"Seriously," my friend continued, "my friend does it. She's a feminist like you - actually she's more radical than you - and she gets paid heaaaaaaaaaaps, like $400 a night in tips."
My first reaction was to think that my boobs looked too much like Brussels sprouts to get $400 of tips.
My second reaction was, "wait, she's a feminist? Really?"
How could she be a feminist and work as a topless waitress? Wasn't that like being vegan and working in an abattoir?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's any shame in working as a topless waitress. What interested me was that she could hold radical feminist views while working in that job. Wasn't that hypocritical?
One of the key concerns of radical feminism is remaking society to get rid of patriarchal institutions. It's about smashing the system, sister. Being a topless waitress is playing an active part in a system that blatantly objectifies women. Being employed by such a system ensures that it keeps going.
So I assumed she wasn't a proper feminist.
And with that sentence, I did the very worst thing a feminist can do. I put on the "I'm a better feminist than you are" hat and danced around in it.
We're always doing this. We like to think that we have the correct way of doing things. There is a "right way" (our way) and a "wrong way" (anything else).
It's not just between feminists and non-feminists. It's between feminists and feminists. I've argued in favour of things like page 3 girls, waxing your legs and buying fancy lingerie. I've been told repeatedly that I'm undermining the feminist cause.
I've listened to women argue that men can't be feminists and called those chicks bad feminists. We've all done it. We've all worn the twinkly white hat of the moral high ground. It's just so snuggly.
But it's also so wrong. Firstly, it's presumptuous.
I haven't exactly asked her what her rationale is, have I? I haven't asked her how she justifies her feminist standpoint with her job. I've just assumed that she can't, and so she doesn't believe in feminism and must be a hypocrite.
Maybe she feels empowered through sex. Maybe she feels like it's irrelevant in comparison to the changes we need in the education, health or employment structures that disadvantage women. Maybe she is actually a giant lizard person making a covert study of human behaviour.
There are many ways she could justify her feminist stance. I just haven't bothered to ask properly.
Another reason it's wrong is that it's saying, "You're a bad feminist because you don't agree with me".
When you say that someone is a bad feminist because they don't agree with you, you assume that your way is the only way to do something.
The idea that there is just one way of being a feminist is sexist. It's saying, "All feminists think this!" Which is just as reductive as saying, "All women think this!" or "All men think this!"
Groups do not have a correct voice. There's no "voice for women", "voice for young people" or "voice for victims with sweetcorn addictions".
The idea that there is one voice for one group fails to recognise the diversity of human experience and thought. It also implies that the group is too dumb to have more than one thought. And it's often, especially with women, used as a tool to batter dissenting thinkers or doers into submission. Have you ever thought, "Oh, I can't think that, I'm a feminist?" That is just another form of thought control.
What we need to do is realise there is no "correct feminist" response.
When we realise that, we can stop splitting the world into people who are good and bad feminists. And then we can remember what feminism is supposed to be about.
As Roxanne Gay says, "feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women, even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves." Amen, sister.
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