Personally speaking, I think I was born being a feminist. I thought traditional roles were ridiculous. I always look back to the burning question: Why can’t women work in the ABC Stores? (they couldn’t until I was well into my adult life) You know, I never got a credible answer other than they would have to deal with drunks. I suppose Captain Obvious forgot that women go to parties with men?

But I digress… What does it mean to be a feminist? Had the definition changed over the years? Are feminists bad people in your mind?

Do you want your wife, daughter, mother, sister to be a feminist?

To me, feminism is simply the belief that women are politically and socially free to pursue their own course. They make their own choices either alone or with whom they chose to share. It doesn’t mean they have to go out and be GI Jane or run a bush hog.

I don’t think young people today understand how deeply the roots of feminism go in people my age and older. We were the trail blazers in many respects, for the girls and women who take a hell of a lot for granted. Perhaps the suffragists feel that way about my generation. Something happened between Rosie the Riveter and the baby boomers. I am not sure what. Perhaps the desire to return to normalcy, whatever that means, outranked new-found freedoms. I just didn’t see many feminists emerge from “the Greatest Generation.”

Perhaps my own role as an alpha baby boomer was less traditional than my peers. I am beginning to think, yes, maybe. I do know that my father tried to raise me to be an independent thinker and then about half way through the process he became horrified at what he had created. It was a fairly rocky road from that point on.

Let’s have a discussion about how things have changed for women. If you are male, talk to your wife, mother if you are lucky enough to have one still, and sisters.

I am often dumbfounded and speechless when I look back at my own youth and see the absurd social and economic mores. Can you simply imagine a pregnant girl being sent to live with an aunt or cousin, having a child, and then forced to give it up? then the girl returned home, back to the parents and was to pretend nothing happened? I always found that routine to just be inhumane. White people did that. Black families were much smarter.

I am sometimes speechless when I talk to my own peers when discussing their own role in their own relationship. I have friends who haven’t “come a long way, baby.” Some of them are more traditional than my own mother was. I guess I was just in denial.

I have other friends who define feminism and not for any one reason. It just encompasses their being. They wear pink, lace, and jewelry. It has nothing to do with outward appearance. It has everything to do with mental outlook and mind set.

Share your opinions. There is no right or wrong answer. I am curious.

20 Thoughts to “International Women’s Day: What does it mean to be a feminist?”

  1. BSinVA

    Shouldn’t that be “do you want your wife, daughter, mother , sister, HUSBAND, BROTHER, SON, FATHER to be a feminist?” Men can be feminists as well.

    1. I don’t recall it being the International Men’s Day.

      Yes they can be feminists but…that wasn’t the topic.

  2. Ed Myers

    There cannot be equality unless there is also a masculinity movement.

    The feminist assumption is that women are being discriminated against through social institutions. I think that is true but it is also true that men are being discriminated against by bias built into our society…just in different ways. Women can see when they are harmed but are blind to the discrimination that helps them and harms men.

    Examples: Men are considered disposable and we see that in a much shorter life expectancy. Much higher amounts of health care are provided to women at the expense of quality of life for men. Men earn more money by working longer hours but women spend more of the household income. Criminal justice targets men especially if it is men doing things that makes women feel unsafe. It is rarely codified as a crime the things women to do to infuriate men. Men have few to no reproductive rights; the assumption is always that women are the better single parent. Society honors Women’s day and Mother’s day and pretty much ignores Father’s day.

    Unless we have a viable counterbalance to feminists that advocate for men’s rights we can’t iterate to justice. Instead we will just get a continued transfer of political power to women at the expense of marginalizing men. Men are a political minority, after all. The warning signs of the marginalization is the unemployment of young black men and their high incarceration rate and mortality at the hands of government. The high graduate rate of women from college compared to men is creating a permanent male underclass.

    Here’s a personal experience with female discrimination. Our neighborhood started a child sharing coop. Each week a different family would babysit while the rest would go out on a date. One of the rules that the women instituted was that no husband would ever be alone with the kids. Men simply could not be trusted to properly care for other people’s children without female supervision!

  3. PUH-leezzzz

    When men give birth maybe they will have reproductive rights. Until then, don’t bore me.

    As to the co-op situation, when women show up in the same proportion as child sex offenders, then maybe you will have a beef. I suppose the solution there is to get to know the people first to earn the trust of everyone.

    You really lack a basic knowledge of history as it relates to who owns the power. Also I feel your words are an attempt to minimize what I consider a very serious question. Frankly, I find it offensive.

    I also think you are spoofing.

    I am not here to educate you or to argue with someone who cannot be taken seriously.

    The gun rights folks are far more patient than I am.

  4. Ed Myers

    If equality is defined as women get what they want and men don’t then you are going to overshoot the fairness target by a wide margin. Technology has eliminated the masculine advantage that allowed men to dominate over women in past generations. At most men are clinging to a few benefits of tradition and more likely have slipped into second class status.

    The discriminatory sins of my grandfathers upon women does not justify discriminating against today’s sons. Educational success (and future employment success) has become strongly tilted in the favor of girls. Just look at test scores. Since women dominate teaching we can expect that this is the result of years of structural and cultural discrimination.

