I was once told by my ardent feminist advisor in
undergrad to “not put all my proverbial eggs in one man basket” after
discussing my relationship with my boyfriend over a cup of coffee. Thinking my relationship was different and
that we were special, I heeded the warning but thought of it no further. Now, looking back on it three in a half years
later, I wish I would have.
Relationships
are a powerful tool. They help to make you
feel special. They help to bring you
joy. They help you discover the reason
why a divine presence may have endowed us with the ability to love and most
importantly they help you realize and discover things about yourself you may
have never taken the time to notice.
Feminism
101 is more than just the pop culture stereotype of a bunch of women advising the
younger generation of girls to be weary of men and the pain they can
bring. Feminism, specifically as what I
now call Feminism 101, is the transformative ability to listen to your elders,
trust yourself, and ultimately, if you happen to trust in the relationship you
have built, knowing deep down that it is built on equality, love, and trust.
Recently, I have been told that hindsight is 20/20. I should have been more aware when I realized
that my former partner had no inclination towards anything having to do with
feminism and more importantly the tenets it taught. Refusing to see how feminism had even touched
his life, he shrugged off my work but continued to “support me” and my noble cause. I took for granted and fell victim to many
of the same stories we all hear but refuse to ever accept as possibilities in
our own lives. “We’re different,” “He loves me,” “We can make it through
anything,” these thoughts haunt my mind as I sit back and think about the
reality of my situation and the stories I told myself in order to feel better
knowing deep down I should have trusted my gut.
As I continued to wonder
down my blinded path, I forgot about the stories I had heard and read for years
of men abusing their power and privilege and women being the ones who usually
had to bare the brunt of whatever issue they were facing. I took the picture of
a relationship I had concocted and forgot, that relationships, like feminism,
are not easy, and that it is a conscious and continual effort of renewal to
remind yourself everyday why you love the person you love and more importantly,
in the case of feminism, why you fight, “the good fight.”
Although I feel like I
have failed feminism, I sit back and look at the world around me and realize
that everyday is a constant struggle to stay alive. Everyday I have to find a reason to exist
without my partner and best friend. As
my world crashed in around me and I felt like I had nothing else to live for, I
remembered that maybe I didn’t fail feminism after all but rather had to
rediscover it. Through the pain and
struggles of my sisters (and brothers) before me, I had to realize that the
thing getting me up everyday was the community of individuals I had built
around me who support and continue to show me love. Although my former partner was no longer
fighting for our relationship, it was the relationships with my peers that
remained when everything else went dark.
Relationships are a powerful tool to help us realize why we are not
alone and why in our darkest times life really does get better. Feminism not only teaches us about ourselves
but rather the power of relationships and the roles they have in constructing
and shaping the individuals we hope to become.
Relationships are the backbone in which feminism is built upon because
without our community of love, support, and equality we wouldn’t have anything
or anyone worth fighting for.
Maybe I didn’t fail
Feminism 101 after all, but rather I had to go through the hardest lesson by
myself, with the help of my sisters and brothers, to finally be able to move
onto the next and most important lesson of not only loving myself but finding
someone to build a relationship based on mutuality, veneration, and equality
with. Although I may have lost something
special and an important person in my life, I learned a valuable lesson in not
only trusting someone else but also trusting and believing in the relationship
I have with myself.
