09
Take a large empty bowl,
Fill it with ingredients like a cup of poetry classes, a glass of swimming practices, A’s and B’s in honor
level courses and, and.... There’s a missing ingredient.
Something that preferably has a cause. Something you care a lot about. Something like chocolate that
almost everyone loves. There’s an entire bottle of powdered feminism on the counter; sitting there,
staring at me, amongst other bottles of spices like cinnamon and basil.
I heard it complements everything. It enhances the flavors of the inequality present among the boys and
girls on the swim team; how this co-ed team seems to always have a boy as a captain, even if Martha can
swim that 500m faster than him. It adds a quality flavor to the inequality the Bible taught me, growing
up. That Eve, the woman, had to be the sinner in the story. It complements the second thoughts girls in
my class have to face, before they can speak over the boys; a girl’s hands are often always the tortoises to
the hare of a boy’s hands, less impulsive on our answers, yet the speed of their hand raises always beat
this race, this race to equality that is not yet over.
I sprinkle the entire bottle into the bowl, trying to make sure that everything in this dish is coated in
chocolate flavored feminism. Each ingredient will have to be spiced in this luscious flavor. Every aspect
of my language and actions shall have a strong hint of feminism... At least when I was 12.
I remembered loving it at first taste. It was as if my veil of unawareness has been yanked and I finally
see the world for what it really is. When my cousin first introduced this to me, it felt, convincing and
empowering to know what flavor I wanted to be, that I am a flavor that’s sweet and everyone loves. It
felt awesome being the 12-year old who took a stand and ran a feminist club and had a slight clue about
what she wanted to do. It felt right to be surrounded by a community of passionate feminists who felt
the same way.
But I have to say, there is chocolate that I am no t in favor of. Some one of a kind chocolate flavors.
The bitter, spicy, not so friendly, chocolate. The bra-burning, man-hating feminists that exist. Those
feminists who warmly welcome a TV slogan like “no uterus, no opinion,” or “men shouldn’t exist.”
Those feminists who spoke in my poetry class and proudly observed, “I’m so glad we’re just girls, if there
were men in here, their ideas would be way out of this world.” And owning this title meant surrounding
myself with these rules of feminism.
Maybe this is not the flavor I’m looking for. Maybe I think a man shouldn’t be deprived of an opinion
because he has testicles. Maybe the trendy flavor of demonizing masculinity isn’t my way of tasting
women empowerment. I mean I absolutely don’t hate it. I still absolutely love the passionate feminists
that continue to fight for gender equity. And I know chocolate makes everything better but I only want
to have it in some meals, where the sweetness of gender equity is really needed, and I know I don’t want
it to overpower the other great flavors the other genders have to offer. Maybe this bowl of identity needs
something else aside from A’s and B’s, swim meets, and feminism.
I mean I’m still learning what the flavor of my identity will be, and I swear I’m pouring a different
ingredient each day. And I hope this not be perceived as anti-feminist because it’s only my experiences
suggesting I shouldn’t rush into a flavor for now.