    Proof that being a woman is more desirable than a man in today’s society: transgender choice is more men becoming women than the other way around.

    1. Why have you turned a question about what it means to be a feminist to suddenly be all about men?

      Are you aware, for example, that I certainly couldn’t go to just any college I wanted to because women undergraduates were not admitted? Are you aware that when I graduated from college I had 2 fields open to me–teaching or the secretarial pool. I could have gone into nursing or library science but that determination had to be made in college. I could go on and on.

      Women dominate teaching because that was all that was open to them if they had college degrees.

      Obviously no one wants serious discussion on this topic. I might as well shut down the comments before they get even more asinine.

    2. How about it, Ed. Let’s address the question: What does the term “feminist” mean to you?

  5. Cargosquid

    Mmmmm mmmmm

    This popcorn is tasty…..

  6. Ed Myers

    I thought I was a feminist because I supported the right to a sexual harassment free workplace. I support equal pay for equal work (but not equal pay for 30% less work.) I would have supported the equal right amendment had I been of voting age. Maybe I went into a progressive job field but none of the grievous discrimination people talked about was around when I got to my first job.

    This is not a zero sum game. I expect that laws that protect women also protect men. That’s what makes them fair. Supporting equal rights for men and women helps us view people as individuals and not gender roles. Any equal rights effort (whether directed at injustice that affects women or men) ultimately helps all genders.

    Unless we view our efforts as breaking down gender bias and not some sort of reparations for today’s women for the (in hindsight bad) choices made by previous generations, then we can’t march towards equality.

    Is this a generational thing? I’d trade places with my wife any day. My education and employment opportunities would be greatly enhanced in my field had I been born a women. Same with my children. I’m envious of the position women have in today’s society and am disappointed that I don’t have female offspring to live vicariously through. Girls have a bright future; boys not so much. It’s all there in the numbers.

    1. Now that starts a discussion. I rarely think about sexual harassment when I think of feminism. I probably should. I think how it is dealt with is probably more significant than it, in itself. It will probably always go on but it wont be dealt with as wink wink nudge nudge any longer. Women do it also. It just manifests itself differently.

      I support equal pay for equal work also…equal meaning the same. I don’t think women should make more because they are women. I also don’t think women should force themselves into jobs they aren’t really physically capable of doing, take equal pay, and then let someone else do the heavy lifting. I know that happens also. That has to do with being a mooch, not feminism.

      Laws should protect all people equally. Again, equal means well…equal. The same.

      Now, do women have the same rights as men in most of the world? Absolutely not. How about in various religions? Absolutely not. You do understand why vintage women like people don’t forget the past? You understand that many of these rights are still very fragile. A wave of the SCOTUS wand could take away all sorts of rights.

      I think reproductive rights are critical because of economic empowerment. When I was a girl and a young women, corporations made no bones about denying professional jobs because women would just get married/pregnant and leave to raise their children. Back to teaching and the secretarial pool. Even then women were usually forced into quitting because they “showed.” (thus confirming they were sexually active I suppose) I feel we are still dangerously close to not being able to count on reliable contraception for everyone and certainly abortion hangs on the ledge. Very little research has gone into reproductive issues since the Pill.

      When women control their own reproduction, it economically empowers them. If you don’t have that control, in todays society you have nothing. I can bore everyone and elaborate about the cost of child care, health care, supporting a family…but hopefully everyone gets it.

      I don’t know that the oppression of women has been a choice or just tradition. I don’t think men set out to disenfranchise women. Its sort of a subtle control. Why give up the power. I am not sure that most men were even aware of it. I do know this. Many men still haven’t changed. I see it and hear it daily. Let’s more beyond PC and talk about people really feel and act when not in public. I would also be less than honest if I didn’t admit that some women still contribute to their own oppression.

      Equal rights amendment….I think women were the chief opponents. I never voted for it because it was decided in the state legislatures.

  7. Furby McPhee

    Cargosquid :
    Mmmmm mmmmm
    This popcorn is tasty…..

    That’s the only comment on this thread I’m touching. Anybody care for some raisinets?

  8. middleman

    I find the whole concept of feminism interesting. If a woman stands up for herself, she is (or was?) a “feminist.” If a man does the same, he’s “a man.” There’s no such thing as a “masculinist”- there’s no word for a man who strongly promotes his own self interest because our society has historically endorsed male domination and treated males differently. Once you brand a strong woman a “feminist” you can compartmentalize, divide and separate her out to neutralize and demonize her. Same idea with “environmentalist”- as if we don’t all rely on the environment to live, just as we rely on women to live. Both terms have now been tagged with a negative connotation by those who want to go backwards.

    Women are still feared and discriminated against across the world. We’ve made great strides in the past 100 years in America, but lots of folks would love to undo that progress and are working to that end.

    1. Interesting. I don’t disagree. Your point is illustrated by Limbaugh, that great paragon of family values, with his sneering “femi-nazi” name calling and his attempt to slut shame Sandra Fluke.

      Agreed also about environmentalists.

