feminism

What I want to know is who invented this grand scale of social achievement which really, I must say, does nothing for me.

Now, the Jon and Kate soap opera is admittedly disgusting on both sides, and watching the media and two parents assist in tearing a family apart is repulsive. But I just came across a comment that was truly infuriating.

Jon, who seemed to regress into childish behaviors before recently appearing apologetic, offers up this explanation for his actions:

“It’s hard for a man to stay home for two years and change diapers and make meals and deal with doctor’s appointments and all the stuff that you expect your wife to do.”

Huh? And it's not hard for a woman to do all of those things? Family frustrations are universal for any sex. Why did he agree to have children at all if he wasn't prepared for a burden? To expect for his wife to take care of kids jointly created by the two of them is selfish and sexist.

Over the summer, I saw a play in which a woman in a rocky marriage asked the audience how it was possible that one man could affect her so much, that one man could make her feel so bad. Admittedly, the collective patriarchy and general opinion of men seems to be the "backbone" of sexism, so to speak. But in my experience it's the personal that becomes the political, and that it is indeed that one man that can make a difference.

We read into our personal experiences a lot. I find myself questioning my behavior and even altering it based on the reactions that I get from boys, trying to please them. After a break up, I feel my thoughts don't veer towards "Why didn't it work out?" or "Why aren't our personalities meshing?" or "Why did we have that fight?" Rather, I'm immediately thinking about what I must have done wrong, what actions I could have taken to prevent it, why I drove him away. It's really very hard to find one's self when one is trying to mold into someone else's idea of perfection.

I recently read an article that asked why women, who are superstars in their school years, fall behind and begin to earn less money and prestige as men in their adult lives. The writer believed that it was because women were too "nice" and subservient in the collegiate and work environments, and easily sell themselves short. She pinpointed this inequity to begin when... women started college.

As a senior currently rushing to complete my college apps, this is especially relevant and gives me pause. Am I really at the peak of my achievement right now? Are all of the smart, motivated, and confident girls I know going to blend into the background while the boys I see slacking surge out of mediocrity?

(First of all, I'd like to apologize for my long absence. But I'm committed to resuming posts as much as I can and becoming a more active AGA member!)

How much does one integrate their feminist beliefs in everyday life? Do you speak out or keep your views to yourself? I know how I stand on most issues, but I'm having trouble with how much I should advertise it.

I'm now a senior in high school, and GSA president, yet I felt myself pause for a minute before I mentioned the club while talking to a group of new freshmen. Why? I think I was scared of their automatic judgement- would they think I was weird or not understand what the club was? I wasn't worried that they would think I was gay or judge me if I was, but I felt a stigma for belonging to a group that openly endorses its views.

A copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" showed up on the bookshelf where I work this week. Woo hoo!

I've been listening to female musicians in my car all week. Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs makes me happy.

I saw an interview with Joan Baez. Amazing person with an amazing sense of the power of her voice and words.

I've also been frustrated over the whole health care debate. If the world ever needed feminism it is now. Yet I feel like a true and honest conversation about the health care challenges women are facing are being ignored.

The same old sexist standpoint is being taken. The same reason why women should not have access to abortion is being now used to defend pregnant women not have access to prenatal care. Women, should plan pregnancy or be responsible for the consequences they should not expect a "hand out" from the government. It is very easy for people who have great health insurance to ignore those without or people who have insurance with high deductibles that don't cover things like prenatal appointments or women who lost their insurance coverage when their husbands lost their jobs. Or women who became pregnant because hormonal birth control was not paid for through their insurance company. Or the women who became pregnant because their doctors refused to give them an IUD or sterilization surgery because the woman was too young, did not have previous children or whatever sexist excuse they could come up with.

Ms. Magazine shows mothers as feminist. Naturally everyone is complaining about the insulting nature of the image of a white woman with multiple arms, imagery copied from Hindu religious figures. I'm not dismissing that point but I am disappointed that so many feminist blogs have not even commented on the content of the article of itself.

While I haven't had the chance to read it yet (hoping Barnes and Noble carries Ms.) I'm happy that someone is finally recognizing that moms are feminist too. From the feminist mom perspective I feel like feminist motherhood is a double edge sword. While organizations like Moms Rising recruit women who would have never previously considered themselves feminist, mainstream feminist groups often ignore feminist parenting issues such as birth choice, breastfeeding rights, paid maternity/paternity leave, childcare and issues relating to government involvement in parenting. Mothering magazine took over the feminist issues Ms. Magazine forgot almost completely.

I don't know how it ended up this way.
I have stamps in my passport I don't remember... I went to Seattle more than once? I am just a small town New Zealand girl; we are not supposed to go anywhere. We are supposed to marry some so and so from the fire service and have kids and work twice a week in the bowling club so that the eighty year old residents of the town have something to cling to during the winter.

I have a big backpack that sits in the corner of my room all year round staring me in the face. I don’t have an apron or the "what to expect when you are expecting" book. I don’t want to trade my stethoscope for a bib and a year’s supply of diapers. I don’t need to be in some meaningless marriage. I don’t need props for having dinner on the table when some husband comes home from work. I want to work. I want to burn stuff because I can't cook and I want to live on noodles and rum, as though I am 20 forever.

