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I became a feminist in the doorway of a Taco Bell.

I was 15 years old in Streetsboro, Ohio, and my boyfriend, a recent transplant from Georgia, had held the first of two doors for me on the way into the restaurant. So I returned the favor.

He wouldn’t go through.

To his 17-year-old Southern brain, this was the right thing to do. A girl shouldn’t be holding the door for him. His momma raised him better than that.

But I was that most stubborn of all creatures, an adolescent girl, and a Taurus at that.I had arms that were more than capable of being extended to their full length. I saw no reason why my breasts or ovaries should preclude me from being polite.

And so we stood there, for who knows how long, each of us absolutely certain that we were in the right.

At the time, I wouldn’t have called myself a feminist. That was a term I associated with the ‘70s, with bra burning and protest marches. I was total girly girl, a ballerina, a cheerleader. I spent each morning carefully applying eyeshadow and lipgloss and curling my bangs so as to look as much as possible like every other girl in my high school. A feminist wouldn’t do that. Feminists were people who wore no makeup and bad clothes and hated men. I was nothing like that.

But I was strong and smart and just beginning to understand the power I had over teenage boys. I knew that this was a boy I really liked, a boy who wasn’t like any other I’d ever met. He was sweet and soft-spoken and had brown floppy hair that dipped over his blue eyes. I was in love.

He wasn’t my first boyfriend. My freshman year in high school had been a tumultuous one, first with my parents’ divorce and then a series of bad relationships, mostly with boys who viewed me as an accessory. I made them feel good about themselves, but I knew that to them, I wasn’t anything special.

But now I was a sophomore, and I’d loved and learned. I’d seen the struggles my mom faced as a newly single woman in her 40s. I saw her determination to live the life she’d always wanted, without help from any man.

She bought a 100-plus year old house and transformed it into something magazine-worthy, scraping away the decades of paint with her strong hands. She refused alimony and started her own business and still managed to pay for new clothes and dance lessons and anything else I ever wanted. I knew, through her, that I deserved someone to whom I was more than just arm candy.

And along came this new kid, this Southern transplant who had caused such a stir among the girls in the marching band. At first we were friends, but I was just biding my time until I could make my move. I did the only thing I knew how to do to get his attention – I made a fool of myself in gym class. Lucky for me it worked, and he asked me out.

His gentle demeanor drew me to him and made me stronger, bolder, more outspoken than I really was. To him I was a rebel, the exact opposite of all the coy, traditional girls he’d dated before. And he was the first guy I’d ever known who wanted to get to know me before making a move. He wouldn’t even kiss me on the first date – an action that shocked me so much I called him out on it.

I’m not sure who gave in first that night at the Taco Bell. I suppose I could just ask him, the man who became my husband just six years later. We dated the rest of that year, and two years later I followed him to college – about the least feminist act you can imagine.

I wrestled with that decision for weeks. Do I follow my head and stay close to home, close to my mom, where life was familiar and safe? Or do I choose instead the path of possibilities, of opportunities, of second chances? I agonized over my choice until a trusted family friend put it in perspective: “If it doesn’t work out, you can always come home.”

And so I followed my heart to Auburn, Alabama, to a world where “elementary ed major” was code for “getting her Mrs. Degree.” I watched a lot of “Designing Women” in preparation for my arrival, taking note in particular of Julia Sugarbaker, who could put you in your place without batting a mascara-ed eyelash.

There I learned about sweet tea, sorority girls and a whole new kind of feminist – the kind who can be outspoken and still be soft-spoken. I learned that you can be a strong woman and also still want to be a cute girl, and that confidence is the best accessory.

Three years passed, and my Taco Bell boyfriend and I got engaged, which was a relief, since I’d been planning the wedding since day one. We were married three weeks after graduation, and again I followed him, this time to Texas and his parents’ house, where he attended graduate school at night while I slapped together pages on the copy desk of the local newspaper.

But when it was time to find a place we wanted to stay for a while, he followed me – this time to North Carolina, where I took a job that would finally let us eat dinner together more than once a week. For six months I was the breadwinner while he looked for work and pondered why his two degrees still hadn’t gotten him any closer to figuring out what he wanted to do.

I supported him while he took a stab at being a teacher, and thankfully it stuck. In turn, he supported me when, eight years later, I wanted to give up my stable-but-boring job for one that provided me with a smaller paycheck and less security – but way more fun.

Now we’re raising a son, a true Southern boy who loves trucks and caterpillars and all kinds of sports. He’s just getting to that age when he’s starting to love superheroes like Spiderman but he also adores Word Girl, which warms my heart. My hope is that he’ll grow up knowing when to hold the door for a woman – and when to let her hold the door for him.

Nora Shoptaw is the editor of skirt! Greensboro, where she will hold the door for men, women and children as needed.