Ingegno 1

Karlee Ingegno

Dr. Katelyn Burton Prager

EN362 Section 802 Creative Nonfiction

25 November 2020

A Fallacy of Equality

Sometimes there are just those words

The ones that irritate eyes and aggravate minds.
Like Feminism.
What a dirty word.
Over time coming in waves
Weaponized against those that need it most.
Somehow I cannot blame middle-aged men:
Terrified by their loss of power with the fall of the patriarchy.
Yet if they only knew that this is what feminism looks like:

The first wave is small. Spreading like ripples in water as a rock is plopped into a pond.
The impact is shocking but dies down quickly.
She is old.
Likely dead by now
Just trying to be seen as a human.
At Seneca Falls.1
She doesn’t want to be bound to the confines of her home.
But she has no other choice.
She is a citizen by the thread of her being
So she waits a lifetime, till that day.
1919.2
When she woke up and the world seemed different.

They are still not content.

Some women fight back.
Blinded by their privilege
They didn’t want this.
They sit in high castles that tower over plantations
If we gain these rights, is it worth what we will lose?

1
Seneca Falls, New York is known for holding the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, the first women's rights
convention in the United States.
2
The year that the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women suffrage in the United States.
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Still the second wave comes back stronger; bolder perhaps.

But Betty Friedan still spoke her mind.3
In 1963.
The Feminine Mystique.
Women are victims of sexist power structures.
She knows it is personal when her body is at stake yet her mind is still belittled.
So now she can work.
Bruised and battered.
Aching to know that there is something more to life than this.
A secretary in a nuclear family
Or a rocket scientist.
That doesn’t matter.

They are not Valerie Solanas.4

But they are still as radical as ever.
S.C.U.M.
They are either a Playboy bunny or a prude.
They can have equal pay as long as I can throw it at them.
They can scream equality
But it won’t be written into law
If they can dictate their own lives then what will I do?

The third wave is devastating as it crashes down

Heeding the scorched earth.
Obnoxious and unapologetic:
Fueled by the sounds of raging guitars that blare through speakers.
Riot grrrl5
1990.
It is nothing.
It is everything.
It is nowhere.
It is everyone.
Transcending the means of what has come before it.
No longer exclusive to the means of whiteness.

3
A well-known American feminist and writer best known for writing The Feminine Mystique in 1963.
4
A radical feminst, known for writing the satirical S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto and her
attempted murder of famous artist Andy Warhol.
5
An underground feminist punk movement that appeared in the Pacific Northwest during the 1990s which
combinined feminism, punk music, and politics.
 Ingegno 3

Yet also confined by the reality of it.

Anita Hill cries out to a panel of men,6
Sat in a straight white line.
She is silenced.

They are as equal as they can be.

There is no need for feminism.
They have their rights.
Well it doesn’t count if they are anything but cisgender and straight and white.
They are still asking for problems in mini skirts
Or if they are walking down the street
When they walk into bathrooms
Or toward their cars at night.
If they can dress as they please don’t they have it coming?

Did I ask for this?

The constant feeling of fear and losing control
As if every decision I’ve made is inconsequential.
A girl living in a man’s world must be relentless.
The fight seems never-ending
And just as necessary as before.

Middle-aged men remain terrified

And cling to power as if it’s the thread of their being
Sitting in seats meant to represent all of the faces of a democracy
With a handful of women trying to represent a half
And tired voices trying to sound whole.

Now I am still silenced and scared

To look the wrong direction on a one-way street and be killed
Or turn my cheek to the sounds of purrs and glance behind at shadows of following feet.
I live under a fallacy of equality.
The world tells me that I am equal then spits in my face
If feminism is no longer needed then tell that to me.

6
An American attorney known best for her testimony in the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings for then-U.S.
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, alleging that he had sexually harassed her.