To Bust Magazine:

Letter found tucked into a spiral notebook, circa 2002.

Dear Bust,

Whenever I think about feminism, I remember the two people in my life I've known well enough to identify as feminist, Amy Joy and my old boss Lauren. I'm sitting Borders finding books relevant to questions I've been asking myself about liberalism and your magazine catches my eye. "The Music Issue." Right before I crack open it's semi-glossy pages, I think to myself, I don't read magazines like this. By this, I mean feminist. So I read it cover to cover, set it aside and go upstairs to try and find a travel book on New Orleans that has descriptions of churches to I can start to plan to get married there.

Now here's my troubles about Feminism, not that you asked. Lauren took one look at me, when I showed up to be her graduate assistant, a work study gig that barely scratched the enormous financial burden that was my flirtation with hard core academics, and I decided I was "cute." When after months of working for her, she asked what my MA thesis was about she was impressed, surprised I would be interested in something critical. What that means, I don't know, perhaps it's unexpected for young women to be attracted to gears of critical theory and structural analysis-- that may be so. When she called me a breeder in front of a colleague, I stopped answering her emails. What could I say? I do not disagree with her politics, and as the lowliest of graduate students in the most power hungry place I've ever personally experience, did I have a choice?

One night after a conference Lauren stopped me on my way out (Her brain no doubt charged from the electric conversation, my feet sore from keeping a cadre of middle aged academic happy and in plenty of diet coke for 10 hours). She said, "You have to tell me more about what you said about activists." I had mentioned in the elevator that since the topic of the conference was how to encourage young women to take up the feminist/queer issues, perhaps they should think about the things of particular concern to those women. For example I say, I know a lot of kids who think of feminism and think of activism and that stuff is for old people.

What I mean was the kind of sexual politicking, the banner waving enthusiasm that was popular even in the 1980s and Rutger's Take Back the Night protests. I met this girl who may yet still be a grad student who told me midnight march stories with such glee that I wondered why she bothered to finish undergrad at all. I failed to see any tangible good of marching around. Well other than having a good story to tell about how you got Ani DiFranco to play, and oh aren't you so very cool.

When I think of activism, I think of small breasts. Girls with little boobs, wearing green tank tops. Girls with long waists and low cut jeans, short dyed hair and nose rings. I'm aware that's a very media saturated image of activism, but I've rarely met a feminist, riot grrrl or even a hipster with any decent sized bosom. Well I have huge breasts and short waist and I'm not even skinny. You couldn't pay me enough to wear a tank top in public. So is it I'm to big chested to be an active feminist? I can't pull off the look and anyways who's going to take me seriously, huge boobs and heterosexual. I might as well start planning my picture book New Orleans wedding because I'll never be one of those girls.

I've always felt as if there is so much more to being a woman then gets covered by feminist publications. Yeah sure, there is sex and anti-glam and body and film, but about regional identities? Ethnicity? Family? How do we fit into a society as whole, not just one hyper analyzed part? The question I always felt feminists should ask themselves in the morning is: Why is being female a special category?

Amy Joy is the hippest person I have ever met. She embodies a free spirited, ultra liberalism, the kind that people on the right are really afraid of. She worked as a stripper, she went to elite colleges, she travels, writes, reads and is incredibly charming. Honestly, I couldn't stand being around her. That's my own feelings of resentment towards skinny girls with little boobs who feel good about their bodies. My eyes just roll and I tuck my head back into Negative Dialectics.