At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, SMU’s Women’s and Gender Studies Department welcomed well-known feminist activist Shelby Knox to deliver a lecture on feminism.

“It’s such an honor to be back here in Texas,” she said.

Knox, 27, grew up in Lubbock, Texas and currently lives in New York City. It’s been a little over a year since she’s been in Texas. Knox explained how she grew up in a place that viewed feminists as “feminazis.” She was raised in a conservative, religious community where at age 14 she was taught to do things like take a
virginity pledge.

“I didn’t really know what sex was,” she said. “I literally thought having sex was people rolling around under the sheets and coming back out looking flushed and having a cigarette.”

She recalls coming back from winter break one year to discover [that] one of her friends had gotten pregnant. Knox’s initial reaction was “How did you let that happen?” Her friend said the boy she had slept with told her she couldn’t get pregnant the first time.

Knox said it was moments like those that pushed her to start looking at improving sex education in Lubbock. Sex education eventually led to her support toward LGBT groups despite what she had learned from her religion growing up. Her reasoning being that it was the right thing to do.

To Knox, a true feminist is rooted in solidarity.

“Feminism had never been and will never be about hating men,” she said.

Knox believes being a feminist is about offering support to everyone who needs it and making sure everyone has access to what she likes to call the “circle of humanity.”

Knox really began to gain momentum as an activist following the release of the documentary “The Education of Shelby Knox” in 2005.

“I started getting letters, emails and Facebook messages from people all over the country,” Knox said. “I began to realize that one person telling [her] story causes a wave of people to tell their story,” she said.

Knox believes that for this generation, which she dubs the “fourth wave” symbolizing the idea of moving forward, social media and online blogs are the most effective ways to gain consciousness of an issue.

“It’s our clique moment, though some might call it kids arguing on a blog which, sometimes it can be,” she said.

Knox concluded her lecture by fighting back against the general idea that feminism is dead.

“The feminist movement is not dead. We are not apathetic, we are angry,” she said.