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Prior to starting graduate school, I was not someone who would identify themselves as a feminist. And I don’t mean that I was anti-feminist, just that I was juvenile and ignorant in the understanding of feminism, along with a host of other things.
In undergrad, when girls proudly called themselves feminists, I’d look at one of my close guy friends, roll my eyes, and we’d laugh together. Not my proudest moment, but also not my most shameful — that story is for another day.
Years later, I sat this same friend down and said, “Hey, I think I’m a feminist now, and I need to let you know.” He smiled and said, “Finally, girl. I’ve been waiting for you to get here.”
Good friends give you space and trust you to find your own way!
At the same time, in my early twenties, I was dating — and I use that term loosely — a man five years older, traditional and conservative in his beliefs.
And who unbeknownst to me at the time, was impressing on me his ideals for a wife. I will admit that this man never said to me ‘I want you to be my wife.’ But he didn’t have to. I was an observant loyalist in search for love. I paid attention, I listened, and I made inferences based on who he was, and the things he said to me. I used his word to craft a persona of the woman who might be worthy of his love, and I slowly began auditioning for the role.
Wife (noun); Adjectives: Submissive. Subservient. Educated. A mother.
Over the years, something started to shift. The immature undergrad doing cringeworthy shit, wrestling with the ghosts of an inner child she didn’t yet know existed, slowly became a curious young woman eager to grow into herself.
I can’t name a single turning-point moment, but I can stay without doubt that what contributed to that shift was exposure to feminist theory, critical thought, and the “thinking-about-thinking” work of graduate school.
And thankfully,
- the 20-year-old became a more grounded 22-year-old,
- the 22-year-old became a more curious 24-year-old,
- and the 24-year-old became a more self-aware 26-year-old.
During that time, I earned a Master’s degree and was working toward a PhD, being trained as a qualitative researcher. Unlike fields with licenses or clear expertise (MD, DDS, JD), my PhD was preparing me for a life of not knowing for sure.
Graduate school taught me not to accept things simply as they were. Instead, I learned to press on ideas, ask why they existed, trace where they came from, and examine what held them in place. I learned to ask harder questions — not to challenge for the sake of rebellion, but to understand, to get to the root, to find clarity.
And, almost without realizing it, I started applying those same skills to myself. The curiosity I was cultivating in my coursework began to turn inward in small, ordinary ways. I became the subject of my own inquiry, and slowly I started questioning the beliefs I had long treated as fact about who I was and the roles I assumed I would take on.
Reflection:
- What contributed to your first quiet questioning of whether parenthood was right for you?
- Were there people, ideas, or relationships that shaped your early assumptions? How?
- What experiences helped you evolve into someone who could question the scripts you grew up with?
