feminist of the week: melissa king
Name: Melissa King
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, French Tutor, and Professional Guinea Pig Cuddler
Hometown: Bedford, Pennsylvania, United States
Describe yourself in one word:
Spunky.
What is your feminist philosophy?
Feminism is so much more than just looking at gender – it’s looking at all of the oppressions that exist in our society and how they relate to gender oppression. So, I call myself a feminist because I want total liberation for everyone, but at the same time, most of my personal experience lies with gender oppression, so that’s the main viewpoint that I come from when I try to help fix social issues.
Why is feminism important in today’s world?
Feminism is still important because our society still disadvantages certain people compared to others on a systematic basis. Just because certain populations have gained voting rights or the ability to marry does NOT mean that the values that have been instilled in us by our culture that oppress certain groups have magically disappeared. Obtaining equality takes a lot of work and time – we need to unlearn the harmful ideas and behaviors that we’ve been taught, in addition to fixing the remaining policy issues that exist in order to achieve true liberation for everyone.
Do you think that feminism has a branding issue? If so, why and how do you suggest the movement can fix it?
This is a tricky one. In my opinion, feminism does seem to have a bad name in American society, but I don’t really think that it’s the fault of the movement itself. Historically, there has been a huge conservative backlash against the movement in recent years, so it’s kind of just ingrained in our societal institutions that feminists are yucky people who want to have power over men. So, the question really is, what do you do when society is portraying you like that? I honestly have a hard time answering the question myself, but I guess one thing that we can do is just be ourselves and try to befriend those who aren’t feminists. These people might surprise you! For instance, I re-blog a lot of feminist stuff to my Tumblr, and it turns out that some of my friends from home, who I never thought would be receptive to feminism, have actually started getting into feminism themselves!
What is the most important feminist cause in your life?
I know that only two questions back, I was just saying that it’s the little parts of oppression that matter, too, but it still blows my mind that these little things can come together and manifest themselves into physical, sexual, and emotional violence. There are so many people out there who experience violence on a daily basis merely due to who they are. How scary is that?
Why should someone become a feminist?
The thing is, why wouldn’t you become a feminist? Chances are, unless you’re an able-bodied, cis-sexual, white man, you’re affected by some sort of societal force that’s going up against you. And, if you do happen to be somebody who doesn’t have to deal with oppression, you should help out people who do not just because they’re your friends or family or your UPS delivery person or whatever, because they’re people, too. It’s kind of the nice thing to do.
Can men be considered feminist? Why should men take up the feminist cause?
I always go back and forth on the first question, but I think that yes, men can be feminists, as long as they realise that personal experience can speak much more than all of the academic knowledge in the world. Like a lot of people, cis-men have certain privileges that they take for granted, and sometimes this can get in the way of understanding the crap that non-male people go through. As long as they understand this fact and are willing to admit when they screw up, pretty much like any other feminist should anyway, they’re cool in my book. As for the second question, oppressed people are still people, so shouldn’t you help them?
When did you have your feminist awakening?
I actually found out about feminism on Livejournal. One day, I stumbled upon a feminist community on that website, and I was completely blown away. So many of my own traits that I thought were personal faults were just faults that I was told I had by society, and then I found out that so many other people had to deal with even worse experiences than mine!
What’s your advice to other feminists?
First, realise that feminism is a constant process of learning and unlearning. You will learn something new practically every day, and you will need to continuously unlearn all of the oppressive behaviors and ideas that you’ve been taught all of your life. Secondly, you need to realise that you WILL mess up, and you need to handle those mistakes properly. Just because you have some disadvantages doesn’t mean that you’re not privileged in other aspects. For example, if you’re a white woman and a person of colour is telling you that something you said was racist, you probably said something racist. When that happens, don’t go all Eve Ensler on them and make it about you. You just hurt THEM, and instead of focusing on how offended you are that you were called a racist, apologise and try to fix that behaviour.
