I Want to Be a Feminist Super Heroine.

I somehow ended up at a hipster house party last night. The apartment felt like it could be an apartment anywhere, wood paneling, ceiling panels painted with designs out of boredom, some covered with birds and marker swirls, some covered with mold. When everyone was packed into the kitchen for the music it smelt and it felt and it looked like a thrift store threw up everywhere. Ugly 90's sweaters, ribbon barrettes, animal screen prints. Lots of tight pants and old dirty zip hoodies. It was like half of the kids wore moth-ball perfume that couldn't mask the eight day old sweat stench. Not that I'm complaining. I had a good time (for the most part).

But, earlier that day I had watched a movie called Women, Art, Revolution! which was a documentary on feminist art. Anyway it made me question what I've been doing in regards to the Feminist Creative Alliance and feminism in general.

At the party I moved away from theory into reality.

One minute I was a feminist super heroine separating a potential rapist from his prey; the next I was a lowly passive woman allowing "chicks" to be part of some dudes vocabulary.

And that's when I realized it really is all about picking the right battles. I could tolerate "chicks" because he was using it in an almost positive way. "I really dig it when chicks are in bands." I mean, at least he supports women rock.

But when some really drugged out dude keeps trying to mouth fuck a woman and the woman keeps trying to fight him off but he doesn't back away, well, I feel no guilt interfering.

Yet it really pisses me off that I had to witness it. That it even happens. But we can't pretend it doesn't. Put a bunch of 20-somethings in a room with drugs and alcohol and voila' animalistic assholes emerge.

But that brings me back to my internal debate of feminism in general. Sure, feminism has done work on improving our society, but it hasn't done enough. The woman fought him off and there were other people around to support her decision, but he still thought it was okay to behave that way. And that shouldn't be the case. It shouldn't be this woman v. man fight. Women shouldn't be the only ones learning that rape is bad. If the statistic reads, 1 in 3 women are raped, where is the other one? The one that says 1 in 3 men are rapists? (or whatever the actual number is). That would surely stir some thought wouldn't it?

I believe feminism belongs to everyone, men, women, and those in between or outside those labels. It's about ending oppression. The oppression that keeps ALL people from reaching their true potential. And I'll repeat that again and again until the end.

It's a constant struggle for me to see oppressive behavior day in and day out and not really feel like I can do much about it. I'm working on figuring out ways to make positive change, to actually see an impact, to get closer to the over-arching goal. So if you have any suggestions, please send them my way. In the meantime, I'll keep picking my battles. I'll keep dreaming of being the next female film heroine, like Uma in Kill Bill, or Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers except my character kills misogynist rapists. I could dig that. I mean, if I wasn't a vegan.