  9. Ed Myers

    My comments are restricted to liberal democracies where women have voting rights. Without a doubt there are many parts of the world where women are subjugated but I don’t live there and can’t speak to that. Religion mirrors society and men who are able to subjugate women will find a religious reason to justify their actions. Unfortunately religion is a follower and not a leader in gender rights.

    In my first professional job I was platonic friends with a young woman mostly because she thought she was dating someone else and besides I was out of my league. Anyway she invited me to go with her to some festival event and we apparently crossed paths with her “boyfriend” who was also with someone else. I was too clueless to understand what was going on or that I was being used as a prop. Anyway, later she gets propositioned by her boss and went straight to HR. He was instantly fired and everyone cheered. We also cheered when it was later reported that he came home late once too often and found his Armani suits and expensive shoes smoldering in the driveway and the locks changed. I realized that there was an old guard of male pigs but in my circles I didn’t see that ugliness show up very often or else didn’t recognize it.

    A year or two later I ended up working for a women whose boss was also a women. However my boss was going through a nasty divorce and she took it out on her male staff. It was intolerable and I had to leave my job or be fired. I learned that being progressive about sexual harassment didn’t guarantee a company would be progressive about gender bias. Sexual harassment has legal implications but gender bias doesn’t.

    I agree that reproductive freedom is key to woman empowerment but it is also important for men. The men I know whose girlfriends got pregnant wanted to be part of the child’s life. The women, however, preferred the child support payment without the guy hanging around because it cramped their style in finding a more suitable mate. If only there was a male long-term contraceptive. Then both men and women could positively control their reproductive choices without being trapped by the other’s deception.

    I don’t want to get into a bidding war of who is more a victim because I know I’ll lose. I do think it better if we think of gender bias as a social ill that affects all and that equality needs to be embraced by all in order to achieve it. That was my opening point.

    1. Well, you are having a discussion now. That makes a difference. I think men should have reproductive rights also as long as it isn’t at the expense of women who, lets face it, have done 99% of the work involved. (as in 30 seconds vs nearly 10 months, labor and deliver) I have a son who is an excellent father. It would kill him if he wasn’t part of his child’s life. He is Mr. Mom. I might also add that he is married to the mother of his child. I think that makes a difference.

      If it comes down to abortion, in a perfect world, that is a decision a man and a woman make together. In an imperfect world, the decision is totally the woman’s. Sorry. It boils down to who owns the problem. Men who really care about these things will make good sexual choices. No, there are no perfect answers for this one. As for finding a more suitable mate, having a child also limits one’s prime time. It gets a little more difficult to find the ideal mate. Not impossible, but definitely more difficult.

      Women can be pure bitches to work for. So can men. I have worked for more male bitches than female bitches but I don’t think it is anything other than random chance. Yes, there is gender bias. You spoke of women teachers. Here’s one for you….try going in for a teaching job and a man is also vying for the same job. Most of the time the males will get the job. In house, its call diluting the petticoat regime. Just is. Men are needed in education.

      What bothers me is that politically there is always someone out there trying to strip those rights away from women–especially reproductive rights. It’s usually religious right people. Then there is the Ledbetter Act. Oy Vey.

      I think you have brought up some points that need exploring–now you are discussing rather than cyber shouting.

  10. @Ed Myers
    One more thing that I meant to say is that when there have been women presidents, perhaps I will consider the playing field a little more level.

    People like you and I might share one believe system about the equality of women, many people do not.

    Just look at how women candidates have been treated compared to their male counterparts. there is no comparison. Right now, this is almost uncharted territory.

  11. middleman

    @Ed Myers
    The fact that some women may take advantage of protections put in place to address discrimination doesn’t change the fact that the discrimination exists and primarily affects one gender. The fact that some women are bitches and can be manipulative is immaterial to this discussion.

    Gender discrimination is not a social ill that affects both genders equally, so the remedy logically has to involve changing the behavior of the gender doing the discriminating. We’ve made strides in that direction but we aren’t there yet, and muddying the waters by confusing individual behavior with societal mores won’t help us to make progress.

  12. Ed Myers

    It is sexists to say that because I am a man that I bear responsibility for any and all pain that affects women. That is what my boss did (transfer her anger about her ex-husband into a general anti-male rant) and it was discriminatory.

    Gender discrimination does affect both genders more equally than you think. Men are hurt when they are discriminated against to fix past discrimination they were not a part of and did not benefit from. They are hurt when their wives and daughters are discriminated against.

    The solution is to look for gender neutral solutions not ways to turn the tables. If most discrimination is by men against women then women will rightly be the primary beneficiaries of gender neutral solutions. If you just enact anti-men/pro-women solutions you make the sexist problem worse. We can’t change people’s sexist opinions but we can make sure that those sexists opinions do not create institutional injustice.

    I hope that the next president or vice-president is a woman. It is long past due for that ceiling to be broken. Who is getting groomed on the Republican side as a VP candidate to offset Clinton going for a “historic moment”?

  13. middleman

    @Ed Myers
    Ed, I suggest that you try to look beyond your specific experiences to see the bigger picture. Equality is not a zero sum game- having men treat women equally doesn’t diminish men, in fact it uplifts both sexes.

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