You Can't Go Back: Gains and Losses of a Feminist Activist
Feminism, specifically ecofeminism, is my world perspective now. It is where I go to make sense of what I see around me, to identify my spot in the social nexus, and to validate my self worth. The people I gravitate toward, my community of friends at work and elsewhere, are feminists of one stripe or another. We feminists congregate whenever possible. Dyads and triads of us are seen slipping into one another's departmental offices, especially before and after faculty meetings. At more generalized conferences, ASA for example, I see clusters of feminists on the sidelines engaged in intense analysis, strategy, and debate as well as lighthearted smiley exchange. We seek out and enjoy one another's company not only because we have business to attend to in developing and maintaining our feminist agendas, but also because we find pleasure in communing with our own kind. We feminists embrace an analysis that sets us apart from, perhaps even pits us against, what Stephanie Coontz (1997) calls "the consensus crowd," conventional mainstream culture. And we are smug indeed in the conviction that a life devoted to the study and alleviation of social inequality is superior to a life devoted to personal gains in terms of wealth and power.
I think of my feminism as something akin to a religion. I am a feminist because of what I believe to be true and important, because of how I feel about certain things, and because of how being a feminist makes me feel. I can not change on a whim; I arrived here through a unique set of personal circumstances beginning in early childhood (Goetting, 1996) that I am, of course, unable to reverse. Feminism gives me much of what I want, and so it has a strong hold on me. I can not imagine my ever not being a feminist.
Feminism continues to affect the texture of my lived experience and the path of my life trajectory in profound ways. Feminism both liberates and restrains me. It calms yet disturbs me. In my prefeminist days, when I was bound by mainstream conventional thought in general and Catholicism in particular, my focus was all about my being good, virtuous, and likeable. The pressures to meet approval of others were overwhelming and translated into fears, anxieties, and guilts manifested in the likes of (1) did I behave just right?; (2) was my appearance just right?; (3) do just the right people like me?; and (4) will I be invited by just the right people to participate in just the right events? Feminism lifted me out of myself, far from an existence that was all about me and my perceived personal potential and shortcomings. It introduced me to the notion that my essence is but one small component of an overpowering constructed system that must be opposed in the name of justice. Feminism transformed the fears, anxieties, and guilts of my youth into an entirely new set of fears, anxieties, and guilts. Now as a mature ecofeminist I worry, sometimes obsess, about questions including the following: (1) dare I reach for that paper towel or must I again dry my hands on my jeans?; (2) must I make a gesture or statement of disapproval about that politically incorrect joke, or may I just this once remain unnoticed and "normal?"; (3) may I just this once buy that gorgeous shawl hand embroidered in Guatemala?; (4) should I as usual rescue that hungry and sick mama cat and her brood from that dumpster or can I for just a short while live without waking up to a pile of kittens on my head and a string of litter boxes to clean?; (5) dare I just hop in my car to run to the office, or must I bicycle through those unpleasant weather conditions?; (6) can't I turn on my residential air conditioner for just a day in order to complete preparation of this 2002 ASA/SWS presentation, or must I again lose an afternoon of productivity to napping under the ceiling fan in the mid-August Kentucky heat?; and (7) would it really be that bad if I were to forego my usual tofu sandwich (concept coined by Michael Kimmel, 2002; I suspect that there really is no such thing) for pastrami on rye – just while conferencing in Chicago?
As a girl and young woman of conventional upbringing and worldview, my aspirations and their associated ideals, anxieties, and guilts were all about meeting competitive standards of personal worth in terms of intelligence, beauty, and winsomeness. Now as an ecofeminist my life charge is to assume an active role in creating collective human lives that are fairer, more humane, and infinitely more enriching than otherwise might have been possible and in supporting the health and well being of our ecological system, which nourishes all life and is life itself. The way I live is immeasurably different than it would be had I simply developed into a mature version of that conventional little Catholic girl in Kalamazoo. For example, taking after my mother, I used to devote serious time and money to designing, selecting fabric for, and sewing elaborate wardrobes for myself. Though all of that is a thing of the past, I continue to have that sturdy old White sewing machine console (inherited from my mother at age thirteen) professionally oiled and cleaned as it stands tribute in my home to the way I used to be and to the way I have become. I now devote those personal resources to defending battered women in court and rescuing homeless domesticated animals.
