the feminist oaf's manifesto

Growled internal monologue of your typical teenaged straight boy, including the well-bred and sensitive ones:

TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES WAAAGGAAHH TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES TITTIES !!!

That’s not to say that boys and men are objectifying neanderthals. It’s simply how they’re wired. It’s physiological. It’s got to be some kind of delicious, confusing hell. It’s the male hormonal equivalent of the teenaged female internal monologue which is, of course, in falsetto, and more along the lines of:

WAAAGGAAHH I WANT I DON’T WANT I WANT I HATE MYSELF I LOVE MYSELF OH GOD OH NO WHAT WILL THEY THINK OH NOOOO (BITES KNUCKLE) OH MY JESUS CRAP I CAN’T STAND THE AGONY AARRGGH WHO THE HELL AM I ANYWAY I DUNNO WHO THE HELL SHOULD I BE ANYWAY AARGGGH I CAN’T TAKE IT OOHHH MY SKIN CRAWLS ALL OVER WAAAGGH (COVERS FACE WITH HANDS) OH YUMMY OH THIS SUUUCKS !!!

Needless to say, having had both very small titties and very uncomfortable skin, I don’t get sentimental about high school.

(Not that I wanted very big titties combined with very uncomfortable skin. In high school, when you're both stubborn and small-titted, the meatheads call you a lesbian and leave you alone. Which is handy.)

+++

George Washington said, "We are soldiers so that our sons can be farmers, and so that their sons can be poets." Maybe that’s what it is. We are poets now, on the backs of our founding mothers. And so we write poems about being soldiers.

Well. I don’t, but only because explicit statements about what it is to be a woman or struggle in being a woman or gnash teeth over being a woman or rejoice in being a woman don’t resonate for me.

My poetry is not of soldiery and battle, but of earnest indifference. I write about opportunists whose genders do not factor in how they’re measured. The individual women among them are indispensible, as are the individual men. Females that resonate for me go ahead and create what they want in life. Not because they’re trying to make a statement about a woman’s right to create.

Missy doesn’t know she’s a girl. She couldn’t care less. On her quietest day, Meena’s louder than you at your loudest. Gretchen wields a bale of stinging devil’s club, but never has to use it. Ewsula’s just fucking tougher than you are. But don’t take it personally. She’s a Viking from the wilds of Labrador.

+++

Female empowerment has most often manifested itself to me in one of two flavours.

1. The Wounded Activists. We are unlikely, if ever, to feel ownership over our bodies. We are victims. We are used and abused. We are second-class citizens. We are unheard and angry. Because we are women, we must fight.
2. The Romantic Activists. We are goddesses. We bleed! We bear fruit! We are divine and special and ancient. We cradle our own sex. We are blessed voodoo and pheromones. Because we are women, we must dance naked together in moonlight.

Both of these stories—because that’s what they are, after all, stories—are cotton candy. They are compelling, but they dissolve in my real life. Or they give me hot pink cavities. I keep thinking I ought to adopt one or the other. But, respectfully, I don’t want to.

Short of bad fortune (i.e. groper in crowded pub, giant Italian hockey player who gets off on coercion) and inherited socio-economic factors (i.e. repeated cycles of poverty or abuse, self- or otherwise), we are more poets now than we ever have been.

We can be, pretty much, whatever we want. We have autonomy. We choose our partners and our family life. Sometimes unwisely, but we choose all the same. The same goes for the way we get off and love and express ourselves and learn and seek justice and make money. Some of us are pathological. Some of us are serene and kind. Some of us employ crutches. But we are self-directed. We are no more subject to unhealthy or unfair influences as the next kid, male or female.

We are poets.

+++

In university—a womens’ college specializing in womens’ studies, and also, by chance, offering one of the only Bachelor of Public Relations degrees in Canada—a woman came into our sociology class to speak about her struggles with infertility and how it strained her concept of herself as a woman. The speaker was raw, thoughtful, generous. After she left, my classmates tore her to shreds.

Seething Feminist Mass:  That woman was pathetic.

Kate:  I thought she was nice. I liked her shoes.

Seething Feminist Mass:  That woman has no self-worth whatsoever. How pathetic. God. We never want to be that way.

Kate:  That’s pretty mean.

Seething Feminist Mass:  Did you see her talking about how badly she wants to be (snorts in unison) a mother?!?!

Kate:  Is that a bad thing?

Seething Feminist Mass:  You’ve got to be kidding.

Kate:  I’m looking forward to meeting someone and getting married someday. And when I do my dress is gonna be, you know, not too BIG. You’ve got to wear the dress. You can’t let the dress wear you. But it’s got to be extraordinary in some way, you know? It’s not like you get married every day. Maybe a little bit of pouf. Just a little.

Seething Feminist Mass:  (snarls in unison)

Kate:  I’ve always taken for granted that having kids would be a chapter in my life. I’ll have a career, I hope, and a husband, I hope, and babies, I hope. I think it’ll be, you know. Neat. I’d be pretty crushed if I tried to have babies and couldn’t. I’d figure something else out for my life, but I’d be sad for a while. Like that woman. I’d be sad.

Seething Feminist Mass:  You’re brainwashed.

Kate:  (stares blankly, breathing with mouth open)

Seething Feminist Mass:  You’ve been socially conditioned to believe it’s your duty to breed. You’re so brainwashed you’re not even capable of having an informed discussion about the burden of your own womanhood. You are in shackles and you don’t even know it.

