Stop Calling Yourself a Feminist

Bandwagon politics, social identities, and what it means to declare yourself an “-ist”

By Nina Raemont

During my junior year of high school, a political discussion student group was formed with the intent of providing a space for students to meet and engage in political discourse. The student group’s name was Lyceum, which is defined as a hall for public meetings and discussions. Their advertising strategy was simple but effective: white printer paper with large Arial font text that read “DEMOCRACY IS A VERB” taped on stairwell windows. It took me some time before I understood what that phrase meant: we carry out a democratic society by constant discussion, analysis, and most importantly, action. Democracy is a noun, but it’s built upon steadfast action for the sake of its further existence. 

The verbs we perform shape our nouns. Our beliefs shape our identity and our identity is predicated upon our day-to-day actions. To be able to say what we are, we must know what we do. If you practice peace, you are a pacifist; if you discriminate against people of color, you are a racist; if you don’t eat meat, you are a vegetarian. Easy enough, right? Who could mess this up? Well, let me introduce you to bandwagon activism.

Remember when you made a mistake with a group of friends, and your parents asked you why you did it, and you responded, “because everyone else was doing it?” Your parents would then beg the age old question: “Well, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?” Bandwagon activism is that hypothetical question, but replace “jump off a bridge” with “vote blue.” 

So, how does bandwagon activism affect our identities? With the emergence of social media, which allows for incessant political demonstration in the form of retweets on Twitter, sharing petitions on Facebook, or infographics on Instagram stories, it takes little to no time to engage in activism. But because of this breathless form of political engagement, the question of sincerity ensues. As your peers’ publicized support increases on the apps you frequently use, so does the inclination to join these movements. It is only natural for human beings to assimilate into their social groups. What differentiates assimilation of group values from joining a movement to appear “woke” is your level of understanding and knowledge. Projecting waivering beliefs you don’t align with to feel like a part of the group muddies the political activism waters with lukewarm support. 

It has become quite difficult for me to trust the veracity of social media movements where a demonstration of support tends to take little time and no tangible action. Within seconds of viewing a video in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement that a friend shared on Twitter, you can go ahead and follow suit, retweeting, commenting and liking the video, projecting your beliefs onto your peers' feeds. Social media has provided us with our own soap box that we can stand on whenever we desire, and it takes absolutely no energy to stand on it. But how do we know that the person who shared that video actually supports Black Lives Matter? How do we know whether or not they throw around racial slurs with their friends or hold implicit biases relating to people of color? We don’t, and retweeting a video will never show you that. 

The virality of civic identity projection through social platforms has simplified identity politics. Gone are the days of searching through government records and scouring email lists to know a crush’s political affiliation. All you need to do now is check up on their retweets! This political identity check has allowed those with unsteady beliefs—those who may not know much about politics, don’t care to learn, or follow the liberal majority instead of making up their own minds—to weakly support political movements. Going to an anti-Trump rally, wearing a pussy hat during a women’s march, and slapping a “save the bees” sticker on your laptop: cool! You are “woke!” You are validated! But a problem arises when an indifferent supporter who is at these events “for the culture,” or who buys the “save the planet” stickers to flirt with Chaco-wearing sustainability majors, fails to educate themselves on the gravity and meaning behind the causes they back. 

As someone who holds feminist ideals, the biggest bone I have to pick with this faux-social activism is the publicizing of support for feminism. As previously mentioned, to define yourself as any type of “-ist” is to fulfill those actions throughout your life. Slapping a “feminist” sticker on your laptop or putting the words in your bio to prove your political “woke”-ness, yet siding with the man in cases of sexual assault, criticizing a woman for what she wears, derogating her identity by her number of sexual partners, failing to support women-owned businesses and art, and voting against the interests of your own gender proves otherwise. But it is also the minuscule ways we suppress female power. It can be seen in the classroom, when men talk over women in group discussions, or in the business world, where the majority of C-suite positions are held by white men, or in the political world, where men decide whether or not a woman can control her own body. I’m sure these classmates, CEOs, and representatives have thrown around the word “feminist” once or twice. But self-declaration and action are two separate entities. Feminism isn’t a badge of honor that you wear when the situation is most desirable, but a persistent set of actions that you perform each and every day to continue the strides towards equality.

This idea of pseudo-feminism appears in many areas of our world. Take the Oscars, where, this year, despite myriad female-directed film contenders, like “Hustlers,” “The Farewell,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” and “Queen & Slim,”  no female directors were nominated for Best Director. This comes as no surprise. Throughout the 92 years of the Academy Awards’ existence, women have been nominated for Best Director only five times and only one woman, Kathryn Bigelow, has ever won the award, according to TIME. The Academy Awards are known as an organization that values the arts and progressive filmmaking, but it appears as though nominating a woman for her well-deserved work is not within the cinematic realm of possibility. The Oscar nominations are a stunning example of an organization that appears to support the underdog and liberal values—in this case, women and minorities—but never puts that work into practice. 

You are what you do, not what you say you do. Feminism, like racism or pacifism, is something we carry out, not something we declare. Understand what you do, understand the beliefs you hold, and analyze why you hold them. But until you do that, stop calling yourself a feminist.