Our girl Jamia loves wearing pretty dresses, goes out dancing to cool clubs on the weekends, and has a super-cute boyfriend… and she’s a feminist. She originally for this for the Young People For blog, but she and I agree that it’s really important to post here:

Everytime I hear a rabble rousing’, equality loving, civil rights benefiting woman skirt around using the “f” word it makes me cringe. When I worked for Planned Parenthood and signed women up to volunteer, I heard it. “I’m pro-choice but I’m not a feminist.” I’ve even been in women’s studies classes where some women finish talking about their intense passion for equal wages and birth control, with the sentence,”I’m not a feminist”. As a result of this common experience, I began to wonder: What is so bad about the “f” word? What is about this word that is so scary and passé for some passionate and progressive young women?

Yesterday, I read the fun DIY feminist magazine “Bust”. I shook my head in frustration when I read that one of my favorite pop culture feminists was afraid to use the “f” word. When the interviewer from “Bust” asked Gwen if she was a feminist, Gwen asked that the word be defined before she would speak about the issue. Did she forget about her pop-feminist anthem, “I’m just a girl?”

Gwen avoided the question and explained she was a feminist without ever using the word. How Condoleezza of her.–dancing around the question to get a message out.

And how could I blame her? It’s “not cute” to call yourself a feminist in the media. I’ve seen so many other pop-tarts like Gwen, Victoria Beckham, and PJ Harvey run away from the “f” word in interviews. “Girl power” promoter Geri Halliwell has gone far enough as to call it “a dirty word” Ahh…That beastly word.

FEMINIST. “The radical notion that women are people too.” It really isn’t that radical.

Feminism equals equality. The reason it is important to use the “F” word is to specify that power imbalances often separate the distinct interests of women from movements of equality. We wouldn’t need the word if women weren’t specifically marginalized in so many spaces including social justice movements and organizations.

To be pro-women does not make you anti-men. Why does a “rose” by any other name smell sweeter? What are we afraid of?

I often have to defend myself when charged by black male activists who aim to brand me a traitor to racial justice issues for calling myself a feminist. For them, I represent the “white women’s movement.”

I often wonder if when I call myself a “civil rights” activist do I need to justify that I am a “civil rights” activist that doesn’t define myself by antiquated notions that only black men can lead the movement?

Why do I have to explain my feminism? My grandma, my mom, and even my dad are ALL self-described feminists. Feminism is about JUSTICE not divisions.

I’ll shout it from the rooftops. I’ll wear my “Feminists are HOT and bothered” shirt. I’ll rock my “This is what a feminist looks like” shirt and threaten the low-life’s on the street who heckle me in it. I’ll share a smile with a woman on the subway in a sign of solidarity. I’ll spark conversation and debate about why we’re afraid about female assertion, freedom, independence,love, and self-respect. I’ll feel overjoyed when I get support from a feminist man who “gets it” and shows support to find out how to get his shirt too.

Until more people understand the importance of taking a stand, I’ll proudly scream it from the rooftops smiling and wearing bright red lipstick or not wearing lipstick at all.