Kate:  Okay. So. I’m gonna take my bagel and go and sit over there.

That’s what it was for four years, with the exception of my public relations courses. 

The Marginalization of Women In Religion WS101
The Marginalization of Women In Film WS103
The Marginalization of Women In Birth WS104
The Marginalization of Women In Literature WS112
The Marginalization of Women In Art WS108
How to Gloss Over The Ethical Stumbles Of The Corporate Glitterati PR306

You know. That sort of thing.

I absorbed it all knowing it as a shared history, though not my history. At least, not the way I’ve ever told it, even with my own episodic misfortune. I nodded at our past. I acknowledged its cumulative effect. It just never felt like my present.

Then I probably took the bus home and hung out with my friend Daphne so we could make fun of chicks who watched Friends. While we watched Friends.

+++

My gender has never been anything but quietly irrelevant. I’ve never felt strong. But I’ve never felt not-strong. Except as it relates to telemark skiing, which has nothing to do with femaleness and everything to do with this here couch.

Women do not hold a monopoly on hurt. Nor vulnerability. Nor specialness. Nor disadvantage. Nor ancient sageness. Our bodies, when cooperative, can bleed and grow babies. So what? Men, when cooperative, plant those babies with performance art.

I am not a woman first. I’m not even a woman second. ‘Woman’ might even be fourth after person, writer, and Maritimer. Chances are better it’s fifth after Perpetually Dehydrated. Or sixth after Crap At Math.

+++

I am a feminist oaf. I wander in and shrug and wave and wander off and knee Snoop Dogg in the nuts—by accident—on my way out.

The only thing that matters is who we are. Not what we are.

I’m comfortable moving around in various shades of fog. Are you?

Comments

[Alison, Brighton]

I've been called a breeder, mocked for wearing an engagement ring, called a traitor to the cause for taking my husband's name. It saddens me so much to see women pitted against one another, the flamefights, the catcalling. Or pitted against men. Men as the enemy.

Thank you for this, Kate. You've really got me thinking.

[starrlife]

There are fascists in all arena's. Having grown up with a rabidly insecure and man hating mom I tend to be a relativist who understands that we all have of place in the universe, that men may be dogs in their heads/hormones but they often valiantly fight those urges and evolve and that all women are not good. And I hate the culture of victimhood- it perpetuates hatred and feeds anger rather than understanding. That is not to say I tolerate a-holness from either sex or condone physical trespassing of the grievous kind. I've been harmed - it's not okay but I don't blame a whole gender. I DO however think it is wise to be wary and informed as to the ongoing theme running in either sexes heads when interacting with them. Women can be horribly destructive to other women and I watch my back with them and my front (titties) with men!lol I guess I have generalized trust issues (DSMV)!

[sweetsalty kate]

Starrlife - I didn't mean to imply that all men are dogs in a negative way, just to be clear. Dogs are fun as well as useful. I joke about it with absolutely no value judgement attached. And thank you so much for bringing this up:

"I hate the culture of victimhood- it perpetuates hatred and feeds anger rather than understanding. That is not to say I tolerate a-holness from either sex or condone physical trespassing of the grievous kind."

Right. Exactly. Likewise for me - the tittie joke is not remotely meant to be extended to a lack of accountability.

[tash]

Hate to punch a hole in this, but I'm pretty sure Washington meant that metaphorically because, um, he didn't have kids. (Of his own. Had some step-kids, which back then was essentially the same thing, so maybe he did say this?) Which may explain a lot or nothing at all, who knows.

I was probably one of those gals that laughed at you and pointed out that your bagel was rather feminine anyhoo, until infertility. And that really knocked me for a loop because I had been taught that I was not the sum of my parts. But here I'd never had to worry about my parts, and now my parts were severely letting me down, while my other feminist gf's were having kids and I was pumping my fist in support. I really put me on hold for almost a decade in order to have a "family" which was never going to be my identity anyway, and here I am a failure at both. I try from this side of things to still be as much as an advocate as possible: health care for women, equal pay for equal work, pro choice. I've done a good job convincing my husband these things are necessary for global order and harmony. I'm just hoping Bella's not taking strict notes -- to her I'm certainly neither glamorous nor sporty, active nor passive, victim or protester. Hell, maybe that's what I'm after anyway.

[sweetsalty kate]

I'm cool with metaphors.

And Tash, I think that's what I'm after, too. And I don't know what you're talking about. Just because my bagel was slathered with whipped cream cheese and strawberry jam does not mean I am less of a feminist.

Or wait. (scratches head)

[sweetsalty kate]

Also Tash, I know (I think) your tongue is in your cheek, but I find it fascinating that you say you're a failure at both motherhood and feminism, even in a flip way. The feelings of failure are pretty much your standard babylost gauntlet, but the explicit link to how it affects our view of ourselves as feminists is something that's really interesting to me to think about.

[thordora]

hmmm. maybe cause I've always felt not quite female, not male, but not womanly enough-being a woman is very MUCH a part of who I am. first and foremost. Of course, it's blended in with the multitude of other things, but it's all colored by my experiences, as a woman.

I've never liked the knee jerk party line of "It's cause he has a penis and you don't!! NEENER!" that I took away even from male professors during my brief university career, or in life in general. It's not that simple. It's not always the duality of fluff vs militancy. But, I don't believe it can just be ignored either. I try and raise my daughters at least a bit outside of the construct, but it's damn hard, because that construct will be their world.

