“We need to find a way to create inclusive spaces and let people feel like it’s OK to be who they are and not be kind of hidden away,” Harker said.
“I have always been a feminist. This took my parents by surprise because I was raised in a conservative Mormon family with a traditional approach to gender roles,” Harker said. “My father and I spent many evenings discussing and debating everything from theology to politics to the role of women in society, and while we often didn’t agree, we always felt we had learned something from the exchange. The environment in which I was raised made the central role of gender very clear. I knew early that I wanted more choices than my culture was offering.”
“These women wrote their own books, started their own publishing houses, and opened bookstores because they believed it was necessary and important,” she said. “They taught themselves how to do everything, made up their own rules…they were groundbreaking in so many ways. And I thought: they did this without any of the advantages that I have. They inspired me to take a chance, too.”
While the cheap rent and proximity to her wife’s cafe certainly made the space an attractive option, Harker’s main goal is spreading queer and feminist visibility beyond the bubble of academia. “There’s so many kids in little towns who will never go to university, who don’t have access to it,” she says. “And the more that things like Mississippi House Bill 1523 are passed and the more people talk about it, the more they’re taught they’re worthless.”