A Woman's Place by Kylie Cheung

Author:Kylie Cheung
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781623174859
Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Grace Weber

Grace Weber, nineteen, serves as the National Organization for Women’s head of college students and traces her involvement in feminist activism to her mother’s separation from her abusive father when she was fourteen. “I know I come from a place of privilege,” she says, “I’m white, and my father is wealthy and corporate. But that experience of knowing what my mother went through showed me how much there is to be done.”

Growing up, she and her mother would occasionally volunteer at shelters for survivors of domestic abuse, and around her freshman year of high school, Grace first began to engage in organizing work. “I started a feminist club, and we would have small meetings and do what felt like small fundraisers and bake sales for women’s shelters,” she recalls. “Not many people showed up, but it was so rewarding, and I built such strong relationships with the people who did. That was the best, most meaningful part.”

Naturally, Grace’s vocal feminist organizing and activism drew backlash and condescending attacks from her peers in high school “When are women and girls not attacked for ‘caring too much?’” I ask. She says this “only riled [her] up.”

“I was in debate, and I loved to have that chance to speak up and fight for and defend what I believed in,” she says. But Grace understands it isn’t like that for everyone; for some, especially young women who are marginalized across their intersecting identities, backlash and threats and attacks can be silencing and push them out of feminist activism entirely.

Where does Grace fall in that ongoing compromise-for-progress debate? “It’s always going to be situational,” she says, “but the thing that concerns me most isn’t just that debate but all the people who still aren’t part of it—all the people in places of privilege, who could safely get out there and do real activism, but think in this social-media age that liking and sharing things on is enough.

“One of my biggest fears is, performativity, that people from places of privilege who could be doing more, or doing anything, aren’t,” she continues. “How can we have more nuanced talks about compromise and progress when in a lot of cases, we’re still not doing enough?”

Grace sees her place in the feminist movement and its future not necessarily in offering leadership, but “continuing the work” of all the radical feminists and thought leaders and activists who paved the way for the movement. “I see it as my place to follow their lead and know a lot of the conversations and fights aren’t always very new or original and are happening now because of the women who fought before us,” she says.

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