In my English class, we recently read excerpts from bell hooks’ book “Feminism is for Everybody.” In her book, hooks, a prominent feminist writer from Kentucky, argued that one cannot “be anti-abortion and an advocate of feminism.”
I happen to be very much pro-choice. In fact, after Dobbs. vs. Jackson, I organized weekly abortion rights rallies at the state house for months. I was in the room when Governor Baker signed the SHIELD Law, protecting people in Massachusetts from prosecution under abortion bans in other states, and I was in contact with the Brookline Department of Health and Human Services about implementing ad campaigns around the town to help inform people of their right to an abortion in Massachusetts, even as that right was stripped across the country. You can catch me wearing shirts that say “Choice is Power” or “Bans off Our Bodies.” And yet, I found myself disagreeing with bell hooks’ statement—not just in context but in principle. Such a high bar of entry is harmful to a movement. There are so few people willing to work to solve feminist issues—and any other social issues—that we can’t afford to be exclusive.
If someone wants to advocate for equal pay, are we really going to tell them they’re not allowed to if they’re anti-abortion? Will we refuse to work with them or push them away from the movement? That’s almost 40% of the country we’re excluding from feminist advocacy.
I spend a lot of my time advocating for animal rights. Many vegans shun non-vegans and say they shouldn’t be allowed to protest the commercial use of fur because they need to start by changing themselves. But at the end of the day, a store that sells fur doesn’t know, and frankly doesn’t care, if the people protesting outside are vegan. They know that the people protesting outside are opposed to fur. And they see how many protesters there are. Ten people are better than nine, regardless of what or who that tenth person may choose to eat.
An all-or-nothing mentality leaves out the huge group of people who want to help achieve your goals halfway.
I know in my heart that it’s wrong to eat animals. And yet, I am thrilled to have anyone protest fur alongside me, regardless of whether or not they eat animals, because frankly, animals in cages on fur farms don’t care who stopped the sale of fur. They care that the sale of fur was stopped. Results are what’s important, not philosophy or moral high ground.
By the same logic, I would be thrilled to advocate for feminist issues—equal pay, non-discrimination, workplace protections—alongside anybody else who wants those things, regardless of how those people feel about abortion, because those things are important, regardless of who’s fighting for them.
I have advocated for abortion rights alongside people who eat animals, and I have advocated for animal rights alongside people who oppose abortion. And I would advocate for abortion rights next to someone wearing a fur coat, or for animal rights next to a raging homophobe, even as I myself am gay.
There’s no reason why gay marriage and the sale of fur are connected issues. Or abortion rights and environmentalism, for that matter. Even if it’s logically inconsistent for someone to support feminist issues except for abortion, or for someone to be opposed to the sale of fur but not meat, we should be excited to have more people involved. If we can only stand with people who mirror every single position we hold, I don’t know if we can stand with anybody at all.
Humanity exists in grey areas. To impose black-and-white boxes on people, to make a list of other ideas someone needs to agree with in order to work with you on something you both agree on, is impossible at best and oppressive (what bell hooks was trying to avoid in the first place) at worst.
It is so important to find common ground, connect over it, and work together. That is a big part of what being human is about.
It is also worth noting that every social movement utilizes different tactics. When we insulate ourselves from people we disagree with, we’re not only cutting ourselves off from their beliefs—which may better inform our own—but we’re also cutting ourselves off from a diversity of tactics that may help our own movement succeed. As Darwin realized, diversity in a population is a necessary ingredient in evolution. There are always a million things trying to block the success of any social movement. If a movement wants to succeed, it needs to evolve as the status quo evolves in its own defense. Insulating ourselves from people we don’t one hundred percent agree with is not just a disservice to ourselves but a disservice to the causes we are fighting for.
Additionally, it’s important to recognize that the vast majority of people who say they support abortion rights never actually do anything about it. But people who get active on some feminist issues are then surrounded by people who support other feminist issues including abortion rights, and face a great deal of social pressure to start supporting other feminist issues including abortion rights. In animal rights: vegans almost never become activists, but every non-vegan I know who has started coming to animal rights protests later went vegan. Their views were shaped by the people they started spending time around.
At the end of the day, the goal of a social movement is to change the way people think and act. If the people in social movements can’t allow their own thinking to be pushed, I’m not sure how we expect to push anyone else’s.
