I made sure I was an ally before pitching this article, but I'd like to go as far as to appropriate the label. So can I? Can I go ahead and be feminist now? Simone de Beauvoir would say no, but I've consulted wikiHow, and I've followed the 12 steps to the extent that they apply to me. I messaged an acquaintance I knew to be a bit of a hardliner, asking whether there was a tasteful way to go about this. She didn't understand the context and thought I was trolling her. When I explained it was for an article, she responded in the spirit of the times: "That sounds like a journey you take on your own, bud. While I understand the temptation to make our personal journeys into marketable think pieces, I personally don't have the energy to guide or support a straight white man using feminism as a bit."
So, I'm on my own, I guess. I'll be the rogue feminist the Sisterhood wouldn't want to recognize - an Anglo-Saxon male, a beneficiary of all kinds of ugly history, a comedian on an indie improv team that was, until very recently, comprised solely of dudes (a lot of them), a musician who released an album six years ago called A Must for the Dick, a writer using the word 'feminist' as click bait. After completing this list, I took a coffee break and weighed whether I should just refer to myself as an artist from now on. Not only is it a convenient umbrella term, the title also takes some of the edge off of not being successful in any one branch of my creativity by granting me the license to be misunderstood. There's a high-strung voice in the back of my head that I should probably note here. Morally calibrated to my news feed, it's begging the exhibitionist in me to stop writing this, saying something about my perspective not being what the world needs right now. The Exhibitionist scoffs: We're an Artist now. That means we're in the business of self-indulgence. Also, didn't you hear? We're finally Feminist. Take a load off, brother.
![improv]()
Nayomi Reghay, a contemporary I met in an Upright Citizens Brigade class, once tweeted: Lord grant me the serenity* of a hereto white male. *The belief that I am inherently interesting. Naturally, I fav'ed this for the public record, to demonstrate how cool and I am with being the target of a joke. In my case, though, I'd like to point out that the unwavering belief that I'm interesting required A LOT of work. Note my headshot next to the byline. I have a snide Chuck Bass thing going on. That means I have to go above and beyond to show my contemporaries (AND myself) that I belong in the Scene and not just in high school/ college on The CW network. Now I'm trying to separate myself from all of the other men who use feminism as a platform- white knights, bigots, and respectable male culture critics who I'm sure probably exist somewhere.
I have this fantasy that if there's blowback from this article, if it turns out it's not in good taste to come out as a feminist without apologizing for history or glossing over my own selfish motivations, I'll have the opportunity to defend my stance. Wait, do I have a stance besides "I advocate gender equality and acknowledge prevailing injustice, so you should totes respect me"? Is believing in equality enough in an age when declarations of moral standing are so fetishized that many people treat their status updates like valorous acts of personal sacrifice? I don't use the word 'egregious' on social media, and I don't bro bash (an aesthetic choice, not a moral one). But can I fight the good fight in other ways? I just donated $25 to the Feminist Majority Foundation; does that count for anything? Absolutely not. I did it so I could include it in this paragraph.
The fantasy playing out in my head is getting louder now. I'm speaking publicly, somewhere like the Lincoln Memorial, dodging tomatoes while citing nuggets from Oxford University Press' Feminism: A Very Short Introduction by Margaret Walters, a book I downloaded on my iPhone when I decided to contribute my narcissism to this conversation. The crowd in my head is infuriated that I haven't stepped down from the podium yet. Why am I still talking? My voice is a played out noise that needs to learn to die gracefully. In the fantasy, I end up likening myself to Aphra Behn, a playwright whose choice of subje
So, I'm on my own, I guess. I'll be the rogue feminist the Sisterhood wouldn't want to recognize - an Anglo-Saxon male, a beneficiary of all kinds of ugly history, a comedian on an indie improv team that was, until very recently, comprised solely of dudes (a lot of them), a musician who released an album six years ago called A Must for the Dick, a writer using the word 'feminist' as click bait. After completing this list, I took a coffee break and weighed whether I should just refer to myself as an artist from now on. Not only is it a convenient umbrella term, the title also takes some of the edge off of not being successful in any one branch of my creativity by granting me the license to be misunderstood. There's a high-strung voice in the back of my head that I should probably note here. Morally calibrated to my news feed, it's begging the exhibitionist in me to stop writing this, saying something about my perspective not being what the world needs right now. The Exhibitionist scoffs: We're an Artist now. That means we're in the business of self-indulgence. Also, didn't you hear? We're finally Feminist. Take a load off, brother.
Lord grant me the serenity* of a hetero white male.
— Nayomi With a Y (@nayomir) July 5, 2015
*the belief that I am inherently interesting
Nayomi Reghay, a contemporary I met in an Upright Citizens Brigade class, once tweeted: Lord grant me the serenity* of a hereto white male. *The belief that I am inherently interesting. Naturally, I fav'ed this for the public record, to demonstrate how cool and I am with being the target of a joke. In my case, though, I'd like to point out that the unwavering belief that I'm interesting required A LOT of work. Note my headshot next to the byline. I have a snide Chuck Bass thing going on. That means I have to go above and beyond to show my contemporaries (AND myself) that I belong in the Scene and not just in high school/ college on The CW network. Now I'm trying to separate myself from all of the other men who use feminism as a platform- white knights, bigots, and respectable male culture critics who I'm sure probably exist somewhere.
I have this fantasy that if there's blowback from this article, if it turns out it's not in good taste to come out as a feminist without apologizing for history or glossing over my own selfish motivations, I'll have the opportunity to defend my stance. Wait, do I have a stance besides "I advocate gender equality and acknowledge prevailing injustice, so you should totes respect me"? Is believing in equality enough in an age when declarations of moral standing are so fetishized that many people treat their status updates like valorous acts of personal sacrifice? I don't use the word 'egregious' on social media, and I don't bro bash (an aesthetic choice, not a moral one). But can I fight the good fight in other ways? I just donated $25 to the Feminist Majority Foundation; does that count for anything? Absolutely not. I did it so I could include it in this paragraph.
The fantasy playing out in my head is getting louder now. I'm speaking publicly, somewhere like the Lincoln Memorial, dodging tomatoes while citing nuggets from Oxford University Press' Feminism: A Very Short Introduction by Margaret Walters, a book I downloaded on my iPhone when I decided to contribute my narcissism to this conversation. The crowd in my head is infuriated that I haven't stepped down from the podium yet. Why am I still talking? My voice is a played out noise that needs to learn to die gracefully. In the fantasy, I end up likening myself to Aphra Behn, a playwright whose choice of subje