Guilt

Guilt is something with which women are all intimately acquainted by unfortunate happenstance of gender and culture, and this is a problem that strikes liberal women as hard, if not harder, than their conservative counterparts. The combination of the idea that women should do everything they can in their lives to make everything better for everyone combined with the liberal ideals of making the entire world better for everyone can be a poison.

I think about this a lot. I feel like, on top of my being a student (which does not take up as much of my day as one would think), I should find the time to attend various extracurriculars (FMLA, ISO, so on and so forth) in order to further inroads towards a better world. I think that I should take time for protests and events outside of school, because those are what the real activists do, after all. Instead, I find myself going to school, posting links to Facebook, arguing with people both IRL and online, and generally wreaking small havoc wherever I have a presence. This, to me, isn't activism, because I should be doing more.

Then I realize that, sometimes, when I post things, people say, "Oh!" And that feels good. The dude who called me and all other female Marines whores in a post a couple days ago? I hammered at him, and he apologized to me for intimating that about me and the rest of the females. (He did so by private message, and asked me not to post that he had done so, which makes me sad for him, but it was still an apology, and hey - maybe I got through to him on that one point. Perhaps he'll think about what he says in the future.) Little things make changes, too, and little changes turn into big ones.

Reading a blog post about how activism is often considered to be a very narrow, traditional set of activities, I started thinking about how this is tied into guilt for women. (I would also like to direct you towards BFP, who has posted about this before as well; I just can't find the post.) I have to work to think about what those niggling voices are telling me.

Going to school is an inherently feminist act in that I am taking advantage of an intelligence that is a gift, despite being told by society that, as a woman, I would be better using that intelligence staying home with my daughter. (It is *not* that this is not a potentially feminist action as well, but it is different, and if you're just doing it because you're supposed to then it's different.) In doing this, I am furthering my education so that I can engage in more effective activism through employment later in life, and I am also simultaneously demonstrating to my daughter that she has options in life.

As for extracurricular activities and traditional activist gathering, I'm already exhausted on the schedule that I currently maintain. There is no way that my absolutely wiping myself out will make any kind of substantive change in the world, and one thing that gets left out is that taking care of yourself despite the demands that are put upon women in our society is feminist, too.

Get enough sleep. Exercise. Eat right. Take care of your health. (I need to work on this.) You are worth attention to little details like how you feel (not how society feels) about how you look, including clothing, makeup (which, in my opinion, is neither inherently unfeminist or inherently feminist; it simply is, and why you are wearing it is what makes the difference), jewelry, or whatever makes you feel good. You are worth getting your nails done or having your hair done or going to a spa or whatever you feel relaxes you and makes you feel your best. (My preferred activity is sitting at home for an entire Saturday and playing video games. Whatever works for each person.)

After all, in a society that tells us that we are made only to serve other people, what is more subversive than serving ourselves every once in a while? If you're fighting because everyone else deserves it, don't you deserve it, too?

On a related note, Fucking Ain't Conscious.