Cross-posted from my blog at whereisyourline
I am an unusual breed: vibrant, youthful, fun, an activist who leads a regularly crazy college life and still attends every meeting. I am seen not as a prototypical “feminist,” but as an empowered young woman who simply plays like the boys. And I always have been a crier.
“Carmen, don’t do this. When I think feminism I think of you. Don’t be upset about a guy.”
“Carmen, you’re so much better than this. This isn’t you.”
I was the strong-willed, seemingly indestructible girl in the crowd, running down the stairs, throwing her things, and demanding to leave. But I was a feminist! I was sneering about activism minutes before he sent me home in tears, and woke up worried that every sign I’d ever held up at a protest or a march was invalidated. I told myself it was me I was disappointed in, for sitting on follow-up semicolons, for keeping him until morning and sending him home with a “no problem, anytime,” for waiting and waiting only to end up humiliated.
It was hard to accept a loss of control and sort out where it went wrong. All I knew were his Greek letters and the address of a house where I’d smeared war paint on my face; I knew his basement a little better than I knew him, an empty wooden room filled with solo cups overflowing. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, about the laced fingers and waking up under that blanket, the way we didn’t know how to say goodbye. I hated “what if,” and I wouldn’t let myself think the forbidden “what if I just wasn’t good enough?”
What bothers me isn’t the dismissive tone, the regrettable conditions, the blank stares and silenced hellos. (“Not worth your time” are the most insufferable words in the English language; if he sucked so much, why didn’t I realize it?) I am disappointed not because I am insecure; not because I just needed him to like me, or call me, or even give a shit about me; but because I am too independent, too self-assured to not be angry that he disguised himself in those dorky glasses and let me think I was more than the grrl du jour, more than the convenient exit, angry that he listened to my naiveté without a nod of acknowledgment, angry that now it’s as if nothing happened.
THE LINE is about building a world where people are free to be sexual beings without being used or mistreated. Hookup culture disempowers even its bravest soldiers with “dude, I’m gettin’ some tonight,” because even when women play the game, we’re expected to obey someone else’s rules. I’m disappointed because I deserve better than exploring my sexuality within a system that silences its worth, and in the future I’m not going to be stuck playing by disrespectful guidelines I didn’t author.
So yes, feminists can cry. And we can be disappointed, and upset, over anything we so care to be upset about. And the next time you see your local activista falling apart in the basement, you can be sure that it’s nothing short than a public display of the power of disempowerment.
