It took me a long time to comprehend the sheer force of will and bravery it took my colleagues to stake a claim to a feminist activist identity in the collective. This revelation came as somewhat of a surprise given that the collective defined itself by a feminist anti-violence standpoint. Like many anti-domestic and sexual violence activist groups that grew out of the women's liberation movements in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s, the collective was founded on a second wave feminist approach to gendered violence (Else, 1993; Connolly, 2004). This history was still influential, and the collective continued to express a commitment to feminism in their everyday activism. The collective was also understood to be feminist by our communities and other community sector organizations. As my voluntary work brought me into contact with a wider range of stakeholders, however, I became increasingly aware of the complexities of identifying as a feminist activist in the context of the community sector. There was the possibility of having our charitable status revoked (Elliott, 2016) as well as the fear of losing government funding for claiming a political status of agenda (Grey and Sedgwick, 2013b). Additionally, my colleagues told me stories of other people and organizations not wanting to associate with us on the basis of our political commitments. For example, a private sector organization refused to work with us as we were ‘those bloody feminists’ and we received regular backlash online for our feminist stance. For our aim as a group of anti-violence activists to end gendered violence, productive relationships, access to funding, and influence with the government were important; but so too were our feminist politics and principles.

At the same time as I was becoming more aware of the complexities of feminism in our various relationships in the community sector, I was engaged in formal interviews with some of my colleagues. In all the interviews my colleagues shared stories with me about their identities as feminist activists. I was struck by the difficulties they expressed in being recognized by their colleagues as feminist activists. Within the collective, as well as with stakeholders, it appeared that being a feminist activist was permeated by complexity.