Another point about the process of maturing into feminism: insecurities and ambiguities that taunted a younger me have fled, I suspect to inhabit the intellect and will of another credulous conventional young girl. That unsettling whir of noxious uncertainty about why family, work, and relationships both interpersonal and international are stressed much of the time for many people and at least some of the time for all of us finally rested when feminism explained it all in such wonderfully simple and intuitive terms. Just a few years later, Rodney King, in the context of his publicly discovered videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers and the subsequent legal trials, clearly articulated that question at a press conference. Obviously baffled by the turn of events surrounding his case, Rodney King implored, " Can't we all just get along?" That was the question of the day that May 1, 1992 and had at one time been the question of my life. Now, I thought, I know the answer. I really know. The answer lies in the fact that we inhabit a social order that privileges some groups at the expense of others. Allan Johnson (2001, p. 9) says it best:
[That social order] creates a yawning divide in levels of income, wealth, dignity, safety, health, and quality of life. It promotes fear, suspicion, discrimination, harassment, and violence. It sets people against one another. . .It weaves the insidious and corroding effects of oppression into the daily lives of tens of millions of women, men, and children.
Feminism displaced the nagging confusions and insecurities and the surges of tentative self-doubt that plagued my early years with a decisiveness, certainty, and firm strength of conviction that permeates virtually my every fiber. Feminist theory provides me a sense of "verstehen," an intimate understanding of my universe that rings true, makes sense at the most personal level. I see the dictates of feminism played out in my daily lived experience; every hour feminist theory reminds me of my privilege in terms of race, class, and sexual orientation and of my marginality in terms of gender. As an interpretive tool, feminism is a sublime gift for all who embrace it.
Another plus for feminism is that it inspires, even requires, an active lifestyle. It demonstrates to us that if we are not part of the solution for colonialism, hegemony, and oppression, then we are part of the problem. It is that simple: feminism is inherently activism. Feminism demands involvement in its quest for compassionate change. No lazy bones need apply.
Thanks to feminism, I move through my days of work, play, and reflection free of conventional confusions and fears. In a macro way, the world seems simple, predictable, and desperately in need of revision. In spite of the pain and injustice that surrounds me, a cloud of comfort cradles me in the realization that at least it all makes sense. There are few, if any, surprises left. Feminist thought got everything. Maturing through feminism has brought me to this spot of relative calm.
Don't get me wrong, this spot is where I want to be, but the rent is high. In addition to the agonies associated with the likes of my seven-point listing above, is the sense of alienation and the loneliness that accompany the self-imposed exile of the feminist scholar. This becomes evident in Sarah Fenstermaker's and my collection of life stories of mature women sociologists (Goetting and Fenstermaker, 1995), many of whom are feminists and SWS members. The recurring theme, sometimes in subtle terms, of alienation and loneliness is striking. As I see it, we feminists live on a periphery of mainstream culture, always vigilant, always critical, and never remotely approaching conformity to ideals of American womanhood.
I find something particularly pronounced about this alienation and loneliness that characterizes feminist scholars. It is unspoken. Among members of a category of people who pride themselves on speaking out openly and prolifically about virtually everything, the subject of personal isolation is silenced. When I do introduce the topic in an informal setting, I am met with whispered agreement, but glances sink wistfully downward and faces turn slightly away. Perhaps it is embarrassing to admit that we feminists have forged a path to the very edge of conventional social life. Now and then a student just entering the clutches of feminism will comment, usually in the privacy of my office, about the toll that her newfound ideology is taking on her personal relationships. We lament together the strains and losses. My advice is always the same: don't invest a lot of energy in weighing out the personal gains and losses of becoming a feminist as though you have a choice. Once you have crossed that line, you can't go back.
- Coontz, Stephanie. 1997. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families. New York: Basic Books.
- Goetting, Ann. 1996. "Ecofeminism Found: One Woman's Journey to Liberation." Pp. 174-179 in Private Sociology: Unsparing Reflections, Uncommon Gains, edited by Arthur B. Shostak. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall, Inc.
- Goetting, Ann and Sarah Fenstermaker (eds.) 1995. Individual Voices, Collective Visions: Fifty Years of Women in Sociology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- Johnson, Allan G. 2001. Privilege, Power, and Difference. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company.
- Kimmel, Michael. 2002 (July). E-mail personal communication.