What it means to be a woman is sadly, something we haven't yet put our fingers on methinks. And it makes me sad, because damn straight being a woman is important, and identifying that way too. I don't want to rise above my gender. I want to make it matter as it should-to be respected but ulitmately, not something that will remove me from anywhere.

many thoughts, but at work. Sigh.

[Carin]

I was in a class that just spent its whole time going "men are pigs and have all the power, you're screwed whatever you do." and I thought how is this doing us any good? I can't imagine 4 years of that. I'd wanna kill some people by the end.

[Megsie]

Such a wonderful post. I love the thought that we are poets now. And, I agree, we do have all of the choices and control over how we live our lives. And, I am so thankful for that. My mother's most resentful feelings for my father is because he "wouldn't let her work" when her children were little. She is the most dominant person I know, and I can't imagine denying her anything. But back then, that is what transpired. I think, sometimes, as women we give up our control and give it to our partners. I am trying to raise my daughters to keep control over their lives (oh, and my son too...because some MEN give up their power as well). I feel like I have done this, only in the respect of monetary life. When you are a stay-at-home mom and don't have an income, soon the monetary decisions become the decisions of the bread-winner. Then, at least for me, some of the power feels lost. Now that my kids are getting older and will be in school full time next year, I need to get a job. I go back and forth from hating the idea of having to get out of my pajamas before 10:00, and relishing the idea of having my own money again. With money, comes making some of my own decisions again. It is having some power back. (I don't want anyone to think that I don't make my own decisions 99% of the time, but any BIG purchases are ultimately not my decision because I have no money to speak of. And, usually BIG purchases are discussed anyway, so maybe I am just projecting, who knows.)

[sweetsalty kate]

I feel like I'm going to spend the day qualifying this in comments. I think I knew I would. This stuff is hard to articulate, and we all bring our own experiences to bear in how we look at all of this. It's good to talk about, though.

Thor, I don't mean this to read like I'm rising above my gender in any kind of self-satisfied way. It's more just... a blankness about it. Not a disrespectful blankness. I just don't tell my story in female frames.

Still thinking about it too. I loved your comment, and all of them.

[Jen]

you've given light to the fact that growing up and staying in the deep south I have never felt anything but very proud of being a woman, not "la leche" proud, but proud. Tight shirts and bright lipstick are okay down here, a guy making a pass at you is a compliment and you must be well trained in the art of turning him down while flirting with him at the same time.

I've never felt shackled at all, even when in close proximity to women who challenge all this. Whether she be mid-western, lesbian, career-no kids, go for it, I say. But I suppose I was the girl challenging others down here... (i.e. you don't have to have a man to be happy, you don't have to have kids unless you want them...) so, sadly, for the south I guess I WAS the feminist, scary, huh?

[Mr Lady]

I have, for years, been trying to write about feminism. Now I don't have to; you just did it for me.

Perfect, and thank you.

[mosey along]

I've always been a very dedicated fence-sitter, although after years of agonizing over it I prefer to call it seeing both sides of the equation.And I wish I'd gone to your college because I think we would have sat together in the corner eating bagels. I acknowledge my femininity, but don't think about it very often.

[red pen mama]

I love you.

And I'm printing this out for my daughters. So they understand that their womanhood isn't the first/only thing about them. And I can't tell them any better than you just did. Except by example, which I try every day to give them a good one. Not as a woman, or even a mother per se, just as a person.

thank you thank you thank you,
rpm

[Miguelina]

My favorite part?

"I nodded at our past. I acknowledged its cumulative effect. It just never felt like my present."

Your sister in oafness,

[Mad]

I guess all I will say--because I have lost too much work time to the Internet this week and b/c I am really tired following this week's kaboomly--is this: feminism is rich, historied, plural and culturally diverse. In my experience the idea of the Seething Feminist Mass exists only in the context of the very young (WS101 as a born again experience which almost all young feminists outgrow) and those who don't wish to engage with the rich, historied, plural and culturally diverse nature of it.

I am not a woman first, but I am a woman and I am a human being and I am white and I am Canadian and I am middle class and I come from a poor single parent background and I am an atheist who was once a Christian and I am so many other things besides. I cannot filter out all those selves to say which is the lynch-pin of my identity but I can try to isolate those aspects of myself and of culture when I need to look closely at why any given one of them is important to me or to the world around me.

[Mad]

I guess I have to add that as an undergrad in the early 1980s I studied with almost no women professors and studied almost no writing by/thinking by women. Now as a Women's Studies librarian I put books on the shelf that other young people, women and men can read and can learn from. Can I tell you just how much that blows my mind?

[Kimberly]

"I just don't tell my story in female frames." YES. Exactly. I'm a woman, yes, but when I'm asked to describe myself, that doesn't even pop into the story I'd like to tell. I'm inclined to talk about being funny, creative, clever, artistic, a good aunt, a loyal friend, a photographer, etc. etc. before ever thinking about the fact that I'm a girl. Honestly, that wouldn't ever crop into the story unless I was somehow prodded to include it. Which, to me, is the point of many of the battles fought on our behalf for generations preceding us.

[sweetsalty kate]

Mad, I came back here to tell you that YOU blow my mind. And then saw your second comment and yes. I love that too. That's significant. To me, it's nicely followed by Kimberly's comment - that previous generations of women would be quite pleased that for many of us - your student population included - it's a given that womens' voices are ... a given.

