Identity

After a lot of Twitter, a bit of Facebook and a fair bit of being back home (somehow I always get pulled down to earth when I come back home), I have concluded that I need to back off feminism for a bit.

Even as I write it, it doesn't read right, you can't really "back off" feminism, you either are, or you aren't a feminist (this is, you either identify as a feminist or you don't). Problem is, I am a lot more than a feminist, and feminist writing and feminist activism takes up a lot of time, a lot of mental space, and a lot of energy. At some level, I feel like I'm betraying some ideals by saying this, but deep down I know I'm right. I am not a feminist first. I am a person.

I am a person who loves reading and writing, creative writing. I haven't done a lot of that lately. I am a person who is about to finish a degree. I am a person with the world at her feet (sort of), a person who loves traveling, languages, biology, music, art (sometimes), history, American politics, arguing, debating. I am a person who talks and talks and talks and talks about pretty much anything I have any idea about. I am a person.

The reason I feel like I need to say this is because, people (especially women) who take up writing about feminism seem to lose all of this in favour of their feminism. They are feminists first. They see the world from a feminist viewpoint and they view nearly every issue as being feminist affected. Though I understand this, because I tend to do it myself, in their writing it tends to invisibilise who they are. There are some people who I know as feminists, and I don't know anything else about them. I like feminism. I think it is necessary, and I feel incredibly grateful to the people who are dedicated to it, to the people who are feminists first. But I feel that in a world where feminism wasn't necessary, where women and men were treated equally, people would be people. They would read books, and listen to music, and write stories and walk their dog. I want to be a person first.

This doesn't mean that I am going to stop writing about feminism. If I find something that I find blatantly sexist, or a matter that interests me that has a particularly large feminist factor I will probably write about it. All I'm saying is that I'm going to slow down a little bit. There are things that I will not look at from a feminist perspective, because I don't believe that feminism necessary permeates everything, I will write about other things, I will try to reflect here that I'm not just a feminist.

The title of the post is Identity. It is common to hear people say "I identify as a feminist". I do. I will not stop saying that I am a feminist. But you know what? I'm also the owner of the handsomest dog in the world (Trotski), the hugest Harry Potter fan, a (bad) viola player, a student, an adoptive Londoner and a native abulense, a music enjoyer, a drinker of bad wine and good rum, and a lot of things more. I am not just a feminist. This is not a feminist blog.