Apparent feminism is designed to allow for action on the part of several different groups.
If you’re already a feminist:
- Make your feminism apparent. Do your best to help those who recoil from that label to understand what it means to you. Put a face on it for them.
- Be willing to have conversations with non-feminists. Don’t insist they embrace that label. Listen to them.
- Form alliances with non-feminists to do social justice work.
If you’re not necessarily a feminist, but you’re sympathetic to many feminist causes:
- Have conversations with feminists. Let them know why you don’t consider yourself a feminist.
- Form alliances with feminists to do social justice work.
If you’re definitely not a feminist:
- Know that feminism affects and interacts with many different intersectionalities of oppression. Conversations with feminists may help you to promote YOUR agenda.
- Know that other social justice causes are linked to feminism. For example, Katsi Cook argues that women’s bodies are the first environment (in Winona LaDuke’s All Our Relations). Thus, sustainability movements aimed at producing healthier bodies and healthier environments can be strengthened by many feminist endeavors.
- Form alliances with feminists to do social justice work.