[Mad]

Yes, but they are ONLY a given b/c I--a feminist--am here doing the work. And they are a given for certain women but not others. Now off I go to order titles on Canadian Aboriginal women's issues before signing off this here Internet thingy that threatens to eat me alive.

love you

[sweetsalty kate]

Right, Mad. That's not lost on me. I hadn't meant to imply that there's no longer a need for feminist work. There always will be. I just think that these days, the focus is less on the singular factor of gender and more about interplaying factors, largely socio-economic ones. Meaning, when you pile, for instance, native status and life on a reserve on top of gender, there is still a lot of active work to be done. But I think that's more about economics and poverty than it is about strictly gender.

And I think that's a good sign. It means we're at some point of maturation - that it's time to address issues within the issue, since the broader population of women is better off than they ever have been in terms of autonomy and opportunity.

I'm so bad. Nudging you when you're at work. Love you too.

[Jett]

After years of me decrying Those Militant Feminist Bitches a male friend asked me point-blank why I didn't consider myself a feminist or inclined to align my ideals with theirs.

"Because theirs is just another system to tell me what to do, how I'm wrong in the way I do things presently. I don't want to be told what to think and feel about things. I want to live my life by my own definitions and desires. I sure don't want to be conscripted to one more set of expectations by virtue of the fact that I was born with tits and a twat."

"That right there," Miller said sagely, taking a pull from his beer, "is really what feminism is, I think."

So yeah, maybe I'm a feminist oaf, too, but without the capitals.

(As an aside, I was raised in a manner wherein it didn't matter that I was a girl, just that I was competent. I'm proud of my parents for doing right by all us girls like that.)

[Forgotten]

If all women hated men the way some extreme feminists do, how would the world continue? Someone has to carry on and perpetuate the population or we wouldn't have anything left to be feminists about...

[daysgoby]

Yes. Yes. Yes. Without glossing over the work women have done, I have never felt....(is this the right word?) touched by it. Never felt it was my fight, really.

-Jess, who has a hyphenated last name that was always about me being ME and not about a slap at my husband's penis or gender

[sweetsalty kate]

Jett - me too. My parents raised me so that it was completely irrelevant that I was a girl. They applied the same respect to all kinds of things. When I was 12 or so, I asked my mom point-blank if a member of our family was gay (not even really fully understanding what that meant, but noting that he wasn't married). My mom replied, "Would it matter if he was?" I thought about it, and said no, of course not. That was the end of the conversation.

For them, it was about hospitality and good manners, and giving everyone the space to have their own business and reasons for living the way they do, and focus on contribution and mutual respect. Like that's just how to be. It's really stuck with me.

[Janet]

Fascinating, thoughtful post, Kate.

I never felt like a hard-core feminist. I'm grateful for the experience of being a woman and of mothering. I think I even wrote a post once about how my girlfriends and I unanimously agreed that we wouldn't want to switch places with the men, much to their astonishment. But, like you, womanhood is not first on my list of Things That Define Me. I don't feel as though my gender has ever prevented me from doing anything I truly wanted to do. But then, I grew up in an upper middle-class environment with plenty of opportunity and access to education. I have really only known respectful men in my life. I put myself in some situations over the years that could have gone very badly, had the men involved been different. But they weren't, so I am unscathed.

I was reading an article in the paper this morning about how the majority of suicides in Afghanistan are being committed by 20-something women. Many are setting themselves on fire to end their misery under the oppression of men. Many of us may be poets, but there is still a desperate need for soldiers in the world.

[Hannah]

This is what I tried to write a year ago, and failed to do. You know that I have never identified myself as a feminist. As a word and a movement, it just has too much baggage for me.

I'm over here in the corner, being an oaf, too. Great post.

[Jennifer Gandin Le]

I'm a (very) new reader to your blog; I found you through Shutter Sisters and was charmed instantly by your writing here.

I come at this idea of "woman" from a different direction than you (I frame my life frequently in terms of being a woman, and my experience of that), and I also completely dig this post. Thanks for articulating your feminist terms so clearly and entertainingly -- especially the two flavours of feminism crack me right up. Spot. On.

[afteriris]

"We can be, pretty much, whatever we want. We have autonomy. We choose our partners and our family life. Sometimes unwisely, but we choose all the same. The same goes for the way we get off and love and express ourselves and learn and seek justice and make money. Some of us are pathological. Some of us are serene and kind. Some of us employ crutches. But we are self-directed. We are no more subject to unhealthy or unfair influences as the next kid, male or female."

Yes. You can. I can. We have the luxury of having "woman" coming 4th or 5th. Because we have a whole heap of other privilege that allows us to avoid discrimination for the most part. Lucky, lucky us.

I spent the evening yesterday with a good friend who works for a charity supporting survivors of domestic violence. These women are not self-directed, they don't have autonomy. They absolutely ARE more subject to unhealthy or unfair influences than men growing up in the same circumstances, as domestic violence, sexual assault and rape statistics will testify.

I don't consider myself to be 'oppressed' as an individual, but I think it's disingenuous to ignore the gaping inequality that still exists between men and women.

Thanks for an interesting post, Kate!

[Sarah]

The post and this discussion are, as always, so thought-provoking. I'm not one to usually comment, but must add my voice here to Mad's and to Afteriris among others. I can't help but cringe a bit at how feminism, in all its complexity, gets reduced here to its worst stereotype. Not that those "feminists" don't exist, of course they do, but I'm not sure they really get it--divisive and militant as they can be. I tend to hold the belief that a woman (or a man for that matter) who doesn't identify with feminism doesn't have the right idea about it.

