I’m a feminist. This is not news to folks who know me! But for those of you reading this who don’t know me, I grew up with Free To Be, You And Me and all of the associated equality and freedom and empowerment movements of the 1970s and 1980s. Mom read Ms. Magazine back when it was really amazing, and I found science fiction and fantasy genres for heroes, and studied the few women in NASA’s astronaut program at the time for role models.
My parents are so cool.
They raised me the same as they would have raised a son, to know for certain from the very start that girls and boys have just as much potential and skills to offer the world, and are just as deserving of equal treatment from society in general…
Not so deep down inside me is the little girl who adoringly put up an 8×10 photo of Sally Ride up on her bedroom wall; the preschooler who told off a three-year-old boy who’d tried to tell her that girls couldn’t do everything boys could; the first grader who didn’t scream and run away when a boy waggled a live worm right in front of her face during recess; the one girl in the 4th grade class who drank Freckle Juice on the equivalent of a dare (”None of the girls would ever drink this nasty stuff, only us boys are brave enough…”); the middle schooler that got bumped up a year in math, thus having to deal with social ostracism and mistreatment from peers in exchange for knowledge; the high school science club president who made sure cool stuff got included from local men and women scientists on career day.
I’ve since realized, of course, that the world hasn’t come as far as Mom and Dad thought it would have by now. But I’m coping with the fact that we still have a long way to go…
I like men; men are just fine and dandy. But women are just as fine and dandy, too! And neither gender is born with the innate knowledge of how to change diapers, folks.
I’m quite passionate about the concepts of equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities (not the bureaucracy, I mean the concept itself), equivalent health research and insurance and treatment, equal division of labor in families, and acceptance of nontraditional roles for both men and women. I’m quite intolerant of intolerance and willful ignorance.
Career women who do not want children should not be held back because “they might get a bun in the oven.” There are some of us who do not want or plan to reproduce, and we are just as driven as career men. That said… some us want it all.
Some of us want a career we are proud of, and we want to contribute to our community and our world, and we also want a home life and a family of our own. With the right partner, and with the support of our communities and our workplaces, all of these things become possible. However, if our community or our workplace is intolerant of equality, or is stuck under misconceptions and outdated gender definitions… we’re stuck, too. And our skills, our dedication, our intelligence, our value to our communities and to our world… our contributions are squandered.
At the same time, I know that much very valuable wisdom which was the pervue of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers has been lost in our modern style of hectic living. Homemaking is an art and a science, and many men and women who are now running households did not learn much of the skills and knowledge of their elders.
Children need parents. Two working parents are sometimes an economic necessity, but someone must teach the new generation values, knowledge and wisdom. If full-time mothers are not doing it, full-time fathers or part-time parents must take up the slack. Our public schools and private daycare centers alone cannot shoulder that responsibility. As parents individually, and as families and as communities collectively, we must own the responsibility of raising our children.
“There was a million here before we came; there’ll be a million more when we’re gone.”
– Oysterband, Gonna Do What I Have To Do
a few useful starting points
- The 3rd WWWave
- Web, by Women, for Women
- The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS)
- Boston Women’s Health Book Collective
- National Women’s Health Information Center
- Women of NASA
- Women’s Biographies: Distinguished Women of Past and Present
- National Women’s History Project
- The National Women’s Hall of Fame
- Making It Their Own: Women of the West
- Annie Oakley Foundation
- Sally Ride Science Club