To be a feminist, to believe in equality, to protect yourself and all the women you know, you need to actively think about women. You don’t get to shortchange them by calling yourself a humanist. You don’t get to dissociate from the word. You don’t get to occasionally make stupid jokes because you don’t consider yourself accountable for them.
You don’t get to call a girl a slut because you feel bad about yourself. You need to be an example so other won’t have to go through the adolescence we did: trying to fit into a boy’s club, or trying to be the kind of girl you though you had to be. You need to embrace the word ‘feminist’ in all its difficulty. You need to take responsibility for it. This is why it is imperative to declare yourself a feminist, to take hold of the word and make it acceptable so younger women can declare it. You need to help women by helping yourself.
