“I am a feminist.”

“I am not a feminist.”

“No, I believe in equality, but I do not want to be called a feminist.”

“My friend is a feminist. I agree with her on many things, but I would not use the word for myself.”

All right.

This is the conversation I keep hearing in training rooms, offices, and sometimes among close friends.

Being a feminist was not supposed to be so complicated. Yet the word seems to make people feel that they are being asked to choose a side before they have even understood the question. Perhaps we feel threatened by it. Perhaps we have met a version of feminism we did not like. Perhaps we support equality but are uncomfortable with everything we imagine comes with the label.

While you are deciding where you fit, I have a smaller proposition: befriend a feminist.

I should admit that I have always had difficulty defining who counts as one.

When I was little, I spent a lot of time with my father. We went to many places together, and through him I had the chance to meet people, listen to conversations, and spend my afternoons with books instead of dishes.

I did the dishes at some point, of course. But I also knew that I could leave them and return to my books. During school holidays, crossing paths with my father near the kitchen would often prompt a familiar phrase: “Al pran liv ou.” Go and take your book.

I do not remember him sitting me down to explain equality or teach anything like that. I do not remember a grand speech about what girls could become. What I remember is that he did not make me feel that a girl should occupy less intellectual space than a boy. I was allowed to read, ask questions, follow him around, and simply be.

My partner is one of the most supportive people in my life. For the time we are together (a long time), I can bring him one unfinished idea, and he will return with several ways I might make it stronger. He sees my ambition without treating it as something he must reduce in order to remain secure. I love that about him.

He does not usually use the word feminism either. We often joke about how he would define positive masculinity if someone asked him during one of my workshops. Maybe his answer would not pass an academic test. But I have learned that people sometimes live out ideas they do not yet have the words for.

Before we turn to big books or academic definitions, what is feminism? Who counts as a feminist?

Yes, we can start with a person who believes women and men are equal.

Almost everyone I have trained says they believe that. I have met very few people who say women are inferior. But in places where everyone claims to believe in equality, there is often no budget to support it. The problem is not the belief itself, and it costs almost nothing to say you believe.

The real test is how you use the influence you possess.

Are you truly comfortable with women being equal in practice?

And more importantly, are you willing to give up the speaking slot, the contract, the credit, or the final say when doing so actually costs you something?

To me, a feminist is someone who uses whatever position they have to create opportunities for others, and keeps doing it even when no one is watching.

Advocate, not gatekeeper.

You might notice that this definition is not about using the right words. You may also find it is harder to live up to than you expected.

This is one reason I think you should befriend a feminist.

You have to keep in mind that being a feminist carries contradictions. Feminists can also reproduce class privilege, racism, ableism, and the same institutional habits we criticize. Some of us know the language of liberation and still guard access to rooms, resources and recognition. At the end of the day, wearing the feminist label does not automatically produce feminist practice.

But a good feminist friend will challenge some of the things you have come to see as normal.

They may ask why the only woman invited to the meeting is expected to speak for all women. They may notice that a policy describes women as vulnerable but gives them no authority over its implementation. The feminist can ask why the woman who developed the idea disappeared from the final presentation while a more senior colleague received the credit.

If you are conducting the training session, they may ask why success is measured by the number of women who attended. And a lot more questions.

At first, this can be irritating.

You may be enjoying a perfectly ordinary conversation when your feminist friend asks who cooked the food, who cleaned the room, or whose unpaid labor made the evening possible. You may be celebrating a new policy when she asks whether it has a budget. You may describe an opportunity as merit-based, and they may ask who had the time, money, language, confidence, and connections required to compete for it.

There is no point in spoiling the moment… but… just be pointing out what makes the moment possible.

This is what proximity to a feminist can do. It changes what you notice about discrimination and exclusion, and what to do about it.

So, while you are deciding whether you are ready to call yourself a feminist, start by finding one.

Spot them. It is usually not difficult. They are often the people asking the question everyone else wishes to avoid.

Talk to them. Ask questions only. While you are talking to them, you will know their story. Ask what made them see the world this way. Feminism may begin with a mother whose work was never recognized, who notices that she is not alone and decides for herself and other women.

Then allow yourself to be surprised by what the friendship changes in you. You may become more attentive to who is missing. You may begin to understand that support is not the same as rescue, and that giving women a voice means very little if somebody else still controls whether that voice has consequences. You may discover that equality is not about making women better at surviving unequal systems. In most cases, the system needs a shift and collective action to achieve it.

Do not shy away when the questions become uncomfortable. You don’t have to master feminist theory or to introduce yourself as a feminist. You just need to keep showing up as one channel for change and promotion of women’s equal rights.

Remember, knowing a feminist doesn’t imply that you are one.

Perhaps after some time, you will choose the word “feminist”. Perhaps you will continue to hesitate.

Either way, the more important question will remain:

When equality requires more than your agreement, when it asks for your influence, your resources, your place, or your comfort, what will you be willing to move?