“You’re a feminist.”
The text from my cousin landed with a thud—damning, like a shameful Scarlet Letter pinned to my chest. I knew she was. Her posts calling out gender discrepancies on Facebook made that obvious. And like a child with their ear pressed to the door while their parents argue, I’d skim the articles she shared, watch the comment-section skirmishes unfold, then quietly retreat.
To define myself as something as charged as feminist—at least in 2012—was not something I could do. I told her so.
That memory resurfaced when I recently stumbled across Kate Manne’s name while looking for contemporary women philosophers. Her books—Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny and Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women—hit the same old nerve. The reaction was immediate and familiar: Not for me.
Early in my counselor training, one class assignment required interviewing someone from a different nationality, background, or value system. I chose Khiet—an older, first-generation American from Vietnam, two decades my senior. After a late poker shift together, I asked the scripted questions. Years later, we’re still in touch. That assignment, meant to stretch us beyond comfort, became the foundation of a real bond.
That class taught me to notice defensiveness in myself—and to get curious instead of closing ranks.
Which is why I paid attention this time when I felt that same reflexive shutdown around Kate Manne and feminism—not just as politics, but as philosophy, logic, and moral reasoning. If I’m serious about engaging perspectives outside my own, about staying open to ideas that unsettle me, then avoidance isn’t honest.
So I added Down Girl to my Goodreads list for next year.
Maybe this reaction comes from being uninformed. Maybe it’s shaped by years of sitting quietly while others spoke confidently—often harshly—about feminism. What fascinates me is the internal alarm: the sense that this topic is dangerous, rule-breaking, almost like a betrayal. As if engaging it means I’m doing something wrong.
So be it. Let’s break some rules.
There’s also, if I’m honest, a flicker of feeling dumb—a recognition of a blind spot I’ve skirted around for years. An important conversation I’ve avoided, then wished I had more to offer when it surfaced.
Curiosity, it turns out, often begins right where we’ve trained ourselves not to look.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 