yes, you are

All right, I remember what I wanted to say.

(This is apropos of absolutely nothing, I swear; this is not in response to anything that's happened to me recently.)

Do you think that men and women should be equal? Then you are a feminist. No, shut up, you are. Maybe you aren't really a radical feminist (who has the energy?); maybe you think individualist feminism is dumb (they are associated with libertarians, so maybe you're onto something); maybe you aren't into ecofeminism (who knew it existed?); maybe you aren't even into liberal feminism (really, not even them? I guess they are pretty bourgeois).

Maybe you haven't gone to the effort to figure out your ideological position when it comes to feminism. Hey, don't feel bad, I'm just starting to figure it out for myself, and not only am I a girl, but I spend lots of energy thinking of myself as politically aware and/or informed. (Ha!) The point is, if you believe men and women are equal, you are a feminist. There is nothing wrong with that. You don't have to act a certain way, or believe anything else. You can be a feminist and like shopping and boys; you can also like non-stereotypically girly things. You can be a feminist and still not really care about whether something is stereotypically girly or reinforcing the patriarchy or setting back the women's movement. It's cool; all that shit takes tons of energy! Who has the time?

But it is important to realize that if you believe men and women are equal, you are a feminist. It might even be important to realize that even if you don't really care about it, there is a patriarchy, there are still institutional biases towards women (just like there's still shit tons of institutional racism!), women are still not equal citizens in the United States. You don't have to sit around talking about it; seriously, I won't think less of you--talking about this shit takes a lot out of you.

What's important is that you are a feminist, because you believe that men and women are equal.

And if you don't, then honestly, why are you even reading this?

Next week's lecture will be about why it's culturally insensitive to refer to the United States as "America" (it's almost Independence Day, so it'll even be topical!!!).