Feminism Can No Longer Afford to Be Generalized

Feminism can no longer afford to live in generalizations.
When it does, it leaves too much room for people to hide intent, to blur goals, to claim the word while working against the work.

Why Specificity Matters

• Accountability: Vague feminism becomes a shield, not a practice.

• Protection from Co-optation: Lack of clarity lets harmful agendas sneak in.

• Meeting Real Needs: Survivors, elders, disabled women, immigrant women—all require focus, not general slogans.

• Movement Clarity: Sharp words cut clean. Broad strokes blur the truth.

Men and Specificity

Men have been called out for being vague.
And even then—they’re celebrated.
A man hints at principle and is hailed as wise.
A woman speaks truth with precision and expertise—
and suddenly she is “too harsh,” “too divisive.”

Women Need More Than Words

These women—Survivors, mothers, daughters, elders—need you to have their back. In these trying times, women must know who they can trust.

When I worked in a battered women’s shelter, not all came running through the door. Some called first. They asked questions: What is your name? What do you do there? How long have you been doing this? Will you be there tomorrow?

They wanted to have general conversations just to get a feel. What are you like? Can I trust you? Because yes, it’s hell in this house—but this devil I know. Who are you?

On those calls, I tried to be genuine because I was aware of what was at stake. No matter what was going on in my own day, I tried to give the woman on the line what she needed from me—whether she decided to leave that day or not.

This work is the same. Feminism must offer that same clarity. A woman should not have to wonder if the one declaring herself feminist will actually stand with her. Will have her back in times of trouble. Because the one thing a woman fleeing a violent relationship knows is that there will be more violence. Can she depend on me and others to be there like we say we will? Like the brochure we leave around town says? Or are we just talking to be talking?

Excellent questions. Survival questions.

Womanism as Declaration

I am grateful to the women who gave feminism its start which in the ***US, begins with Native American and Black enslaved women. But today, we have to be more specific. Personally, for many years, I’ve declared myself a womanist. I’ve done that time and again amongst a room of self declared feminists. 

Because I believe we should ask women to be specific about which women they fight for. That specificity protects all women in need.

No woman or child should be waiting for help from someone who loudly claims the name “feminist” when no help is coming.

This is not optional. It is a matter of survival.

Women deserve better. Survivors deserve better.
Our daughters, our elders, our sisters, our disabled, and immigrant women—deserve truth, not theater.

Because too much is at stake.
And we must refuse to let women die waiting on words that never turn into deeds. And never intended to.

**And listen, this isn’t a call to let our work devolve into a faction or gang war. Very tedious dog chasing the tale behavior. Expending a whole lot of energy to get nowhere. Accomplish nothing. (Growing up down south, I used to sit on the porch for hours. It was a past time. You see things. Like stray dogs chasing their tales. 😕 GenX, outside pre internet.)

We are women. We use our energy more resourcefully. This is a call to support and build one another with targeted clarity, efficiency, power, and impact. 

***Naming Violence Before “Feminism” for an Exclusive and Select Set of Women did: Long before the word “feminism” existed in the U.S., enslaved Black women and Native American women were exposing and resisting the very structures—rape, coercion, exploitation—that mainstream feminism wouldn’t fully confront until more than a century later.

****Survival as Strategy: Their resilience, refusal, escape (both successful and unsuccessful attempts) storytelling, and passing down of knowledge were survival strategies that seeded feminist practices of resistance and remembrance. Women who were born unenslaved or escaped had the courage to return to dangerous territory to come back for others and continue to speak out.

Back in the day and today, we can’t even get women of certain privileges to utter a single solitary word on behalf of women who don’t look like them.