Megan Seely - Fight Like a Girl: How to Be a Fearless Feminist, Second Edition

Megan Seely

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2019 by New York University

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Seely, Megan, author.

Title: Fight like a girl : how to be a fearless feminist / Megan Seely.

Description: Second Edition. | New York : New York University Press, [2019] | Revised edition of the authors Fight like a girl, c2007. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018044169| ISBN 9781479877317 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479810109 (pb : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH : Feminism. | Womens rights.

Classification: LCC HQ1236 .S37 2019 | DDC 305.42dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018044169

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Dedicated to those who fight for justice

And to my mom, Elaine, and my daughters, Molly and Lola

For the most part, I grew up in the small town of Aromas, California, a largely agricultural area. Early in high school, I was introduced to the United Farm Workers movement and the work of activists like Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta. In 1987, when I was fourteen, my friends and I joined Chavezs hunger strike during the grape boycott. I believed that if people only knew of the working and living conditions of the people who provide our nations food, then something would change.

During the time of my hunger strike, I made a grocery trip with my mother. I entered the store and saw grapes in the produce section. I asked to see the managing grocer. I wanted to know where the grapes had come from and to educate the grocer about the plight of the farm workers. It took a bit of persuading, but finally someone came out to speak to me. I told him about the working and living conditions, the pesticides, the harassment, and the discrimination. Quite a crowd of shoppers had formed, unnoticed by me. I vividly remember catching a look in his eyes and realizing that not only was he not interested in what I was saying but he was irritated, and, to my surprise, I realized that I was the source of his irritation. How could he not care? I was in disbelief. I was frustrated. I was upset. But, more than anything, I was outraged. He was saying something, but I could barely make sense of it through my cloud of confusion. He wanted me to leave. I was causing a disturbance. So I did the only thing that I could think of. I grabbed a bunch of grapes and raised them above my head. Shaking them in my fists, and in the deepest, most serious fourteen-year-old voice I could muster, I yelled, These grapes have blood on them! I slammed the grapes against the floor. Only then did I notice the crowd. I spun around and marched out of the store. I wasnt sure where I was headed, but I had to move. A few minutes later, my mom was at my side, saying it would be a long time until we would or could go back to that store. I wasnt sure if she was speaking in support of me or out of embarrassment because of what I had just done. I didnt care.

It wasnt until years later that I found out that the grocer had tried to make my mother pay for the grapes. Not only did she refuse, but she left her shopping cart in the middle of the produce section and left the store. We never shopped there again.

My early stages of activism were so filled with passion and outrage that I was often unsure of what to do with myself. I was angry a lot and embraced the saying If youre not outraged, youre not paying attention. Many people told me that I overwhelmed them, that I turned people off to what I was saying because I yelled. I never thought that I yelled; I thought I spoke with passion. These responses were hard to understand because I thought I had a message people needed to hear, quite frankly, whether they thought so or not. I was learning so much, and my awareness of the issues was growing, perhaps faster than my diplomatic skills. I was searching for my voice and a way to use it effectively.

Around this time, my mother began to find her voiceor at least a new one. At forty-one, she became a re-entry student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and took classes with, and later became a teachers assistant to, Bettina Aptheker, a womens studies instructor and a long-time activist. And, while the experience and transformation was hers, as her daughter, I was deeply affected. I would often beg my mother to take me to class with her. I had grown up in a predominately female family, one that supported strong women, but I had not been widely exposed to the political nature of being female in a male-dominated society. I grew up on a ranch with two sisters where there were no boys to do the boys work and with a father who had no sons and who didnt see that as a deficiency. I grew up being told that I could do anything that I put my mind to and that my voice mattered. This, as I began to learn in Apthekers class, was not the norm. I sat in huge lecture halls, and, while I learned about womens empowerment and many political victories, I also began to learn about violence, oppression, racism, sexism, and homophobia. And, again, I was outraged.

Four years later, when I left my mothers college for my own, I looked around for the feminist community, and I found NOW, the National Organization for Women. I began a relationship that would change the course of my life. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that, a few years later, at age twenty-eight, I would become California NOWs youngest president, leading the largest statewide feminist organization in the country at that time. I soon found myself a part of an active, vocal, and diverse group of young women and men who considered ourselves third-wave feminists. We were (and are) in a unique position of working alongside many second-wave feminists, those who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. I am indebted to the people who mentored and guided me, women who fought similar battles before me, who had an understanding of the big picture, and who could guide me to more effective ways of using my voice. At the same time, I believe that those of us who consider ourselves third wavers have something unique to offer. As a result of the efforts of our foremothers, we came of age with many of the rights and advantages that they did not have. We didnt have to fight for the right to be educated or to have a career; we could choose to obtain a safe and legal abortion, if we wanted one; we did not have to fight these struggles because the women and men who came before us already had. With these battles already waged, many of us were all the stronger, which in turn informed our experience with feminism. As third wavers joined with second wavers, we were charged with building intergenerational partnerships in which we incorporate the knowledge and experience of the women who came before us and the knowledge and experience of women who were coming of age.