Somewhere over the last couple of years I earned myself the nickname "gypsy". I get it, I can't stay in one place, I like the rush of visiting a new city, standing in a crowd of a million people with the knowledge that not one of them knows anything about me, I like being invisible there, at least during the day, but then in the early hours of the morning in some run down hostel I always end up laying awake wondering how I can stop the feeling of isolation from ripping me apart. I don't get it.

Being alone has been a norm for me since I was a kid, I was always the loner in my family, and it seems to me that the more I expressed myself, and stood up for myself, the more isolated I became, some of that I cherish and some of it I hate. Feminism is one of those things, it can be isolating, it can be hard to express for fear of isolation, for me anyway. Especially in a community which supports abuse against women and pretty much encourages silence. In lots of ways I love it because it is an instant separator between me and them. People who I don't want to know or befriend or even try to convince that I have a voice in this damn community and I should be able to use it when I want to, and how I want to.

This weekend I was dumped.
Like a baby in a rubbish dump.

Via text message.

I know, I know, but don’t cry for me Argentina, he clearly was not the one (or the ten, if I may be lucky enough to have so many loves in my lifetime). By way of explanation for so abruptly bringing our 5 month getting-to-know-you dance to an end (if you can call anything within a 160 character limit an explanation) he typed “I guess your feminist dialectic jus pushed this sucker out of the yard”.

Backstory: the background to my mp3 player is an image which includes the text “My Marxist-feminist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.” I thought it was cute. He noticed it once or twice and remarked (what I thought was casually) about it. Something along the lines of “Uh-oh, you’re a feminist,” at which point I think we riffed for a couple of minutes about castration and how he should be scared. Stupid me, I thought we were joking around, I didn’t even go into my speech about how if you believe women should have equal rights then you’re a feminist too. Honestly, that is the extent of all talk about feminism in the time that we hung out. I just assumed (again, stupid me) that since he was young, educated, liberal, since we were on the same page about a lot of things that we were on the same page with this even though he clearly didn’t want to stand under that scary banner of feminism.

This morning was one of those mornings where I woke up in a really good mood, my mother was on the "up" last night (so I didnt have my usual monday of her crying on the floor and throwing things at me), but after about ten minutes in my first class I was feeling pretty damn down and out about living in this country. We were discussing how different people identify themselves in certain cultural groups, whether that is ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, whatever, and how we as nurses need to be aware of this in our practice. Awesome, that part is great and I understand, here was where it got a bit pear shaped for me....

So,

first day interning for an awesome women's NGO in Kampala. Looking forward to spending the next three days taking part in some grassroots organising in the village. I am sitting at lunch, being the new girl when horror of horrors, the conversation turns to the latest bee in my bonnet; homosexuality.

One girl is talking about how she went to a meeting discussing homosexuality, and could not keep her head up because they were actually advocating for the rights of gay people. Which she believes is wrong. To paraphrase her words; if the meeting had been about how homosexuality is wrong, then she would have been able to put her head up without fear of being seen by the TV cameras present.

One thing I learnt from travelling is that sometimes you meet people that are just not worth getting into it with. I usually (well these days, usually :P) don't have a problem with expressing disagreement on certain issues, particularly from a feminist perspective, but I have learnt something about myself, and that is that when I am not heard or allowed to speak up it REALLY annoys me, more than it should. I know that is ignorant, because everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I cant help but sometimes I am just not able to see where on earth they are coming from, and my inquisitiveness is often misinterpreted as me being very rude.

This last weekend marked the end (finally) of the Rugby season in my village. I look forward to that every year, as I work in the local bar, and do get tired of the drunken idiots from the rugby club pinching my butt as I work and urinating on our door. On Saturday night the local rugby club had their annual prize giving at our bar as we sponsor their club. I had to work, much to my disgrace, but cash is not exactly flying into my wallet these days, so of course I agreed.

About half way through the evening, most of the wives/girlfriends of the guys at the event had drifted away from the drunken crowd of men and were leaning on the bar chatting to the four of us who were working. We were all pretty unenthusiastic about the event and it was when one of the women mentioned that it might be nice if the women who attended the damn thing were actually included and spoken to, that I asked why we don’t actually have any Women’s sports teams in our village, other than one Netball team, and why don’t we have a women’s rugby team, soccer team, cricket team, when there were so many men’s sports teams playing for our village each week. Most of the Women sitting at the bar laughed loudly and wished me good luck with that one, as most of the time we are barely allowed to stand on the sidelines let alone participate and actually play. But a few of the younger gals expressed interest in being able to play some sort of sport.

Today is the first day of my new course. I have decided to study to be a nurse; I have decided that New Zealand really is not the place for me. I have family here, friends here, but I miss the brand new life which I carefully sculpted, spent a year doing so, a brand new family full of people who I adore as though we all have the same blood running through our veins, a happy life in Canada. I miss my life there, so much that at times since I have been back in New Zealand, I feel as though maybe I left my voice at Vancouver airport and I don’t know how to get it back without returning.

Upon returning I also discovered something about myself which I don’t think I ever would have if I had not escaped my life here for that whole year, if I had not had that year of safety. And that is that I am capable of changing my own life no matter what or who is standing right in the middle of my path. I was a feminist before I left New Zealand, I have read the books, I had very strong feelings and thoughts and opinions on such things, but I feel that now that I have really used my own strength as a woman to stand up and say enough. Walk out on everything I had ever known because I am better than that, I really truly understand what Feminism means to me, what it is.