Feminism is important because most women in this world are not on equal footing with the men whom they live and work with; growing up in a home and country where you can be "indifferent" to the fact that you are a woman is a precious luxury that many women do not have. Yes, our predecessors have fought hard for equal rights and opportunities. But that particular "past" is so very present for so many women in this world. Of course economics and politics play a huge part in the oppression of women around the world. But the very visible, tangible fact of female-ness (like that of skin color and unlike politics) becomes an easy divider of groups into Powerful and Powerless.

I am thankful that their battle is not my own; but I cannot forget that their battle is also, somehow, my own.

[Jess]

I really loved this. I feel the same way but I've never even attempted to put it this well (and doubtless wouldn't be able to).

[Deanna]

Thank you! I've always felt like my gender was just a tiny part of who I am. I'm so glad to finally hear somebody else say it too!

[Alex]

Oh, feminism. It seems like feminism itself has traveled so far away from what it shouldcouldwouldwassupposed to be that we can´t even really talk about feminism as anything but the thing it´s become. Maybe sometimes we call it a monster, and maybe sometimes it serves a glorious purpose. In either case (or maybe in both), we are ourselves essentially and truly. When it comes to defining ourselves as one thing or another, I tend to find myself at a loss for words- how can I ever really be anything but myself? What idea or experinece or place do I ever connect with in a meaningful way which doesn´t leave me changed in shade and texture? So if I were to call myself a feminist, or a not-feminist, would that really even get anywhere near the truth? Thanks, Kate.

[mfk]

This is great, I love it. It feels especially refreshing to me after this article/ rant (?) which I read the other day : http://allecto.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/where-are-all-the-younger-lesbian-feministsseparatists/

I believe it's writings like that that make young women "not see the point" of feminism or even identify themselves as "not a feminist", which is kind of just sad to me (I understand what they're getting at, but I think it's sad that they feel they have to go out of their way to separate themselves from the belief in female equality, just to make the point that they don't hate men). I went to a school that was close to an all-girls school where they took very similar classes to the ones you describe (You're Subjugating My Gender With Your Male Gaze 101), and I have to say the girls I have known from that particular school are in.fucking.tolerable. because they are so sure that being a feminist means you can't have babies and you can't like men and everyone is out to get you HOLY CRAP let's all share tampons. And if you don't agree then you're brainwashed and biased. I completely believe in female equality, of course!!!, but I also believe in a balanced worldview, in which, you know, other people have opinions and desires and husbands and babies.

and welcome to the small-titties-in-high-school club, glad you're a fellow member :)

[Liz]

kate, thank you for this. i grew up and became an adult (or a reasonable facsimilie of one) with a similar view and expectations. my womanhood was almost a non-issue, and i was allowed to want or not want, expect or not expect, just about anything, regardless of my gender. i've been lucky, and i realize that. and i, too, have always looked forward to marriage and childbearing and -rearing because that's what I want. Not because I'm a woman. But because that's what I, personally, want. it bugs me to no end when men (and women!) assume that i only want that because i've been programmed to want that, or because i don't realize there are other options. they can't fathom that it's a choice, like any other choice. and too often, they don't even ask.

i'm not much for fogs; i'm exceedingly decisive and really quite opinionated (hell-o, oldest child virgo!). i think what you call a fog is just acknowledging that everyone doesn't have to feel the same way you/i do about things, just because they are also the oldest child, or a virgo, or a skier, or female. i guess you could call that moving around in a fog, regarding feminism. i think it's still a conscious choice, and i think you do too--and i think not everyone grasps that.

[loribeth]

I am proud to call myself a feminist. I'm old enough (49 next week) to remember how things were back in the 1960s & 1970s & even (as Mad writes) the early 1980s. We've certainly come a long way -- but we still have a long way to go.

At the same time, I dislike extremism of any kind, including the "all men are pigs/all women are oppressed" school of thought. And I agree with you that there is a disconnect between old-school feminist theory & most women's desire to marry & have families. I think that's one reason why so many women, epecially younger ones, shun the feminist label.

And as much as I identify as a feminist, I am disappointed that, as an infertile woman & stillbirth mother, feminist thinkers really don't have much to say on these topics -- probably because they overlap in some respects with the debate over the "A" word.

Two good books that touch on this: "Motherhood Lost" by Linda L. Layne & "Reconceiving Women" by Mardy Ireland.

[magpie]

A feminist oaf, huh? I think I'm one too. Because I've NEVER felt myself to be a Wounded Activist or a Romantic Activist

A great benefit to having gone to a woman's college was that there was no marginalization of women. So I came of age thinking, knowing, that I could do anything.

We should roar and drink scotch, sooner than later.

[sweetsalty kate]

I've been out for a while and there's so much to respond to and consider.

Janet, you started off with this: "I don't feel as though my gender has ever prevented me from doing anything I truly wanted to do. But then, I grew up in an upper middle-class environment with plenty of opportunity and access to education. I have really only known respectful men in my life. I put myself in some situations over the years that could have gone very badly, had the men involved been different. But they weren't, so I am unscathed."

-- this is me as well, except for the upper part. And the only having known respectful men. But to be clear, I know I’m fortunate. My point is that I think there is a huge segment of women - bigger than it ever has been - who are fortunate too. And this is new and recent and positive. There are resources, places to be heard, protection, legs-up. To the point where neither of those feminist circles might feel quite right.

With only one short sentence (‘barring socio-economics, culture, shit luck’) I exclude plenty of women from my ‘present’. Women who face poverty, or who were, say, born in Afghanistan. Clearly, for them, autonomy is a distant prospect. But today, in this post, I’m talking about what feminism means to women who don’t know a need for it in their immediate lives. Women who are, more or less, in charge of their own decisions, and safe. And yes – it’s a luxury, as AfterIris put it. But I believe it’s a common luxury in the western world – again, socio-economics aside. A women born into an LA ghetto to a drug-addicted single mother is going to be a hell of a lot more vulnerable to all manner of dangers than I ever was. But that has more to do with her inherited lot in life than it does with only the fact that she’s female. A boy born into that situation is going to struggle equally. In different ways, but equally.

Also, AfterIris – you said it’s disingenuous to ignore gaping inequality that still exists between men and women. I would agree, but on a macro scale, as you noted, which is kind of what this post is about. What does feminism become for me when I literally don’t see that inequality in my life, anywhere? What shape does it take when neither of those feminist thought systems resonates? I’m no more advantaged than anyone with an internet connection who’s reading this blog. I understand in, admittedly, that women, as a worldwide collective, suffer. But the only suffering I witness is not merely because the sufferers are women. It’s always a blend of universally human factors.

Maybe it makes me arrogant or ignorant to wonder about what shape my feminism takes as a white, middle-class, family-supported woman. To, given my status, feel disconnected from both the story of repression and that of gender worship. I can’t presume to have an intimate understanding of all the challenges women face in the world beyond my immediate life. This post is about ordinary women in the western world, of which there are a hell of a lot.

Sarah – you mention cringing at how I’ve reduced feminism to its worst stereotype, but I promise I’m not embellishing for the sake of this post. That was an actual conversation that happened. I’ll never forget it. I went through four years of that. I saw nothing in my university education that would indicate that feminism was anything other than disdain for and fear of men. I can’t stand that it was such a cliché, but it was. And I think that’s worth talking about.

This is one of those topics that has me nodding vigorously at every single comment – even those who chastise me, understandably, feeling like I’ve got a shallow frame of view. I’m not saying I don’t. I’ll cop to that. I’m fortunate. But lots of us are. And I like hearing about the poetry as well as the soldiery. We need both.

You’re all so beautifully spoken. Thank you.

[Jenn]

Great post, thank you. I am at the opposite side of the spectrum, where gender really mattered. My brothers were revered, because they could carry on the family name and I was raised to be a good (read submissive) girl- every time I would complain that it wasn't fair that I had to do all the house work/girl work etc., I got the line " Well, women have done this to themselves." What? Because Eve bit an apple, I have to clean up after my brothers? I can't even begin to explain how this has impacted how I view myself.
My hubby gets this and makes a concerted effort to make sure that our boys value the women in their lives. Women need to be celebrated, because as you intonated, we internally knock ourselves down. Maybe I am rambling, sorry, but I am so sad that I have to wage an internal war about my worth, as well as a perceived external war with my extended family. I am tired.

[pnuts mama]

i think you and i are from the same pot of soup. and i love you for it.

i never considered myself a feminist until i was in my late 20's and really had the reality of existing feminism shoved in my face in grad school. i think what is so shocking is the pervasive nature of it and how like a virus it continues to spread and grow quietly and quickly when it finds a host. i point it out when i see it but don't try to give little things more attention than they deserve.

being parents to boys, you and justin will do more for women's (and men's!) progress than you imagine. good for that. good for you for chewing on all this. xo.

[Amy]

Thank god someone finally said it the way I've always wanted to. Yes, Kate. Yes.

[Liz]

I like this.
At one of my first jobs, my male co-worker - who is about 20 years older than me - asked me (in an attempt to get under my skin and annoy me, I think) if it bothered me that women were paid less than men. And up to that point it had never even entered my thought process that it SHOULD bother me, because I was proud of the salary I had negotiated and wasn't quite sure why another persons - female or no - inability to negotiate their own salary should bother me at all.

We are who we are; and usually we are too interesting to fit squarely in a bucket. Unless that bucket is "Crap at Math," in which I think fits more of us than I'd like to think about.

[EarnestGirl]

I came of age after the bras were burnt and before the girrrls rioted. It was the time of Beauty Myth busting, and Women Who R(an) With Wolves. Like Mad, The English Cannon I studies still largely excluded women’s voices. If I am to be perfectly honest and fair here, I could easily have been one the women on the other side of the room, the ones who turned their noses up at your bagel and munched sanctimoniously on macrobiotic mother-earth friendly granola. In my twenties and made it my work to think about the ways in which women were still shamed, silenced, violated and still, - still?- represented is a commodity in our popular culture. WS was just starting to get its S on.

But being a small-titted, large-opinioned woman did not protect me from the grabs, the hustle, the various violations that we all learn to withstand (swallow whole?) enroute to becoming who we are. The fog of gender relations is a thick one, and theories are all very well, but are easily lost in the shades of grey. We lose our way. Get scared. Get hurt. Shout loudly. Turn in 360 degrees. Learn, as I have done, to sit quietly and listen; extend a hand to the girl with the bagel or the boy with a candle.

