What feminism really means to me.

I've talked too much about what I don't think feminism is. (Victimhood, puritanism, or applying academic overanalysis to the real world, for instance. Those aren't it.) I think I have to do something more difficult and talk about what I do see in it.

Freedom.

To me, feminism is about securing choices and opportunities for women. Being able to choose to have a child, or not. To marry, or not. To have forty-five partners or two or one or none, to fuck for love or money or fun, and to not lose other options in your life when you do. To have any job you're qualified for. To dress and act like a boy or girl or neither.

Wearing lipstick is neither feminist nor antifeminist; waking up in the morning and realizing that you can choose for yourself whether you want lipstick, and won't be slutty if you wear it or sloppy if you don't, is feminist.

Of course total freedom is impossible; for me to be entirely free would necessarily remove someone else's freedom, and anyway it's not going to happen. As long as the world has finite resources and humans think independently, no one is free free in the obnoxiously literal sense. But I believe that the goal of feminism is to allow women to be as free as possible.

People, really. Along with releasing women from the necessity of acting ladylike (while preserving the option!) comes releasing men from having to be manly. For every woman who hides her sexuality so as not to be a dirty slut, there's a man who actually doesn't lust for everything with legs and a low BMI but would be a total pansy to admit it. Feminism is about freeing people from the restrictions of gender.