"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me f rom a doormat..."
Rebecca West, 1913.

I have always had a sticky relationship with feminism as a definition. When I was younger I would probably have said that of course I was a feminist (if anyone had asked me) - after all I believed, like Robyn Ochs in "Bisexuality, Feminism, Men and Me" that "women deserved equal pay for equal work and that we had the right not to be raped or battered and the right to control our own reproduction". Thanks to a strong minded mother and an equally eccentric convent school I don't think I ever suffered from sexism in my education. Except perhaps in being practically bullied into traditionally male subjects. When I left school I knew all about how I shouldn't let men treat me, and never once did more than my fair share of washing up.

So why do I feel it all went wrong? I only fully realised the answer recently during a discussion on why women don't report sexual harrassment. Then I found myself too ashamed to say that I had not reported harrassment in the past. Why feel guilty? I knew perfectly well, at one level, that I had had good reasons - fear of the repurcussions or of making things worse, fear of "making a fuss about nothing" - but I realised that I was feeling ashamed of my actions, which were actually perfectly logical, because I SHOULD BE A STRONG WOMAN. This was the REAL message I had picked up from school, that even though all women have the right not to be harrassed, HARRASSMENT IS SOMETHING THAT ONLY HAPPENS TO OTHER WOMEN. THEY are the "victims" whom we. the strong women, are fighting to defend.

At some point I think I had quietlv dropped my description of myself as a feminist. I would still use the word to men, but with women I quickly qualified it by saying I knew nothing about feminist 'theory'. I had had too many run-ins with women telling me I wasn't a 'proper' feminist to want to claim the identity with them. I used to think that they were right and that because I abhored any variation on the spelling of women and insisted that "he" is the generic pronoun in English (encouraged somewhat by Ursula LeGuin, who has, thankfully, changed her mind), I must fall into the category of "I'm not a feminist, but..."

I'm not sure if reading Closer To Home has changed me very much, there are still points of view I disagree with, but they seem minor niggles next to the realisation that there are bisexual feminists. Women who in spite of other women using "feminist" arguments against us are determined not to give up a vital movement.

It's easier to see now, when I read derogatory references to "PC" being used somewhat as "women's lib" used to be to excuse all manner of reactionary bullshit, that I had swallowed the tabloid obsession with the (often mythical) trappings of feminism and failed to pick up the central point, which is, as Bluff Your Way In Feminism helpfully points out, that "Feminism exposes the greatest bluff - that women are not quite as good at most things, the important ones, as men."

It took me a long while to realise that I couldn't review Closer to Home, if only because I don't know if I will ever read every essay in it. Some are so academic that I can't begin to understand them, Others, like Stacey Young on "Ex-Lesbians" happily explode theories of the past that have been used to oppress us. At least I feel now that I can call myself a feminist. Closer To Home is not so much about Bisexuality and Feminism as about individual bisexual women - but these days I'm beginning to see less and less difference.

Last updated 4th March 2000