The F Word

Have you ever been afraid or hesitant to call yourself a feminist? I have, many times, funny enough, each time, it was for a different reason.

I got to saying the four-letter f word quicker than I was able to say the eight letter one. Why?

As a young teenager, I didn’t know what it meant, from what I heard (mostly dismissive aunties and our frenemy the TV) feminists were girls who wore “skin-baring clothes” and “talked louder than they should”. So of course, I didn’t want to be one, how dare I sin with skin? See what I did there.

Around the time the last Harry Potter movie came out, and I was watching Emma Watson interviews on YouTube. There it was, that word again. Why was Emma Watson uttering that horrible word? I looked it up, watched a few videos that popped up and I heard something over an over which made me believe it was true – feminists hated men, why else would they choose the word feminism? Why weren’t they screaming gender equality?

Hate men? Ew. Now that wasn’t something I could subscribe to either.

I grew up, unfortunately, surrounded by misogyny. I didn’t know back then to question things that seemed to be the norm, and just went with the flow, like everyone. I didn’t complain even when I wanted to, and to my horror now, I shushed “complainers”.

Fast forward to med school, I lived in a different country than my family, I was out there all by myself, navigating people and situations without people telling me what is right and what is wrong, and that changed me. Certain people played a large part in my growth but we’ll talk about them later. Without boundaries being laid for me, I began pushing the ones that were there before, and little by little, with the power of information, I’ve grown to love the word.

There are a number of definitions for the word feminism but right now I gave it my own. Feminism is the fight for rights and the fight for choice for women and girls everywhere. While this is the basic idea, my approach to feminism includes racism, ableism, climate change and so much more. It’s something that’s now bone-deep for me, I will fight in every small way that I can for every girl and every woman that I can. And when I say every, I mean every – trans, non-binary, white, brown, black, those with disabilities , hell even the aunties that can’t help from commenting on my lack of a man and my thus far barren uterus.

Why am I still afraid to call myself a feminist? Well, because I’m afraid I won’t live up to the word that I hold in the highest esteem. There’s another reason too. When you call yourself a “feminist”, depending on your audience, you may get the look. It’s a pretty judgy look too. Makes me second guess myself sometimes. This look could be anything from “don’t say anything if you haven’t taken gender studies” to “please, you honestly can’t change shit” to “oh my god, another stuck up bitch”.

There isn’t one way of life or one action that will define you as a feminist. I know, saying that is easy, it’s something I often have to remind myself.

Growing up, I’ve internalized countless concepts and ideas that I don’t stand by anymore. I’m not saying I’m past them – oh no, no I am FAR from that. I often have this internal struggle between what I know is logically right, and my conditioned reaction. But here’s the thing – it has been my favorite struggle thus far. Yes, you read that right, favorite.

Changing the narrative around me and more importantly, changing the narrative in my mind has been an ongoing empowering journey. And I’d like to share that journey with you, and this, is why I started The Maguva Narrative.

While there will be a lot about the forever struggles of actively controlling biases and such on the blog, you’ll also see some fun stuff too! Until next time.