Why Stay and Fight?

There are a handful of cities sprinkled across the country that exemplify progressive thought in American pop culture. San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, certainly good ol’ New York—they all conjure up images of tolerance, counterculture, and quirkiness. It would be logical to assume, then, that the most passionate, organized, bad-ass feminists would grow up in, or at least flock to, these liberal utopias.

Think again. The comfy pockets of coastal cities have been breeding for decades a particular brand of complacency, and that idea definitely extends to feminism. Sure, that white hippie with dreads singing on the street in Seattle might call herself a feminist. She probably believes in equal rights for women and improving female self-esteem. But why become an activist when everyone else around her feels the same way? Why rail against the collection of annoyances that come with being a girl if they only manifest subtly in the city she lives in?

As the nation’s politics polarize more and more, the future of feminism is resting in the hands of radical minds in red states. It is in the hands of single mothers in New Orleans whose housing project was torn down in Katrina. Or the pregnant 16-year-old in South Dakota who has to take a road trip across state lines to get an abortion. Or the woman from a Texas border town struggling to provide resources for immigrant women. These are women who realize that things need to change—fast. Consider Laurie Felker, the 27-year-old native Texan and political director of Pro-Choice Texas, who gets called a baby-killer on a regular basis. Her adversaries are up in her face, harassing her all the time, reminding her that she lives in a sea of opposition. They are not across the Mason-Dixon line or a plane ride away.

Women who have rejected their hometown’s upbringing of traditional gender roles or the assumption that women are limited are simply more likely to grasp the importance of spreading the word. True, there are open-minded refuges in the South and the Bible Belt, too—Austin, New Orleans, Charleston, Boulder, any college town. But they are plopped in the middle of vast conservatism, which allows a trickle of just enough reactionary thought to create an urgency in young women that makes a huge difference.

The feminist “diamond in the rough” becomes even more important as our dipping economy makes it harder for young people to leave their birthplaces. For anyone who has felt different from the people they grew up with, it is a knee-jerk reaction to flee somewhere more like-minded. These days, though, the job market is deteriorating, adolescence is extended and activism is thriving on a local scale. Big all-inclusive cities are important to keep the legacy of feminism and freedom alive, but it is equally essential for awesome women to defuse some of the ingrained sexism in rural, right-wing, or economically struggling places. These women are the ones who are not preaching to the converted. They really feel a push for change—and, along with the other tight-knit feminist posses across the United States, will see that it happens.

Nona Willis Aronowitz is a writer from New York who has written for The Nation, Salon, The Village Voice, and the New York Observer.

~Nona Willis Aronowitz