you go girl

It seems weird to title a post about feminism with "girl" but it's a queer saying along the lines of greeting a friend with "Hey girl, hey!" so I am sticking with it. Consider it inter-marginalized-group lingo.

When I applied to graduate school, my personal statement articulated that I am gay. Coming out to a graduate admissions panel made my ultra-liberal undergraduate advisor pause, get up from her desk, and run next door to talk to her partner Nick. Was it okay? Should I not bring that side of myself up in such a situation? Thankfully, Nick's expert advice (which, in the end, correlated with Dr. Capo's gut instinct) was that it wasn't necessarily a bad decision as long as it was in the right context, aka I wasn't using it to get a pity vote for admission. Had I been told to take it out, I wouldn't have. You see, according to my personal statement for my M.A. program, a critical literacy autobiography (for Dr. Blakely's Theory and Research in Composition course), and an autobiographical essay and analysis (for Dr. Post's American Autobiography course), recognizing I am gay was a critical turning point in my academic career. I wasn't lying. It was a part of the culminating moment when I turned away from my future as an Architect, when I turned away from the prospect of a high-paying job, when I turned away from a childhood dream. When I came out I did it because I knew the world wasn't fair but I also knew I wasn't about to accept it. Coming out, in a way, led me to study literature, to study who gets it and who doesn't get it and why, to study what it is like to be disenfranchised, to study how these systems of oppression are created and sustained.

Tonight, however, I watched A League of Their Own for the first time in years and I had a memory, or multiple memories that aren't really memories; I had a feeling. I remember watching that movie with my mom and my sister. I remember the night my mom took me to see First Wives Club. I remember growing up with a definite sense that whatever men could do, women could do it and do it better because, damn-it, you just can't keep a good fighter down.

Until tonight I had never really considered who planted the original seed of social justice in my head. It certainly wasn't mass media. The same people who, up until Philadelphia, refused to portray gay people in a positive light are running around behind the scenes supporting cultural hegemony for the (imaginary) man / woman binary. (Did you know that scientists have identified at least five biological sexes? Seems to me like this whole man paired with woman by the grace of God and biology is *tisk, tisk* a societal construction.) It certainly wasn't the church. A woman's place is serving her husband? Well that's a bunch of bull shit if you ask me. Not that marriage is inherently bad but if men can't hold their own then they might as well just nominate themselves for a Darwin Award and watch some more football.

I realized tonight that one of the best things my mom ever did was to pull a Donna Harraway and sneak around (consciously or unconsciously) blurring the boundaries in the minds of her children. Movies like A League of Their Own and First Wives Club instilled in me early a sense of the differences that society constructs, the way it uses people. Those movies (thanks, Mom) set me off on the right foot, primed me for the path I am on now. It was a nice revelation to have, and, in a way, it answered some of the questions that I just don't get to ask my mom.

What did she think of feminism? I never got to ask her before she died but I can picture her sitting at the dining room table with her coffee, reading her daily devotional. If I asked her that question she would have gotten that indignant look on her face, crossed her arms and spoke her mind in that matter of fact, I grew up slaughtering chickens and sewing my own clothing voice. "Women can do it too, Marc."

You go girl.