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Kelly Love Johnson

Skirt! managing editor

Writer, editor, author, independent girly feminist hipster, slightly neurotic, cynically optimistic, compassionately liberal, fiscally conservative, somewhat intellectual, and always irreverent. ...

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Sacrifice or compromise?

Kelly Love Johnson

We’re working on our July issue now (theme: “The F-Word: Feminism & Fashion), so I’ve been doing more thinking than usual about my own feminist ideals. I don’t want to get into a lengthy diatribe about feminism in general here. I spent several months last year working on a book about the wage gap and I’m tired of hearing about how feminism is a dirty word and this is just about ME, so...

I had an interesting discussion with a friend last weekend about the state of my social and/or romantic life. One of us (OK, it was me) dragged out the “what I’ve sacrificed for feminism” soapbox. When I’m sane, I don’t think “sacrifice” is the right word. I won’t compromise my ideals to pair off with someone who won’t see me as an equal partner. I won’t date someone who is homophobic, Republican, racist, classist, or sexist. I’m not, by anyone’s standards, what Limbaugh refers to as a “feminazi” (none of us are; there’s a reason why people think he’s an idiot). I don’t get up in anyone’s grill for admitting to a love of pornography (though I do think people should be responsible and only watch non-exploitative porn made by companies who pay their performers well and ensure health standards are met). I don’t screech like a banshee when a friend bashes Hillary (though I might try to engage them in a dialogue about misogyny). I wear makeup and heels, shave my legs, and get regular mani/pedis (but I do these things because they make ME happy, not because the person I’m dating thinks I should).

Dating is hard, period. When I’m not being rational, I would love to blame the fact that I have trouble with long-term relationships on (1) men having issues with independent women, (2) that I can be intimidating (drives me insane when friends tell me this), or (3) that I’m a hardass who won’t compromise. Therefore, me being not just a feminist, but an activist as well (I live my ideals, I vote with my dollars...), means I have to give up aspirations for marriage, white picket fences, children, or long-term relationships with men in general.

However, my rational mind knows that I’m the one who has commitment issues. I’m the one who is picky, picky, picky. I can be judgmental (I once stopped dating a guy because he golfed every weekend and I hate golf, therefore I figured we could never be a match). I can be fiercely protective of my time alone. I hate the part of the relationship when I start to feel suffocated because he has to know what I am doing and where I am every single day. And also from my rational mind: I decided a long time ago that I don’t really want children. So what am I bitching about?

My friend and I (sort of) jokingly batted around the idea of putting up a super honest profile on Match.com – something along the lines of “independent woman seeks confident, secure man. Must have roof over head, job, transportation, own more than one hardback book, an interest in politics, and a life of his own.” I haven’t done it. Yet. I fear that my current existential dilemma is a portent of the bitter woman I will someday become. I fear that I will get responses from men who will tell me I’m prettier when I smile or men who think I might be the perfect “S” for their BDSM fantasies (that really happened the last time I signed up at Match.com for about 2 weeks – I got so many freak connections that I deleted my profile). I even fear that I will meet someone who fits all of my requirements and someday I will have to tell people I met him online.

I know one can be a feminist and also fall in love. I’ve fallen in love several times. I also know many feminist women who are in very healthy long-term relationships and marriages. So there goes my hook for a possible essay for our July issue. I cannot blame my lack of love life on feminism, dammit. It is me. But perhaps I could still put that profile up and see what happens....at the least, I might get an essay out of it.