Define Feminism …

By: Lauren Bach

 

“Which one are you? A slut? Or a lesbian?”

That was the first question on a guy’s mind when he met a SVA girl. I wore the SVA uniform – white blouse, green plaid pleated skirt, knee-high socks – and by the end of my four years, I knew the reputation that came with it.

“Which one are you? Slut or lesbian?” I’ll never forget the day I heard that question for the first time; I’ll never forget because it was the day that I became a feminist.

The F-Word

SVA is a small, private high school, or “academy for girls,” surrounded by oak trees, historic monuments, and charming gingerbread houses in downtown Savannah, Georgia.

Quite the setting for my introduction to the f-word: feminism.

I am 14 years old and too ridiculously naïve and optimistic to believe that sexism still exists. I have survived two weeks of freshman year. The hardest part of adjusting to SVA has not been making new friends or remembering my class schedule; it’s been not getting lost. You see, SVA was founded in 1845 and designed in the Greek Revival style, a really fancy name for the confusing maze of corridors and staircases that make up the three-story main building.

By some miracle, I have conquered that labyrinth. So far, I love all my classes and teachers. I’m even filling up on extracurriculars, the choir and the volleyball team. High school is turning out to be everything I dreamed it would be.

You could say that I’m floating on cloud nine as I sit in the gym after school, waiting for volleyball practice to start. Some of the varsity girls are talking about BC football games. BC is a military school for boys and our brother school. I have yet to attend a BC football game.

“You know what they say about SVA girls, don’t you?” says one of the senior players. This is a rhetorical question, but I’m curious.

“No. What?” I ask innocently because I haven’t yet developed insecurities about being out of “the know.” I will soon.

This girl, a seasoned senior, is reluctant to spoil my naiveté. She answers anyway,
“Most guys think we’re all either sluts or lesbians.”

It’s like telling a little kid that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus. At first, I laugh, that short puff of laughter that typically follows a really bad joke.

And then, I get mad.

“What? Why would they think that?” My voice is high and squeaky. The girl sighs. “They just do. They see our uniforms, and that’s what they think.”

Around me, the conversation carries on, but in my head, I’m thinking:
That’s so stupid. So. Stupid.
Boys are so stupid.
Why do they think that? It’s just so stupid.

I don’t understand. We aren’t more promiscuous than other high school girls. Or more inclined to homosexuality. And our uniforms look nothing like the costumes in Playboy magazine or Britney Spears’ music video. They are frumpy. Practical. Mandatory. And the nuns always check to make sure our skirts touch the floor when we kneel.
Minutes go by. Volleyball practice starts. I hit the ball especially hard today.

Even though it doesn’t make sense to me, I begin to see that our green plaid skirts labeled us the minute we put them on and doomed us to a four-year sentence of objectification and frustrated sexuality.

I know this isn’t right.

By the end of the day, I make an irrevocable decision: I will become a feminist.

Weeks and months pass. I reject every expectation of my gender. I cuss. I belch. I display my bruises and scrapes proudly because I am just as tough as the guys.

I avoid tanning beds and shoe sales and pink cardigans. I refuse to dream about engagements and white weddings. I fashion my own kind of feminism and outlaw all the things I think a decent, self-respecting woman shouldn’t do.

Looking back, I see a reactionary decision, an act of self-defense. This declaration of independence changes my whole world.

X-Ray Vision

I begin to see my classmates differently, to recognize the polarizing effect of those two words – slut or lesbian – on girls I have known since we were 10 years old and still singing Spice Girls’ songs.
Suddenly, we are like superheroes or spies, leading a double life each day.

At school, we are loud, unkempt, and funny. Sometimes we are even intelligent. We have opinions that we aren’t afraid to share. We parade around boldly in our clunky brown suede shoes, also mandatory.

To see us pouring out of the front gates at 3 p.m. is truly magnificent – 500 fresh, makeup-free faces and 1,000 knee-high socks.

We could be an army if we only knew our strength.

But by night, we are a whole different breed. We fuss endlessly over our hair. We pluck and paint our faces. We slap on high heels and giggle more than necessary in our carbon-copy lacy tanks and tight jeans.

We have changed one uniform for another.
I begin to feel a sense of separation. Us becomes them, the enemy, Judases who have betrayed their own sex with a lipsticked kiss and a wink.

I scrutinize them, my classmates and other girls my age, as they strut up to the movie theater or through the mall. To them, the world is a giant catwalk. They swish their ponytails and flip their hair with sideways glances.

I see two girls who have known each other since gymnastic classes in kindergarten; they have shared birthday parties and laughed away hundreds of sleepovers; they are Best Friends for Life, and even at 16 they still have those half-piece hearts tucked away safe in a jewelry box. One look from the BC hunk, and those two girls turn on each other like rabid dogs.

Superwoman

In many ways, my decision to become a feminist is like a vow of chastity. I abstain from all those things I deem sexist. Like football games. And dances. And pearl necklaces.

I judge anyone who indulges in these things. One day after biology class, I even re-organize the food chain and put the male sex at the bottom.

Sophomore year, I sequester myself from what I like to call the “cheerleader cult,” those sinners who read Cosmo like the Bible and get more excited about their boyfriend’s sports games than about their own.

I become an uncompromising superwoman from Venus.

Along with my new identity, I gain new powers. Suddenly, I discover that I can destroy a guy with a raised eyebrow and a few bitter words. I can also decipher the sexual habits of any girl based solely on her shoes and the length of her skirt.

With my little band of outcasts – girls who are too brainy, too tall, too fat, or too weird for the cheerleaders – I eat my lunches far away from the bright yellow cafeteria. We congregate in the dungeon, a cold corridor of gray stone in the bottom floor of the school, my very own fortress of solitude

I feel empowered. And I am. But I’m also a little self-righteous. And aloof. Also, maybe stuck up. And bitchy. The list is endless.

I don’t know it at the time, but I am pigeon-holing myself and my gender just as much as the sexists.

Compromises

Volleyball becomes the outlet for all my angst, a way to be a part of something without conforming to the “cheerleader cult.” Of course, in the years after high school, I will learn that cheerleaders are actually real people. I will even befriend one or two.

I never go to a BC football game, but I do attend a BC play. And find myself a boyfriend. And then a prom dress.

Some people will call me a hypocrite, but wise mothers and mentors will explain that I’m just learning that life is not black and white.

At 21 years old, I know they are right.

I glance at my St. Vincent’s ring while putting on a pink sweater, and I laugh. I wonder what my 14-year-old self would think.

What would she have to say about my skinny-dipping escapades after graduation? About my decision to attend a women’s college? About my three-year abstinence from dating?

I don’t know. All I know are the facts: I’ve been a feminist for seven years. I’ve also flirted with Italian Don Juans, jumped off a waterfall in Costa Rica, danced in the streets of London and Paris, and studied abroad in Wales.

I don’t have my green plaid skirt anymore, but I do have a passport full of stamps, a purple cap and gown, and an eager ballpoint pen.

Does that mean I’ve finally got it all figured out? Not by a long shot.

Have I left behind all my superwoman tendencies? Hardly.

And if you asked me to define feminism right now, would I have the answer?

Well …

How about you ask me again in seven years?

No Comments Yet

No comments yet.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI