I'm a Feminist Because I'm a Misogynist

    I hate the word "woman." That's why I'm a feminist.
    Woman. Woman, she shall be called, because she was taken from man.
    Woman makes my tummy tingle and conjures up an image of someone dressed in a dim pink sheath, submissive and silent, superficial and not so smart, her hips wide for child-bearing. A lactating cow, useful property for sex and pleasing to look at.
     I'm not fond of "lady" either, since I have no desire to scream and pull my skirts away from devious little mice, and I'm just not an elegant person. I need glasses, I'm perpetually covered in cat hair, and my makeup usually consists of red rings on my face from my lab goggles.
    Call me a girl. Even if it makes me sound childlike and sheltered and in need of protection. Even though when I fail at sports or get a question wrong in chemistry, failing kind of makes sense because I'm a girl. At least a girl runs free and does what she wants.
    Just don't say I'm a woman. I'm not a doormat sex object or a child-bearing oven. I'm not your bitch.

    ***

    I hope I don't have to tell you that this is misogyny. Misogyny of the sickest, deepest kind, lodged deep in my heart and soul.
    My soul. Me. I am a humanist, a Jesus-loving feminist.
    And I hate being a "woman." I'm uncomfortable with being twenty-one, no longer really qualifying as a girl, having periods and hips far fuller than my breasts. I'm uncomfortable being thought of as a tantalizing treat.
    So. There is misogyny in me.
    Don't you see how unbelievably screwed up this is?

   ***

    But what is "woman," exactly? It's a concept that describes what I am, for the world.
    Those stupid misogynistic images? Mere connotation (which, in case you don't know, signals that our world is unbelievably screwed up. Connotation comes from somewhere).
    This, however, is the image that comes up when I search "woman" on the Internet:

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

     Naked, covered, old, young, fat and skinny. Beautiful and ungainly. Sculptured, painted, photographed. Together, they're a myriad of colors, depicting people of different races and religions and different times. Different stories, too, uniquely their own.    
    They're all people.
    These are people; they've lived. Don't you see, these are women and they are people, people who've etched themselves into many or few people's lives.
    Aren't they beautiful? And handsome? And glorious?
    Don't you see Jesus reflected in their many colors and stories?
    This picture? It's feminism.

***

    I'm a feminist because I'm a woman, and I have misogyny hiding in my darkest, most secret parts.
    Feminism says only this: I'm a woman. Because what woman means is human. Fully, deeply, intimately, intricately human.
    And, to take that one step further, if I'm a woman, I reflect Jesus.
    I will not be prescribed how to reflect Jesus based on a chromosome. He is God - God so unending, so far above what we can comprehend, facets of Her can be reflected and found in everyone and still many more left over.
     So, yeah. That's why I'm a feminist.

Love,
Kelley