Roxane Gay doesn’t get tired of engaging with readers on a variety of topics, but she’s ready to stop defining feminism. The author and social commentator opened up about her career, writing process, and what motivates her during the Harvard College Women’s Center’s annual Schmertzler Leadership Seminar on Feb. 12.
“It’s 2025, if you don’t have a credible answer to that question, that’s a ‘you’ problem. It’s not for me to solve it,” she told a packed Harvard Faculty Club. More than a decade after writing “Bad Feminist,” Gay encouraged students to move past whether or not they are good feminists and instead focus on making effective change.
She shared: “At some point, we have to ask ourselves, what kinds of difficult choices are we going to be willing to make to create the change that we want to see in the world? We have to sometimes consider making the difficult sacrifices. Of course, we do what we can within the constraints of our life.”
Gay’s talk, which was facilitated by Dulce Gonzalez Arias ’26 and Olivia Data ’26, was part of the Women’s Center’s ongoing discussions aimed at empowering women to become effective leaders, said interim Director Bonnie Talbert. Attendees gained insight into Gay’s writing process — mental writing drafts are her go to — and received some advice when pursuing creative fields.
“I am someone who’s been writing since I was four years old and I took myself very seriously as a writer, even at four. Fortunately, I have parents who also took me seriously as a writer,” Gay said. “When you have someone that takes you seriously and believes that you can do the things that you want to do, even when they know realistically that it’s pretty hard to make it as any sort of creative person, it really does help.”
Gay urged those in attendance to stay away from all-consuming social media apps like X (formerly Twitter). “We’re really in a problematic age right now with social media,” she said. “Don’t give them any power. When you give them your access, when you give them your data, you are giving them power.”
The author of “Hunger” also shared some insights into her forthcoming publication, “The Portable Feminist Reader.” A compilation of feminist texts throughout history, the reader traditionally focuses on classic texts that Gay deemed to be “historically very white, very heterosexual, and very middle class.” The newest version, out in March, includes a host of contemporary authors.
“I tried to find a balance between contemporary work that I find incredibly exciting” and classical texts like “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Gay said.
As parting career advice, Gay offered a simple tip for those going into creative fields: get a day job. “I’ve always had a day job, and that’s what has afforded me the ability to write whatever I want to write,” she said. “I could take chances, because my livelihood, my rent, etcetera was not being paid by opinions.”
Featured series 
