The majority of the audience that night was proud to admit that they thought women were people, though others were a tad unsure.

This information was revealed during a game of Kahoot being played during a Feminism 101 Panel in the TCNJ library basement. “Do you identify as a feminist” was the first question asked. Out of the audience, 40 people said “yes”, 10 said “no”, and 15 were unsure. The panel, sponsored by several women based organizations such as TCNJ’s Women in Learning and Leadership program, Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority Incorporated, and Chi Upsilon Sigma, was meant to serve as an open forum for members of these organizations to talk about their experience as women and all of the intersections and subtopics that came with it.

Spaces like this are comforting to minority students. While topics of racial inequality, women’s rights, and classism do have their place in the classroom that discussion has its limits. The disparity between differing student’s level of knowledge (and interest) always becomes apparent right away. In any women’s and gender studies courses there are always those students who come into the class eager to learn. They’re often well versed on the topic at hand and are carrying a well stocked arsenal of facts and buzzwords ready for use. Phrases like “trans inclusivity”, “intersectionality”, and “horizontal oppression” flow freely from their mouths but are often followed by a simplified definition for others.

In women centric spaces like Feminism 101 clarification is a lot less needed. The majority of people who attend these events usually identify with the group being discussed so they’re familiar with common jargon. Here, more time would be spent on figuring out ways to better recognize non-binary individuals within the trans rights movement rather than explaining why feminism isn’t a dirty word.

It wasn’t until a male student’s blissfully ignorant question at an early point in the evening that those in attendance were reintroduced to reality: It is much easier being a feminist when everyone around you is one too.

The student looked like most white male identified students at TCNJ. Donning a backwards baseball cap, a shirt with a team, and khaki bottoms, he oozed your typical suburban, middle class masculine swag. Unfortunately with that came an unprecedented amount of entitlement. While the question he posed was problematic enough, the most troubling part of the ordeal was the harsh reality of why he was there in the first place. Not to learn or be educated. Not to pose questions about aspects of the movement he didn’t understand. Not to figure out how to be a better ally. But to try and shift a foreign subject matter into something that he could understand and enjoy; himself.

TCNJ may be seen as a liberal campus, but it’s diversity is not yet found in the mainstream curriculum or social circles. Rather it forms in small, concentrated pockets spanning out over campus. Too often, campus activism dedicated to social justice and change only reaches the minority group in question, leaving those who may not know anything about the topic in question out of the conversation. The challenge here becomes balancing the need for “safe spaces” for underrepresented student groups and involving members of the greater campus community who may be uneducated on the issues at hand. Feminism 101 is a great panel but if mostly women who already consider themselves feminists go, then how much of an impact can the event have on the greater campus community who still maybe have little to no idea what the movement is actually about or how they can get involved?

As obnoxious as the male student’s comments were, it drove those in the room to think: to what extent is it the job of the panelists to educate the student on why he was wrong to ask those questions? Afterall, a panel with the title Feminism 101 should be used to educate, but requiring people to constantly validate their existence and importance to a stranger should not be the focus of the event.

Leigh-Anne Francis, is a professor here at the college who teaches several intersectional courses on gender and race. She explained why she does the work that she does both as an activist and as a professor. “I believe that I do this work too because of my own suffering. The suffering that I’ve endured under white supremacy. If I had not been hurt the way that I had been hurt as a black person, genderqueer person… non-binary person, at one point identifying as a woman, as an immigrant. If I had not been hurt in those ways, if I had not experienced what it was like to feel like I was under the threat of death when I came into contact with a police officer I don’t know if I would be doing this work. So the work is scary and it is exhausting. But I love it.”

Professor Francis’ statements rings true to a number of student activists. The choice to work toward social change is often one that is as internal as it is external. Professor Francis went on to say, “I mean, so it’s a complex, a complex mixture of reasons. It’s totally personal and it’s totally broadly political too.”
Activism is tiring. For many student activists they are not only working to change their communities but to also untangle the complexities of their own oppressions and privileges so that they may understand themselves. Safe spaces can make this understanding of the self much easier, but can become just as difficult if while in these spaces students still need to explain themselves. Somehow a balance between the two must emerge because the personal and political cannot be separated but rather act simultaneously.

Listen to Professor Francis' exit interview here!