The Truth About Feminism

Not being a feminist does make life much easier

Even in the 1970s and 1980s as a small child, I could see how the world was skewed against women and girls, and it made me mad. I never felt as if I was second to any of the men and boys around me, and I thought it was ludicrous to be treated as if I were.

But being mad like that all the time is exhausting. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall day after day after day hoping things will get better, and a few things do, marginally, but the issues of real consequence never seem to budge.

So from about the age of 25 until I was about 40, I gave up on feminism. I mean, I was still aware women and girls were treated like crap in America — I just gave up on fighting it and went along. I was nice at work. I dressed the way my male bosses wanted me to dress and wore makeup, because I discovered the men at work treated me better when I did so. It was easier to get men to do their part of the job so that I could complete my part of the job when I batted my eyelashes at them and asked nicely if they could please hurry things along. I was polite to men even when they sexually harassed me or treated me as if I was stupid because I had boobs.

For me, it was a very deliberate tradeoff, a choice I wasn’t proud of making. Giving up for even a minute…