Decisions, Decisions; or, How I Grew Up, Got Over Myself, and Realized There's So Much More to Life (and Feminism)

My feminist experience has been comfortable and enlightening for the most part; it's shown me a new sense of personal value and taught me the integrity of women as a group. I used to identify as a "humanist" and even went so far as to call myself an "anti-feminist" before I understood what the terms really meant.

I've grown out of the other side. I believed in the greater goodness of man-and-womankind but not in the specific goodness of womankind. I didn't value women who fight the right to choose, I didn't appreciate the opinions of educated women working in their homes, and I didn't comprehend the experience of women in cultures that practice female genital mutilation. To make a long story short (ha, too late), I didn't give women's decisions the full weight and consideration that they deserved. But, as Jeyoani's signature reminds us, "Scratch any woman deeply enough and you find a feminist." And this time, a real one.

Looking back, I find I'm a little afraid of that girl. She has all the driven potential and well-meaning that I have now, but she doesn't understand and I can't make her.

I see my problem reflected in the faces of young women so strong that the decisions of others can't stand against their beliefs. Feminism is about valuing the choices of women and striving for those decisions to be recognized to be as valid as the decisions made by men. Feminism doesn't make distinctions between two sides of an argument--and that's the blind spot so common. This ability to separate and label one choice as valid and empowering and a converse as stereotypical and wrong is what limited the second wave and continues to limit the growth of modern feminism. We cannot empower one group of women and disdain another when our goal is the equality of all women. This split is the quibbling that the media loves to exploit and loves to entertain: we are just a bunch women, catty and backstabbing just like the rest.

I find that I shut down in the face of such a line in the sand. I don't know how to deal, so I don't. And the silence, I admit, is as bad as the original act. My feminism is still developing (really, does anyone's ever stop?), and I hope that one day I'll figure out the means to access such stubborn settlings. For now I can be satisfied that I don't infringe on the choices my fellow women make.