My original piece of writing was a short analysis of Adrienne Rich’s poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” that I wrote for an English class my freshman year of college. The poem really stuck with me, and I had the opportunity to explore why, so I took it. I analyzed the relationship between Aunt Jennifer and the narrator, presumably her niece. I noticed the hints of pity and frustration in the narrator's words, so I analyzed generational differences. I also noticed the tiny sparks of hope and relief in Aunt Jennifer as she worked on her tapestry, so I wrote about art as a form of resistance. The poem was heartbreaking and freeing at the same time, and I thought that spoke to both of these themes. Aunt Jennifer’s silent protest may not have seemed like quite enough for her niece, but it took all the courage she had. What she was doing was creating a symbol of bravery that would ignite hope in others even after she was gone.
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My first experiment focused on the generational differences I saw between Aunt Jennifer and the niece in the poem. I really wanted to explore generational differences in feminists as a notion that was probably true but needed evidence. Actually talking to feminists about this seemed like the best way to collect this evidence, instead of reading about the history of feminism and making my own claims about it. For the experiment, I only did one interview. I started with Abby who I had as a professor during this experimenting process. I wrote about ten questions that I thought would help start a conversation about generational differences in feminists, and I shared them with her before the interview because everyone likes to be prepared. I had no idea if my questions would actually work, but I knew Abby as a professor and I had no doubt I would come away with something really amazing regardless of what I asked. And I was right, I got everything I needed and more. Abby’s interview was so exciting, and I really wanted to do more interviews. Already, I was pretty sure I would end up continuing this process for the final version of my project.
My second experiment explored art as protest. I decided to research how art has been used in different social justice movements throughout American history. Art is huge for protest, obviously, because it can say a lot more in a fraction of the time, and it can reach so many people. The plan was to find five or six pieces of somewhat recognizable art that were used to speak for a social justice movement. This experiment was a research project that would be displayed as artist labels, featuring a short bio of the artist, a description of the movement and time period it was featured in, and how the piece of art was used to spread the movement. The example piece I used was Barbara Jones-Hogu’s Unite, which she made in 1971 for the Black Power Movement. The example looked really great, and I came across a lot of awesome pieces of art before I decided to go with this one, but I still enjoyed the interview project more.
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My third and last experiment was a personal essay about how I would use art to protest. I wrote how I feel about the dangers of confining children to a gender binary, something that bothers me immensely. I wrote about how this concept makes me feel, and why. I described a piece of art that demonstrated the happiness of a child free from gender roles, and the how it would make every child that looked at it just as happy. It was fun to write, and it brought me joy to imagine what this picture could be and do for children. But I realized it didn’t make much sense to write about it without doing it, and writing about my own experiences does not come as naturally for me as writing about others’. So I quickly discarded this as an option for my final project, and I was back to experiment one.
I knew the first experiment was the right choice. I had a clear vision of how I wanted it to turn out, which I couldn’t see for the other two. The experiment needed some revising if I was going to realistically finish the project, so I condensed some of the questions to get more pointed responses, and I cut down the number of interview subjects to four instead of the original seven, which was far too ambitious. I got to start with the most exciting part, which was conducting the interviews. As I finished each of them, I became even more passionate about the outcome of the project, and things started falling into place as I got further into it.
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It was explicit very early on that there were generational differences that exist within feminists. The question changed from whether or not they exist, to how they exist. I’m not even halfway through my college career, my experience is limited. I could write a paper on all the scenarios in which I think generational differences in feminists play out, but I would just be speculating. Collecting this oral history was the only valid way for me, personally, to execute this project. One limitation of my methods that was brought to my attention during my last interview, is that I only spoke to women who are at a prestigious university. Three of them have Ph.D’s, and one of them as well as I have the means to attend this university. Class standing plays a significant role in privilege, and in that sense my perspectives are limited. Generational difference is only one variation among feminists. Class difference carries a certain weight as well.
Most of the writing I’ve done in my life has been for school. Most of that writing was analytical, which I never minded doing. I love reading, and I love writing about what I’ve read. I’ve been aware of that since I started doing it. Whenever I had a writing assignment, I was really loyal to one argument, even if that wasn’t necessarily the point of the assignment. That was ingrained in my mind, which is why I developed this preference for research-based writing. I think facts and evidence make me really comfortable when I write, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but it’s definitely how I think. This project is bigger than anything I’ve done before, and it was outside of my comfort zone because I did require myself to write about my own experience as a feminist, but I collected evidence that made me a little more comfortable in doing so. The stories that these women told me definitely motivated me to be brave enough to write my own story alongside theirs.
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I’m so passionate about feminism, and I can find some way to relate it to most anything I need to write about, and I usually do. My priority is equality, and writing about it in a way that is empathetic and uncomplicated. As I pursue a career in women’s studies and activism, I gain momentum from the stories of outstanding feminists. Their experiences are what drive me to research and to advocate and to educate. They have made the world better for me, and I will make the world better for the next young feminist who wants to do some good. Our experience, our resistance, our hope; they accumulate. We’ve been fighting so that future feminists may one day only have to uphold all the work that has already been done.