#GirlsShitToo

Girls For Feminism

Adree's impending arrival at my house made me nervous, and I didn't know why. Maybe because I couldn't tell exactly what her and I were. Were we friends, or something more? Why was she embarrassed about her sexual history? Was it because she thought I would judge her as a girl, as a friend, or as a potential...something more?

Soon after she came over, I realized I shouldn't have been nervous at all, because our time spent prepping our vlog went so smoothly. We each brainstormed what we thought feminism was, and she even made up this cool color-coded chart, like Valerie sometimes did in chemistry. Color-coordinating and organizing seemed to be important for girls like them who cared about fashion—the way things look—but maybe the care for fashion translated well into formatting and organizing assignments. Maybe that's why I'd always sucked at those things.

After an evening spent planning and color-coding and organizing and scripting, Adree and I were finally ready to take the video of ourselves.

Girls For Feminism

Published on May 8, 2015

Youtube Video Transcript:

Adree: Hey everyone! Dalladree here!

Dallas: This vlog is a response to a recent vlog posted by Amy Denzer called, "What One Antifeminist Thinks of Dalladree." If you haven't watched it yet, we've provided the link in the description. Basically, Amy says that feminism isn't good because it's dividing us.

Amy made us realize something really important. Feminism shouldn't be dividing us. Women should come together to fight for equality. Really, we should all come together to fight for equality—women and men—but so many people still think we don't deserve it, which is unfortunate.

That's why Adree and I have decided to come together for this video.

While it might seem like our opinions have been divided, we have, in a sense, been collaborating this whole time. This project has turned into a conversation, and we always give each other room to speak, and engage each other, and respond to one another. We don't ignore or belittle each other. Usually. We've never called each other "stupid," for example.

Adree: Feminism is about equality. It's literally revising our knowledge, which is changing our world, for the better. It's one of the reasons we go back through history to find voices that have been oppressed or silenced, so that we can rewrite them into the books. It's one of the reasons scientists are using new and different kinds of evidence, like the lived experiences of gay people. It's the reason we're beginning to value diverse and diverging voices in entertainment. It's the reason so many people are thinking critically about equality and taking steps to achieve social justice for all. And modern feminism is intersectional, which means it's paying attention to the way that gender intersects with things like race, class, and ability, and how inequality varies at these intersections. And feminism is as relevant now as it has ever been!

Dallas: You called feminism a "stagnant movement," but it's as mobile as ever. You reduced it to a "theory," but it's so much more. It's a set of tools, a lens for viewing the world, a body of knowledge. We can use feminism to examine society and to discover what's wrong with the way that different groups of individuals are treated. And yeah, okay, in this body of knowledge there are tons of contradicting and colliding ideas. And apparently you think this is grounds to say that feminism isn't real and that we should all be antifeminists. But, saying you are anti-feminism because you don't agree with some lines of thought in feminism is like saying you are anti-science because you don't like some paths of inquiry in science.

Adree: I really don't understand why you're calling all of us girls who have labeled ourselves feminists "brainwashed." Yeah, it's true we've all been influenced... by our teachers, and by celebrities, and even the suffragettes who existed before we were born. But they haven't brainwashed us. They've influenced us in the most positive way possible. Because they've used feminism to question what is considered "normal" or "true" or "right," and they've taught us how we can do the same, for ourselves. Critical thinkers aren't "brainwashed."

Dallas: By the way, Amy, my mom is totally on board with feminism, and she is currently a stay-at-home mom who does my stepdad's laundry and makes us both sandwiches weekly. And she's happy to do it. Feminists aren't necessarily against that sort of thing. They are against the thought that it should be expected from them because they are women. But my mom doesn't do it because she's a woman. She does it because she enjoys it, and because it works in her relationship with my stepdad and with me. And occasionally, we switch it up and my stepdad will make the sandwiches.

Adree: Will you make us sandwiches right now?

Dallas: Sure!

* * *

We had just finished, and Adree clapped and said, "Yay!" as I shut my laptop and set it on the ground. Then I sat back down next to her on my bed, and looked into her eyes, feeling at home.

"I don't really want a sandwich," she said.

"Do you want something else? We have leftover pizza—"

"—Can I kiss you, Dallas?" Her face was closer to me now, her voice softer.

Swallowing, I said, "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

"I thought you didn't care about following our script."

First smiling, I nodded.

So we kissed. My third kiss.

Her tongue was warm and tasted like the cinnamon lattes she had brought over for us to use as brain food. She had both her hands on my face, and I could feel the tips of her nails gently resting on my neck. I had strategically put my left hand on her back, and it made its way to her side, hugging her closer to me, without me really even thinking about it. Maybe that's what people meant when they told you that some romantic encounters occur "naturally"—that they occur without much thought, because you are doing more than thinking. I brought my other hand to the backside of her neck, and put my fingers up into her tinted hair. The next thing I knew, she was on top of me, on my lap, and I had a sudden realization that my lady parts had never been this close to someone else's.

But suddenly we heard pounding on my door, followed by Roy saying, "Nachos!" I was glad he had the decency not to come right in; I'd heard of parents who did that (like Alex's mom the week before or Trish's mom when she was a freshman), and those invasions of privacy never seemed to end well.

We ate our nachos in silence, sneaking smiles to each other with each bite. I couldn't believe we'd just kissed, and part of me wondered if I'd imagined it.