Feminism is something that has been part of my life since high school. I would become incensed reading about the injustices visited upon women, and my own life reinforced those ideas. When I started reading about feminists, I made fairly predictable choices - Gloria Steinem, Margaret Sanger, even Susan B. Anthony. These women and their lives were real to me in a way that even my own life was not. Their stories made sense. There was passion and desire.

I majored in Women's Studies in college (along with history and sociology), and I became the angry, raging feminist. I organized. I lobbied. I protested. I stopped eating meat (for a time), wearing makeup, and shaving my legs.

Then that world became less appealing because for all of the goodness I had wanted for humanity, I could not see any progress. For all of the work I had done, I had no marketable skills. So I retreated, saying that I now understood the failures of feminism. I was still a feminist, just not such a loud one.

Now, I am coming back to that place, but it is slower this time - and more learned. I am discovering old passions but trying to renew my spirits, too. When I get down, I can look at the poster beside my desk. "for lots and lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement."