I won a $1,000 ticket to a Ms. magazine fundraiser luncheon featuring Gloria Steinem. With only thirty women in attendance it was a coveted win.
Photo: Shasta Nelson with Gloria Steinem and Ayesha Mathews-Wadwha
Feminism: A Word I Didn't Like
I'm slowly waking up to feminism.
Half of my readers will be appalled that I feel a need to use the word feminism at all, and the other half of you are probably rolling your eyes that I ever had any hesitation around word.
I was raised in the eighties when the women's movement experienced its backlash after all the progress of the sixties and seventies. To say the least, the word "feminist" didn't hold positive associations for me for most of my life -- it wasn't something you wanted to be. I'd repeatedly heard women start sentences with "I'm not a feminist, but ...," modeling for me that we wanted to distance ourselves from some scary picture of women burning bras, hating men and causing a ruckus.
Adding to the distance I created between myself and feminism was the fact that being a girl often proved to be an advantage to me. I liked being female (shows how much I misunderstood the feminist message!). I didn't feel a sense of oppression about my sex -- I actually felt singled out, rewarded and applauded. Running as one of the first female candidates for Student Association president in college was an honor, attending seminary with less than ten women in my program felt pioneering, and serving as many people's first female pastor felt like a privilege. It wasn't without gratitude that I recognized that I had those opportunities because of women who had fought the good fight before me, but I didn't see the need to keep fighting. I wasn't one of them. I thought we had made it. Or, at least that there was enough momentum to keep us on our way.
I look back now with a twinge of regret that I cared more about being likable, agreeable and your all-around-good-girl than I did about being an advocate for women. But I either didn't see the need or assumed the cause was doing fine without me having to wave its banner.
My Own Feminist Awakening
Feminism is a loaded word. A word that few of us would disagree with in definition: "The advocacy of supporting women's rights as equal to men." In words alone, who among us isn't a feminist?
But as soon as the word is uttered, we sometimes back away, either because we don't sense the urgency of its message, don't relate to those in the media who represent the word to us or don't necessarily feel like there is anything we can do, or want to do -- or some combination of all of these factors. I've spent an entire career distancing myself from a word while still believing in the concept it represents. Being a naturally positive person has more or less allowed me to look away from numbers as I argue that change takes time. I chose instead to feel encouraged by how many amazing women I knew who were doing so much.
And yet positivity shouldn't include denial.
Women still make up only 3 percent of creative directors, less than 5 percent of movie directors (that number dropped in 2011!), only 14 percent of Hollywood writers, and are shown as protagonists in only 17 percent of films. These numbers aren't all that different from a decade ago. Only 6 of our 50 state governors are women, and of the 535 seats of Congress, only 90 of them are women. While we celebrate that we hold 22.1 percent of all statewide elected offices, that number was 22.2 percent in 1993 so the last twenty years hasn't shown tremendous strides there either. I can keep going ... reminding you that only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEO's are women, that we are still earning double-digits less than our male counterparts and that even though we own somewhere around 30 percent of businesses we still receive somewhere between 3-10 percent of the funding.
So this last year I'd say I'm having a bit of an awakening.
An awakening where I realize that we women still need to consciously play bigger games, speak out more, and offer our best in this world. This has nothing to do with what choices you make -- to get married or not, stay home with kids or work outside the home, wear stilettos or reject fashion -- it has to do with being honored completely in whatever choice we do make. Not just for our sakes, but because the problems in our world need us. The ways we engage, make decisions and nurture those around us is being called out. The challenges around us need us.
Feminism in Friendship
I've always wanted to live up to my best. And I was always told I could. In that sense I have always been a feminist.
But it hasn't been until this last year that I'm getting more comfortable with the word and my belief that I need to contribute to what that word stands for. I'd say that one of the forces that has transitioned me into the passion I feel for the cause were my relationships with other women.
When you experience women cheering for you -- supporting you, believing in you, thanking you, and helping you -- you realize how much more powerful you feel. And you want everyone else to have that.
Whether it was Ayesha Mathews-Wadhwa (Founder of PixInk Design who helps companies market to women, pictured with me and Gloria Steinem) or Christine Bronstein from A Band of Wives who gifted me the ticket to attend the luncheon-- these two women are fabulous examples of women who have modeled their willingness to promote other women.
And when you have been given to, you want to give back.
The word feminism is still an awkward word on my tongue. But the concept has taken root in my heart. I hope that those of us reading this can keep living it out in our interactions with each other -- being constant reminders of each others value and potential. That as women who value friends -- we know that we are empowering each other in ways no one else can do. We can hold up mirrors to each other that remind us of our inherent worth.
On the surface, it's easy to think that what we do on GirlFriendCircles.com, a women's friendship matching site, is just networking and social events. But it's women showing up ready to commit to each other, willing to invest in the forming of bonds, honoring the fact that friendships with others are important enough to us to do something about it.
