Kate Fjord, an accomplished attorney and mother living in Washington, D.C., has recently been declared a bad feminist due to her failure to read Roxane Gay’s seminal essay collection, Bad Feminist.
“I promise, I keep meaning to read it!” she shouted, as a crowd of women slowly closed in around her. “It’s in my cart on Amazon! I volunteer at Planned Parenthood! But but but—”
It was too late. The crowd’s leader had already affixed the letters “B.F.” to her chest.
“Balancing work and my relationships with my wife and children leaves me no time to read for pleasure,” Kate Fjord says later, wrapped in a foil emergency blanket. “My friends keep pestering me that it’s required reading and if I don’t catch up I’ll fall out of line with the movement, even though from what I heard about the book Gay criticizes that kind of attitude.”
She adds: “I didn’t read it yet, so I can’t say for sure.”
Friends aren’t so sure about this theory. “Even though Roxane Gay says that there is no ‘right’ way to a feminist, you pretty much have to read Bad Feminist,” says fellow mother, Laura Lehman. “Even if you disagree with some of [Gay’s] points, you need to get in on the discussion.”
“It hurts to be labeled a bad feminist,” says Fjord, while hosing a spray-painted expletive off the side of her house. “But my job as an attorney-lobbyist at the National Organization for Women Political Action Group has kept me really busy these last few months, not to mention tutoring my kids, and maintaining date nights with Joan.”
Fjord is not only constantly reminded of her failure to engage with the contemporary feminist discourse not only by her feminist friends but also by Amazon.com. “I buy chlorine-free tampons in bulk on Amazon, so it always tells me to read it based on the items I’ve viewed,” she explains. “I’m telling you, I will buy it very soon.”
“Even though I don’t have time to share articles on Facebook, tweet about sexist comedians, or do the required reading,” Fjord says, “I promise I’m still committed to the feminist movement.”
[Ed. note: We cannot verify the veracity of Fjord’s last statement.]
