Feminist: The Unmentionable Identity

I haven't uttered the word "feminist" or any variations thereof within my workplace since I started my job over a year ago. So when I finally said it this morning to a female manager whom I had never met before, it rolled off of my tongue and tasted sweet like maple syrup or melted caramel or all of the forbidden things that make you so happy you feel guilty inside. I've never been able to decide quite why that word means so much to me. I feel it is my prized possession. It is my identity. Feminism is something - maybe the only thing - I've ever felt like fighting for. And I hadn't said it for 14 months at work.

So I put together some missing pieces today. In between my meetings and brainstorming and formatting, I found what I need to keep going.

Lately I've been feeling as though I were outside of some club, banging on the door to get in. As our company moves into the digital domain, I worry that women of my generation will be left behind. We are seen as excellent coordinators, but I feel that many people don't trust our capacity to understand code or program anything at all. I can't do those things, to be sure. But I can fake it really well, and I can also readily accept opportunities to learn.

I feel that "feminism" and "gender" don't come up at work because there is an unspoken acknowledgement that my field is 90% female-dominated. How could we possibly be promoting gender inequality in the workplace when we employ so many women? That would be the logical conclusion. But keep in mind that my industry is one of the lowest-paid out there. Does it surprise you, then, that it is dominated by women in all but the highest of the high positions (CEO, Vice Presidents, etc.)? I worked at a feminist publishing company and almost at the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor for a time. I've stared the statistics down, hoping that I could change things if I glared at the numbers long enough. I've been through many a sleepless night wondering if I've been looked over because I uphold so many of the stereotypes of my "womanhood". I'm sick of feeling like I have to change myself to be heard.

Today, during that meeting, the word felt so right as I compared my previous workplace, which was very conscious and critical of gender identities and norms, to my current one. The woman sitting across from me, tattoos covering her arms, nodded and smiled like we had just entered a secret pact. We understood one another. We said the unspeakable.

For the rest of the day, I felt energized by just acknowledging my own gender identity and all the things I've fought for in the past. Isn't that strange? I think that is something men could never understand and something they even fear a little bit. Women really do have an understanding for each other's unique challenges and struggles and, even more, for each other's unique strengths and ability to connect with one another. Everyone should be a feminist, of course, but a woman who acknowledges her own feminist activism within the workplace is a powerful thing indeed.

Now that I've said the word, I don't know where to take things from there. I would like to find a mentor or even mentor someone else outside of work, but, like everything else in life, the task seems insurmountable at this point.

Either way, I am bringing back that side of myself. I just haven't quite decided how. I have to do things that are socially acceptable after all. And being a self-proclaimed feminist at work has never been socially acceptable.