I Don’t Care About the F Word and You Shouldn’t, Either
The label of feminism doesn’t matter — our actions do
I don’t shave my legs. Or anything else, for that matter. I’m single. I don’t have children. I don’t particularly want to get married and if I do, I don’t want to take a husband’s (or a wife’s) name. I don’t wear much makeup, if any. I don’t dye my hair. And you will have to put a gun to my head to get me to wear high heels.
These are some of the qualities that make me a feminist.
Just kidding.
None of these things are what make me a feminist. Not a single thing on this list defines that term.
Some feminists are in traditional, heterosexual relationships in which they fulfill traditional gender roles. Some feminists wear a ton of makeup and four inch heels. Some feminists have their fathers walk them down the aisle and then take their husband’s names. Some feminists wax everything from the neck down.
When it comes to feminism, none of these things matter.
There are only two things that make a feminist:
- A person decides to use this label as a way to describe themselves
- A person is committed to everyone’s equality and freedom
These are the only two reasons that I’m a feminist. I have chosen to use that label in order to describe myself. In a world that loves labels, it makes things a little bit easier.
But it surprises some people to find out that I have no true attachment to that word. I don’t find my identity or my life’s mission there. Not in that word. Not in that label.
Honestly, I couldn’t care less about this f-word. What does it really mean, say, or do?
I, as a person, have more meaning than a word. I have more to say than a label. And only one of us can actually do anything.
Call me a feminist. Don’t call me a feminist. I don’t actually care. It’s just a word.
But make no mistake about it: I want to see a more just, equal world. I will always speak up in support of that. I will always fight for that.
That’s all I care about.
I don’t need my friends to identify as feminists. I don’t need lovers to identify as feminists, either. This particular label isn’t a ticket you have to flash in order to be in my life.
I don’t care about other people’s labels. (Mostly.) I care about their actions and values.
No, I will never again challenge myself to remain open-minded by dating a man who is an evangelical Christian who believes women’s sexuality is the devil’s mechanism for luring good men to damnation. Done with that shit.
But I wouldn’t discount a man because the f-word wasn’t in his bio.
Don’t get me wrong, though. If he isn’t 100% committed to digging up his own internalized sexism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and all the other poisons of this dominator system, then I’m not interested. If he cannot acknowledge that a power system exists that benefits men, whiteness, heterosexuality, and cisness above all else, then bye-bye, hon.
I don’t need him to wear a label. I don’t need him to throw the f-word around.
In fact, I’ve noticed that lots of men are actually really good at using that term — all leading up to treating women like their personal (and disposable) sex toys.
Spare me the label. Just do the goddamn work.
The f-word doesn’t really mean anything. Maybe it never did.
For one thing, it was doomed from the start. Any word an oppressed group claims as a descriptor for their own liberation will be vilified, co-opted, and invalidated by the oppressors.
When we start talking about anti-racism, a concept that one would think could brook no argument, white people rally against it, accusing anti-racism of being racist through its alleged anti-whiteness. White people call out anti-racist curriculum as violence against white children. White people accuse Black educators, leaders, and social justice reformers of tyranny, treason, and anarchy.
When you whip out the f-word, you’re written off as a man hater. An angry bitch who’s sexually frustrated because she couldn’t find a husband. A mentally unstable harpy suffering from hysteria who hasn’t yet experienced the “softness” of surrendering to the joys of domestic life.
This is all a very convenient and effective way of enabling and promoting the oppression of women, just like co-opting the term “anti-racism” enables and promotes the oppression of BIPOC.
For this reason, many people (particularly women) deliberately avoid using “feminist” as a label.
And then we have this sect of feminists that has been labeled “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist). Who gave them this name, and why? The only part of this acronym that seems to fit, so far as I can see, is the T and the E.
Are they radical? What’s so radical about positioning certain members of the LGBTQ community as sexual predators? Isn’t that the typical, everyday propaganda of the oppressors?
Are they feminists when their values do not align with the one thing that makes a feminist a feminist — the commitment to equality?
Rusty means rusty. Star means star.
But feminism means whatever the hell someone wants you to believe.
So eff the f-word.
Show me who you are, instead.
I guess the truth is, I don’t tend to put much stock in the f-word. What does it mean in a world where too many men use it to silence, invalidate, and discredit women? What does it mean in a world where people who oppress trans women can claim it? What does it mean in a world that encourages us to use that word in order to let internalized misogyny off the hook without at least questioning our motives?
You can say you’re a feminist all you want. You can say you love and respect women all you want. But I won’t believe you when you follow those statements with sincere and grave assertions that there is no actual patriarchy, that the power structures of the world harm men more than women (or white people more than BIPOC), that women and other marginalized people are only marginalized because we’re caught up in “victim consciousness,” that the existence of trans women erases the concept of womanhood, or that things would change if only women respected themselves enough to stop falling into bed so quickly.
If you believe any of that, there’s one thing I know about you: You do not want an equal society.
The f-word isn’t going to hide who you really are and what you really stand for.
I call myself a feminist because it’s simple. Those who are of like mind will find their way to me. The real deals will show me their values, just like they will come to see mine in action. The fakers will fall away.
Beyond that, the word has little use to me.
Being a feminist is not a trauma response. It’s not a list of boxes to check off. It’s not misandry with a politically correct rebrand. And it’s not an illustration of female hysteria or mental illness.
Nor is it an all-access pass to pussy.
But it will be interpreted that way by countless people, which challenges the utility and effectiveness of the word so much that I really couldn’t care less if a person identifies with it or not.
Feminism means caring enough about other people’s humanity that you commit to correcting the systemic oppression that attempts to diminish that humanity.
I don’t need the f-word to do that work or to figure out if someone else is doing that work.
I’ll see it in their actions, and they’ll see it in mine.
© Yael Wolfe 2022
Yael Wolfe is a writer, photographer, and creator of Howl. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com.
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