It is my work now to bring up a daughter. Ideally we should all think, as you do, of ourselves in the context of personhood before gender, but I fear that is still – still! – not the world in which we live. I must also teach her to find her voice, the one she can use to say NO. The one that is naturally hers -
“I DON’T WANT I WANT I HATE MYSELF I LOVE MYSELF OH GOD OH NO WHAT WILL THEY THINK OH NOOOO I DUNNO WHO THE HELL SHOULD I BE ANYWAY AARGGGH I CAN’T TAKE IT OOHHH MY SKIN CRAWLS ALL OVER WAAAGGH (COVERS FACE WITH HANDS) OH YUMMY OH THIS SUUUCKS !!!” – thanks to estrogen and chromosomes, and the one she can learn to recognize and claim as her own in response to “ TITTTIES TITTIES TITTIES”:
I AM MORE THAN THIS.

We have a responsibility to teach our daughters how the world reacts to them. Talk, question, examine, lead by example, set boundaries and then talk some more. (have you seen the advertising out there targeted at teen girls? Listened to the lyrics they are dancing to? Still!!!)

It is confusing and hard to be a teenager (boy or girl), a young idealistic woman, a woman at 40 who swallowed too much. We must learn to listen to the soldiers and to the poets, even to the meatheads, for we need both the stories and the fight to lead us out to where the air is clear.

[mamie]

i always find it odd that when i read here it is an actualization of the words that bounce about my mind and never quite find the grace that your fingers to keyboard can.

i am not a woman warrior, a gypsy goddess, a nature mama, a bitch or a cunt or a mama crafter or a mommyblogger....not one of the descriptions that float out there float me, feel like me.

i am just amiee. i wake up everyday amiee...and i get the kids breakfast or steal time or avoid paperwork or read posts that sometimes speak to me, and most often do not (that is because i read a little too narrow on the spectrum, gotta' clear off some of the craft blogs, i think).

gender is less relevant to me also. i grew up in a house of boys, went to school with rooms full of girls, danced all of my life on some stage, liked make up but hated heels...it is all just me. the stories of woman-ness, the coming of age and getting tits and making mistakes with boys, those are all past...been with the same man since 19, so the drama ended long ago. love, well, that is just freely given and taken and worked upon daily.

it makes me feel like less of a freak when i read this. it makes me believe i do not walk alone in just being a person before a gender. i do not want to be a poet, i do not feel the need to argue a salient parenting point. or mothering point. or womanly point

i just want to read a good post, check in with the boys building a 'poopy' fort in the other room (pretend, they explained. thank god), read a little more, make some dinner, avoid some more work paperwork, straighten my hair, check in again about the booger situation, and then maybe think about posting about some other random topic on my blog.

i was really encouraged when i read your comment to neil after the firestorm over there and if this was generated by that, well, i like it. i like what you said and what you say. no arguments coming from this camp. arguing is not my forte anyway.

[afteriris]

Kate, I love to hear about how any given individual relates to all sorts of aspects of politics. I love hearing how you feel about the role (or lack of) that feminism has played for you personally. I'm interested to read that the feminist movement in its current form doesn't feel particularly relevant to your circumstances, and you describe it so eloquently that I understand (I think) why you feel that way. Also, I think it's important to write about it, and I thank you for that and the subsequent discussion.

But I think that feminism (yes, if you like, on a macro scale) is still important, and I get impatient with comments that are akin to "I got married and stayed at home and had babies and now those mean ol' feminazis are givin' me the stink eye'.' Sometimes it's just not about us. Democracy doesn't suit everyone (I know a couple of English semi-aristocrats that are just longing for a return to feudalism) but that doesn't mean it should be discarded. And it's the people with all the privilege that are the one's proclaiming the irrelevance of feminism in this present (yours, mine, everyone's, anyone's)

I'm interested to know why you think that men and women born into poverty hold equal disadvantage? Women, especially poor or vulnerable women, are abused with alarming frequency by men (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/01/teenage-sexual-abuse-nspcc-report) And even in the case of something like domestic violence, which most people acknowledge is mainly perpetrated by men toward women, women seem to have less recourse to legal support (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/28/women-arrested-domestic-violence).

Like you, I am lucky to have mostly encountered respectful men, men who believe in equality for women and are allies to women. But within my middle-class, tertiary-educated peers there are women who have been raped, and even more women who have experienced a lesser form of sexual aggression - some by men who wouldn't even consider that they might be doing something wrong, that, well, she didn't actually say 'no' so her default state must have been consent, right?

So, I guess when I hear that someone feels 'oppressed' by feminism because they've been able to make the wonderful, glorious choices to have babies, to work or not etc my response is invariably 'cry me a river, a woman who lives less than 15 miles from my house was the victim of an honour killing last month'.

Also you say you want to speak for 'ordinary women in the western world, of which there are a hell of a lot': is there really a lack of this voice in our culture? Really? It seems pretty well represented in women's magazines, newspapers, television shows, movies, the internet etc. And what's more I think you're universalising your experience pretty dramatically. I would assume that I fall in to that category very neatly and I hold really different opinions - hence this discussion.

Wow - I seem to have written my own blog post in your comments. Thanks for the stimulating debate!

[afteriris]

Ick. My grammar is DREADFUL. Sorry!

[Jen / Pinky]

Oh my dear holy goodness of blogging loveliness!
I love this post. I might just love you. Would it be creepy if I called you for coffee on the off-chance that I visited Canada?
Kate.
gah.
Thank you for saying what I would say if I had a good connection between my heart and brain and fingers.

[sweetsalty kate]

afteriris, fascinating comment, again. Thanks. In an effort to be as clear as I can, I’ve been getting much less clear. Hrmph. So. A few things, anyway, that I can back away from as a result of your comment.

I’d never suggest that feminism is no longer needed. I don’t think feminism is irrelevant in the present. It’s just that the most common expressions of it don’t resonate with me. It’s not so much that I don’t see myself as a feminist. It’s that I don’t see myself primarily as a woman (and, therefore, more disadvantaged, or more divine). I identify much more strongly as a Canadian than I do as a woman. That affects my life much more than my femaleness does.

The feminist stinkeye doesn’t bother me. In university, I shrugged at it. I puzzled at it. But it didn’t get under my skin in an academic way. I just thought it was, as Mad put it, juvenile. I’ve never felt oppressed by a feminist. I’ve also never felt oppressed by a man. Maybe I'm oppression-averse. I'm kind of a shrugger by nature. Maybe I was too busy eating bagels and drinking beer.

In recent discussions on the internet, I’ve seen women describe their female experience like it’s going into battle on a daily basis. Constant leering, groping, attacks, humiliation, rape around every corner. A barrage of being made to feel like a lesser person by media, in the schoolyard, in their careers. Sexual aggression everywhere. And I’m being honest now, not trying to say it doesn't exist. It just hasn't existed in that way for me. Sure, every now and then I’ve been approached in ridiculous ways by ridiculous people. But have I ever felt like it’s because I’m a woman? Nope. I’ve always read it as being because buddy is a fuckin’ loser. For me, it’s never translated into proof of my female vulnerability. It’s always just been a person who happens to be a prick. And me happening to be the person, temporarily, on the receiving end of prickish behaviour.

I’m not saying that sexual aggression is aggrandized. It's just not had that constant presence in my own life. I’ve been forced upon, and I’ve been leered at. But I’ve never felt like it’s been because I am a woman. I haven't felt like I’ve been on the receiving end of male aggression, even though many people would probably say I have. I’ve felt like I’ve had some unfortunate encounters with bullies. But you know what? Some of the most hurtful bullies I’ve known have been other girls. The viciousness of girls was, for me, much more intense than that of boys and men.

As for poverty and disadvantage, what I mean is that a boy born into an impoverished, abuse-ridden family is going to bear the brunt of cruelty just as much as a girl born into it. Perhaps in different ways, but he’s going to also be marginalized by that situation. He’ll be beaten just as much as his sister. I imagine my boys, my babies, in a house full of drugs and anger and it breaks my heart just as much as it would if I were imagining daughters in that same house. That’s all I was saying. Are wives as safe as husbands in a house like that? Of course not. But I wasn’t thinking about husbands – I was thinking about how violent husbands are cultivated. Which is most likely under their own father’s fists.

As for ordinary women in the western world, I wasn’t implying that those women don’t have a voice today. I was thinking of their lack of choices in the past, and in other countries. ‘Ordinary women’ – not counting random or domestic violence that will always be a part of human life, and not counting misogynistic cultures – have it better than we ever have. If we’re assaulted, we’re listened to. We can call for help. We couldn’t do that before. Violence against women is taken seriously. We talk about it now, and openly. There’s a huge amount of awareness on human rights, womens’ rights included. High schools teach media literacy and talk about issues like body image. Rap lyrics and Bratz dolls and thongs for 12-year-olds are all hotly and loudly debated in the public discourse, as they should be. Bullying of any kind is no longer tolerated. I’m not saying it’s perfect. But in the western world, we are up to our necks in resources and best intentions and a cultural desire to value all different kinds of people more sincerely. There’s still a lot to be done, but it’s getting done. I'll contribute by raising kind sons who respect other people for who they are, not what they are. Even if all they can think of is titties. Respectfully.

Am I universalizing my experience? You could put it that way. But I can’t help my filter. It’s how I see things based on what I’ve experienced in my life. Wounded feminists who insist that womankind en masse is victimized and held back and faces violence at every turn – they’re universalizing, too. I don’t like being told I should be angry or afraid simply because I’m a woman. Meanwhile, feminists who believe women are divine just because they’re women.. that’s a defensive stance, too. I don’t identify with either of those expressions. Academically, I get it. Personally, it’s just doesn’t reflect how I think.

What I’m proposing is that there’s another kind of feminism. The kind that springs from the belief that gender alone doesn’t fate you to experience life one way or the other. My gender is not driving my life. I am, as a person. I just don’t identify as a WOMAN. Maybe that’s because in all my past lives, I was a male cross-dresser. I always liked the feel of a pencil skirt stretching taut across my thighs. But my cock made me feel unbothered by all those wolf whistles. That would be another post.

[sweetsalty kate]

EarnestGirl... "have you seen the advertising out there targeted at teen girls? Listened to the lyrics they are dancing to?"

Totally. That's why I'd knee Snoop Dogg in the nuts.

"We must learn to listen to the soldiers and to the poets, even to the meatheads, for we need both the stories and the fight to lead us out to where the air is clear."

Yes. Exactly that.

[Twice Five Miles]

I love this. I firmly believe that feminism - above all things - is about my right, as a woman, to be whatever I want to be.

Be that president, CEO, yoga instructor, truck driver, mom, teacher, whatever.

And I am so thankful for the women who paved this road for me.