Then, today happened. In our discussion of the gay rights movement, I got into it when a boy in my class said the costumes, sexuality and frivolity displayed at some gay pride parades are damaging to the movement and the participants are impeding the process of change.
I responded that that very sentiment was in fact damaging, and that suggesting dissent should be channeled only through comfortable archetypes is in itself submitting to the politicized, institutionalized norm. If you are in favor of the equal rights for all people, how can you suggest they must remain palatable to those in control of the status quo? Can we be so limiting as to force our social movements to fit neatly into the U.S. history textbook narratives?
Sure, there are places to challenge that argument. There always will be, because it's an opinion. It's fallible. But I realized then that my newfound participation in the feminist media movement--as a reader, as future contributor--makes me a better politics student. It forces me to challenge ideas from angles I'd never considered before. Reading blogs every day teaches me how to argue a point effectively--it forces me to form my own opinions. To research on my own. To avoid jumping to conclusions. To form my own political identity beyond the walls of my home, my high school, my college classrooms.
I have a vivid memory of a mock- presidential election we did elementary school. I had no idea what was happening, but I knew that I was supposed to vote for Clinton. Because that's who I was told to vote for. My parents are always right. And, to back it all up, all my friends were told to vote for him too. Now I think I've reached a point where my political views are my own. I share a lot of my parents' views, because they're intelligent people. But it's really only now that I have the confidence to disagree with my family and friends and follow my own compass, whether I'm in close company or not.
And I kinda like that.
