Feelings of doubt and whether I'm performative

 While I have been glad to see and engage with various aspects of black feminism, there are times I feel like I’m not good enough. Granted that makes sense since I’m still new to this, it doesn't feel any better regardless. Reading Feminism Is for Everybody made these ideas feel real in a way I hadn’t experienced before. But underneath that gratitude, there’s another feeling that’s harder to sit with. Sometimes, I don’t feel like I’m good enough for it. 

It’s not always a present thought luckily. Sometimes it shows up randomly, when I’m reading something and spaced out at work, or when I come across works like Learning from the 60s or Uses of Anger: Black Women Responding to Racism. And when that happens, I feel both moved and overwhelmed at the same time. I start to question where I stand. Am I engaging deeply enough? Am I understanding this the way I should be? Am I saying the wrong things without realizing it? Am I not fighting enough? Why is it hard to find guys in the same situation as me. I feel like usually when you begin to ask questions like this, there is a form of growth that comes but for me, it feels like I’m permanently stunted. 

Part of the difficulty is that Black feminism isn’t just something you learn just by reading books. It’s rooted in lived experience, histories of struggle and ongoing systems of inequality. Engaging it asks me to do something that I personally still not fully used to yet. Reflecting on what I think I know. And that kind of engagement makes me feel exposed. It makes my gaps in understanding feel more obvious and my perception of myself is already low. 

I’ve started to realize, though, that some of what I’m feeling might come from the way I’ve been thinking about “being good enough” in the first place. I’ve been treating it like a game, as if there’s a point where I’ll finally know enough, say things correctly enough, and feel secure in my place. But the more I think about that, the less it makes sense. The people whose work I’ve been reading didn’t arrive at their perspectives fully knowledgeable. Their thinking evolved over time and was shaped by questioning and experience. 

There’s also a difference I’m beginning to notice. Perfection vs Accountability. For me, accountability feels easy to understand. It means I’m willing to learn and change when given the right tools. Perfectionism, however, can make me feel paralyzed. It tells me I shouldn’t speak unless I’m certain and that mistakes are proof, I don’t know any better. And when I listen to that voice too like I have been, it just makes me quieter and more unsure. 

I also have an issue of always comparing myself to others. In this case, it’s against people who have been immersed in this work for years, sometimes decades. I encounter polished ideas without seeing the fear and uncertainty that has been (sometimes) cleanly hidden. When I hold myself up against that, it’s no surprise I feel like I’m behind. But that comparison isn’t really fair, and it should not reflect where I actually am in the process. I'm still figuring out what it looks like to stay engaged without letting that “not good enough” feeling take over. What I keep coming back to is this: maybe I should change my viewpoint. Maybe the goal is to keep moving forward and engaging a lot more. It honestly doesn’t feel like a good answer (and probably isn’t), but at the very least, it makes me feel a little more like part of the process rather than a feeling of not belonging. 

 

 

CITATIONS 

Learning from the 60s-Audre Lorde 

https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/1982-audre-lorde-learning-60s/ 

 

Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider: The Uses of Anger, Women Responding to Racism 

https://kennesaw.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/3820831/viewContent/59390759/View 

 

Feminism is for Everybody (bell hooks) 
https://kennesaw.view.usg.edu/d2l/le/content/3820831/viewContent/59390712/View 

 

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