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Speculative Fiction and Black Feminist Thought
Walking through the door of my own imagination
I didn’t realize that I was a feminist until I read a story in which a noblewoman named Éowyn plunged her sword into the the Witch-King of Angmar in J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic, The Lord of The Rings. It wasn’t the demons, ghouls, or wizards that enthralled me most in the series — though they certainly helped — it was the idea that a woman could fight back. I was eight years old, awkward, chubby, and had as yet no exposure to the theory around which we currently discuss feminist ideology — but I knew that I wanted to be someone who could hurt bad people who did evil things. After being sexually assaulted in preschool four years prior, I had been unconsciously seeking out new and inconspicuous ways to be brave. I wanted to be courageous, but I didn’t want the kind of courage that drew unnecessary attention to myself — as one often does in soccer practice, piano lessons, or anything that attracts the kinds of heavy-handed “… or I’ll give you something to cry about” child-rearing methods most emblematic of Black parents raised during — and traumatized by, Jim Crow.
Though the idea now seems embarrassingly simple, self-defense is a profoundly complex proposition for an eight-year-old sexual assault survivor, because it requires a kind of self-trust that I just…
