speaking out: Suheir Hammad on Feminism

 

Sarah Palin’s emergence on the scene has Americans regressing to that silly and inherently sexist question, “Can women do it all — have both career and family?”  

So naturally, we’re also back to (de)constructing and (re)defining “feminism.” Suheir Hammad, Palestinian-American poet, author, and political activist was recently featured with feminist icon Gloria Steinem in New York Magazine’s 40th Anniversary Issue. Here’s what Hammad had to say about deeming oneself a feminist:

I think of feminism as a socially just and imaginative world. You know, in my twenties I was taught that feminism meant we had to be supersmart, in the realm of intellectualism—to make rational, detached, unemotional pleas. But now I think what Gloria (Steinem) and all our sisters have given us is imagination. It’s a question of: Can I imagine that world?

In Conversation: Gloria Steinhem and Suheir Hammad, New York Magazine, September 28, 2008 

Photo: Dan Winters, New York Magazine