Imagine a feminist. Maybe even close your eyes. For me, she's a feisty, angry woman with armpit hair who marches the streets in pursuit of gender equality. She’s handing out flyers about big, systemic issues such as the pay gap, sexual violence, access to reproductive care, etc. Of course, feminism is, as are feminists, much more complex than this stereotype. But for the sake of this newsletter, let’s call this macro feminism: the feminism most of us are familiar with.
Over the weekend, I watched a woman on TikTok explain her favorite form of micro feminism, a term I had never heard of. Based on the comment section, which as of writing this has 3,696 comments, neither had many other women. In the video she describes how when she emails a male CEO and needs to include his female assistant, she will input the assistant’s email first and CC the CEO — it’s a low-key, barely noticeable, but still upright middle finger to the man, as confirmed by her caption which said, “Girl’s girl, corporate edition.” And that is exactly what her video felt like, a form of corporate feminism.
In the comments, other women responded with their “micro feminist” protocols, like what I will now refer to as “stationary feminism,” which is listing the woman on an envelope before the man. Others mentioned using female-identifying language in everyday situations, such as making the assumption every profession is done by a woman: Oh, a plumber came to fix it? What did she say? Or assuming when people are discussing sports, they are talking about women’s sports. Or my personal favorite: “Mine is at the preschool I work at, I always call the dads first when kids are sick and the moms for billing questions.”
In a Google deep-dive, I found very little information about this term. Nothing even exists on Wikipedia. It seems to me that micro feminism is the subtle response to the microaggressions women deal with on a daily basis. These tiny acts of rebellion, like CCing a CEO, are mostly imperceptible — but they’re still a form of resisting or defying authority, government, or tradition — micro feminism is an easy, safe fu*k you to the patriarchy. I thought about all the ways I already use “micro feminism,” and all the new ways I feel inspired to. How do you practice micro feminism? Here are a few things that came up for me:
I don’t put bows in my daughter’s hair, and she wears blue (I can’t tell you how many old ladies have commented on the latter).
I love telling American men that in my country women can’t legally change their last name (true story).
I love not wearing a bra, even when it visibly makes people uncomfortable #freethenip (should I write more about this lol?).
I never made the connection until now, but I think not finding out the gender of both my children is a form of “micro feminism” — my conscious choice to not know has shielded any gender projections onto the baby, and thus in turn, allowed me (and my family) to focus on the spirit of our child vs society’s ideas of what my gendered child could/should be.
I stopped apologizing in public settings when I have nothing to apologize for (I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve apologized for someone bumping into me!).
Remember, small, incremental actions add up. Hell, maybe they’ll eventually result in monumental change. So while many may not notice, let’s keep doing it anyway. Can’t to read about your “micro-feminist” moves in the comments cause this sh*t is fascinating to me!
I worked for a nonprofit a few years back that sent physical mailers multiple times a year, and my job often involved creating or editing the mailing list for the printer. There's all sorts of boring spreadsheet formulas to getting the right names and addresses to show up when you do that... I slowly shifted the spreadsheets so that in a relationship, the woman's name would come first, and that in a family, both spouses last names were included. For an institution with some deep patriarchal origins, this felt like a big win (and got some handwritten responses from old ladies noting the change with secret glee). Small seeds of change!
Haha I love this! At work I always give the woman in a het couple her coffee first and never considered it feminism, so that’s cute!
Also, wearing no bra when I walk my dog is elite. There’s something so freeing about interacting with strangers without wearing one. Like, what are ya gonna do hon? Absolutely nothing, haha.