Summary Of Bad Feminist By Roxanne Gay

Roxanne Gay’s 2012 essay, “Bad Feminist” was published in VQR, a National Journal of Literature and Discussion, where she discusses the problems with the current definitions of feminism and how she believes that everyone could help to change them.

Gay begins the piece by discussing all the possible definitions of feminism and why there are problems with each type. She begins by giving the definition of essential feminism, which is that there is a particular way a feminist should act, angry, hate men, do not follow any beauty standards, etc., and that there are consequences for not being like that kind of feminist. Gay used this to show how most people, both male and female, view feminism, which causes many of them, including Gay, to have a negative

connotation of feminism.

Gay even states that other women view feminists as “angry instead of passionate.” Furthermore, Gay suggests that people fear categorizations, so they refuse to even categorize themselves as something as important as a feminist. She uses the example that even a woman in charge of a major media empire, Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, would not succumb to categorizing herself as a feminist because she did not want to be a negative influence in the workplace. This further supported Gay’s point that people have the negative connotations of feminism and will not attribute themselves to it, even though someone, like Mayer, seems to be one. Gay continues to go through a large portion of the article describing the different schools of thought of feminism, from sex-positive feminists to women of color feminists. In particular, woman of color feminists have a great issue because they

have inequality of both race and sex, which white, essential, feminists do not seem to be concerned with. Each time she brings up a different kind of feminist, Gay immediately refutes the definition of why that is not what she believes feminism to be.
Next, Gay makes her argument to why she is not the exact definition of a feminist, or as Gay emphasizes, “I am failing as a woman. I am failing as a feminist. To freely accept the feminist label would not be fair to good feminists. If I am indeed, a feminist, I am a rather bad one.” She continues to state why she does not fit that “good feminist” model because she wants a significant other, children, likes pink and reading vogue, does not understand cars or will not kill bugs because that is a man’s job. Nevertheless, she continues to argue that she stands of up against misogyny, sexism, beauty norms, reproductive freedom, and the list goes on. Gay continues to suggest that all women, including herself, bought into the typical myths about feminists, that were established through the definition of essential feminism. Gay finishes her piece by emphasizing how she is not exactly a feminist, but still is and how everyone else should work to being a feminist, even if they are a bad one.
Overall, throughout this piece, the syntax and diction used throughout this piece was informal, like Gay was having a conversation, which helped create a relaxed, approachable tone. This was to allow readers, both feminists and not, to understand the points she was trying to reach. The structure of the piece, by first having all the definitions of feminism and then introducing her exact viewpoint, was used to make anyone, no matter their knowledge of feminism, more knowledgeable about feminism, so they would be able to understand all her points. In the end, Gay nicely summed up her article and made her conclusion very well-known with the short last paragraph of two sentences. “I am, therefore, a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all” (Gay).