It's equally about recognising the need to look at all aspects of social and economic justice.'Īs for why feminism is still important, she says: 'My feminism is as naturally a part of who I am as my gender identity and race. 'Feminism, again at its best, is never just concerned with womanhood. I also say that the best kind of feminism is where people are thinking about the intersections of identity and recognising that women are far more than just women - we have to consider race/ethnicity, gender identity, ability, sexuality, class, and so much more. 'It's more important to focus on the actual work of feminism in our everyday lives. Embrace this, she argues, and recognise in the digital era of democratised 'isms' everything, including feminism itself, is deeper, richer and more complex for it. Set to visit Auckland for our annual writers' festival, Gay encourages us to recognise feminism is flawed and so are we. Hallelujah! A woman who writes humanly and engagingly about the trials and tribulations of feminism and even when she's taking down - politely - other feminist writers, she does so with nuance. 'I feel like I am not as committed as I need to be, that I am not living up to feminist ideals because of who I am and how I choose to be.' Gay even admitted she liked driving to work listening to 'thuggish rap at a very loud volume even though the lyrics are degrading to women and often offend me to my core' earlier, she'd defended Robin Thicke's hit Blurred Lines.

so I close my office door and lose it' pink is her favourite colour. She went on to describe these: the desire to be independent but be taken care of and have someone to come home to she wants to have babies and is willing to make compromises - 'not sacrifices' - to have one and that, despite holding lofty positions at work, she sometimes feels an overwhelming need to cry '. If I am indeed a feminist, I am a rather bad one.

In Bad Feminist, she declared she felt as if she was failing as a woman and as a feminist: 'To freely accept the feminist label would not be fair to good feminists. But rather than offering supremely confident opinions on what feminism should be and how she walks her talk, Gay admits to conflicted feelings about the subject and what it means to be a feminist today.

Gay's books, notably 2014's Bad Feminist: Essays, a novel, An Untamed State, and short story collections Ayiti and Difficult Women have also gained her a truckload of followers. The writer, professor, editor and commentator is one of a new generation of feminists - part of the fourth wave, if you like - who put race, class, sexual identity and media representation at the heart of their feminism and are quick to take to social media to share their thoughts. By her own admission, Roxane Gay is a contradictory soul.

Roxane gay feminism