I learned I was a radical about a year ago. No, not a communist. A different kind of radical.
I was standing at the entrance to a London Underground station with some new friends I had made while studying in the UK. We all had the ID cards that regular Tube passengers use to pay for travel, and we were comparing pictures.
As I lamented how I always manage to look angry in ID photos, one friend noticed that my card said Ms. Amanda Teuscher instead of Miss. I, being blessed with the gift of assuming that everyone cares about my opinions, was ready for her.
I choose to go by 'Ms.' because I don't want to be defined by my marital status or my age
I said. I think I went on a bit about the patriarchy, how changing your name upon marriage means you've become the property of your husband and how I didn't know if I wanted to get married anyway. But I stopped myself before I really got on a roll.
I guess I'm a feminist she said. But I'm not radical or anything. The others nodded and began walking away, and I was left staring into the angry face of what apparently was a radical Underground passenger.
I suppose that's what's tricky about being radical: You think your beliefs are rational and right until a friend politely informs you that you're crazy. My problem is that I still think I'm right, just not radical. The word radical had always brought to my mind images of bombs and wild demonstrations, or maybe men with long beards and pitchforks.
I had neither bombs nor a beard, and I don't think my friend was implying that I did. Yet I was being dismissed as if my beliefs were ridiculous fringe opinions, as if the true test of an opinion's legitimacy was how closely it ran to the middle ground, even if that middle ground tells me that there are certain ways I should behave and look simply because I am a woman.
I had never really thought going by Ms. was all that interesting. It seemed completely normal, because I had assumed that most women went by that title nowadays. It's completely logical that women should need only one title if men need only one. The for the sake of tradition argument doesn't mean much to me.
But some of the women I know are not ready to forgo that tradition, perhaps because they know they're going to be married by 25. Many of them won't call themselves feminists. And if they do, they're very careful not to step on any toes.
We all know about this problem ' that many young women refuse to be labeled feminists. Some women are probably afraid that men won't find them attractive. That sort of thinking may be hilariously ironic, but it's probably sound reasoning. All those times I've gotten angry at a guy for calling me a chick didn't quite get me a date.
Perhaps distaste for feminism is because of the perception of what feminism is. Anti-feminists, post-feminists and the apathetic so often treat feminism like a monolithic entity, a single-minded but many-headed monster with hairy armpits that tells women to be angry with men for everything. Feminism then becomes an organization whose membership they can decline, and the belief in the importance of gender equality loses the universal appeal it should have.
This kind of thinking persuades women to avoid being associated with feminism. And it leads women like my friends, who do call themselves feminists, to believe that just liking the idea of feminism is enough. As soon as they act on that idea, though, they become subversive and radical.
Even if gender inequality, violence against women and sexism (whether subtle or blatant) cease to exist, I will still be a feminist'because such problems should never exist. But as long as we still have to deal with those issues, I will act on my belief in whatever way I can. Even if that makes me radical.Amanda Teuscher is a senior journalism major. Send her an e-mail at at156604@ohiou.edu.
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Amanda Teuscher
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