Originally published at Feminists for Choice, July 26, 2010.

Feminist Veteran Zoe Nicholson Explains Why Feminism Is Still Relevant

When did you first call yourself a feminist, and what helped influence that decision?
I have always been a feminist.  The question is asked often these days, and I find it so peculiar.  Would you ask a person of color if they believed in equality?  Would you ask a trans person if they believe in LGBTQAI Civil Rights?  I would rather ask why one would not want to be a feminist.  I can think of only one legitimate reason, and it is because they are really stretching the boundaries of US thinking to drop all labels and make that their mission.  (gender fluid!)

Did I ever think women or men were innately unequal?  Never.  Nor people of different races, ages or classes.  Certainly my deeply devotional childhood influenced me.  I look at the books I read, the saints I admired, and they were all people who worked with making life better; Mother Seton, Vincent DePaul, Catherine Laboure, even St. Nicholas and St. Valentine worked with the oppressed, the poor.  It just seemed like the obvious choice.  When I got older and found out that the word and meaning of Christian had been entirely co-opted, I converted to Buddhism.  Funny thing is, it makes more sense to me to think of John XXIII, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as all practitioners of Buddhism.  They are all invested in Self-Discovery.  (I digress)

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