That's feminism. Saying we matter. Putting actions behind our words. We're ensuring that we don't do this journey of life without a local community, cheerleaders, allies and friends.
When I met Gloria Steinem, I thanked her for the path she helped pave for so many of us. Her response was "the hardest part is still ahead."
Good thing we have each other.
p.s.: A shout-out also to all the men who have been feminists long before I was ready to claim the title! Thank you for the voices you've lent the cause!
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This posting was originally posted on Shasta's Friendship Blog where Shasta Nelson posts weekly articles on women's issues as connected to our need of meaningful friendships.
Follow Shasta Nelson, M.Div. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/girlfrndcircles
THEN, when someone points it out...pretend like they want to reverse women's suffrage instead of providing any kind of cogent explanation for why women cannot be held to the same standards as men.
After that, it's mostly about getting men to do more dishes...
Ironically I see more women are beginning to speak up against the madness caused by feminism. UnhappinesÂs in women is at an all time high and to make matters worse studies are showing a continual increase in mental disorders in women. Personally I don't see what good can come from a group that thinks the world would be a better place if no men were in the world and says, "ALL men are (insert insult)!"
I wonder why they haven't done any articles on the women on Youtube or female authors on Amazon who are speaking out against the damage caused by feminism? It seems to me that if feminism was all it was cracked up to be there wouldn't be such a divide in how women view it.
"UnhappinesÂÂs in women is at an all time high and to make matters worse studies are showing a continual increase in mental disorders in women"
This kind of nonsense was also a commonly held opinion of male supremacists two and three centuries ago. Come on up into the 21st century.
There is no divide in how women view it, apart from a few paid conservative hacks. Virtually ALL women are feminist today, as are most men. It is entirely mainstream. Whiny males will never get their unearned privilege back, no matter how much they misinterpret that loss as discrimination.
So, you are calling the author a liar?
http://www.friesian.com/feminism.htm
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread748747/pg1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_feminism
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/29/the-marxist-roots-of-feminism/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNx2SLJVwy8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n51kdAFPN7U&feature=relmfu
http://www.amazon.com/Feminism-Ugly-Truth-Mike-Buchanan/dp/0956641695
"The advocacy of supporting women's rights as equal to men."
This is what feminism is. It's being fully human, with full dignity for the whole person - women stepping out of the shadows of being seen only as a reflection of the sexual and breeding expectations of males. And MRAs don't like that.
And THAT is why so few respect modern feminism.
But instead of acknowledging it, understanding it, learning from it and growing from it...
Just call everyone else a misogynist...whatever....that's helpful, too.
They don't have to be accountable, so they won't.
But, you'd better pay them as if they were...
There. Now you know what it is. Now try and understand that virtually ALL women today are feminists, and almost all men. The ideas are entirely mainstream. Only a few dinosaurs are still whining about something that has been a fait accompli for many decades now.
https://www.google.com/search?q=feminism+definition
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminism
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/feminism
Feminism was born, long before the word was coined, out of the inequities in opportunities women faced in all facets of life from owning property, having an education, being able to vote, as well as a slew of other impediments which constrained or simply eliminated women's abilities to make responsible choices for themselves through their lives.
To be a feminist, neither more nor less, is to hold firmly to the idea that a person's opportunities :: and their exercise of abilities and responsibilities throughout their lives :: must not--solely--be circumscribed, defined or limited by that person's sex.
To be a feminist is to want what liberty offers all people.
I wish everyone understood that.
Modern feminism relies on the reputation of it's predecessors to achieve it's self serving ends.
But these hardly described the broader political scope or history of feminism.
What we're seeing now is the adjustment - primarily of older, rejected males - to this new and inevitable social order that young people are moving into effortlessly. Older men feel the loss of privilege and interpret it as discrimination. Most younger men dont' have this problem - unless, it seems, they experience too much sexual rejection. Then feminism becomes a handy boogey man for them as well. When of course young men experiencing sexual rejection has no relationship to feminism. It's as old as time and sadly, has often been an instigator of displaced misogyny.
Feminism 101.
This allows modern feminists to avoid ever looking in the mirror and asking why they receive such derision from so many...
As for "derision", you seem to have not noticed that virtually ALL women today are feminists, as are most men. Feminist ideas are entirely mainstream and completely accepted. The only ones still howling in the wilderness are the older rejected men who continue to need an external enemy to blame for the sorry condition of their lives. I wouldn't characterize their behavior as derison. More like desperation. Some of them even resort to female impersonation online, believe it or not. :)
It doesn't dimish men in any way to acknowledge that women are equal. It doens't lessen a man's importance in the world to acknowledge a woman's importance.
In point of fact, all women today are feminists, whether they use the word or not. Feminism means quite simply the belief that women are complete and total human beings, apart from and transcendant to their sexual utility to men. Period.
There are many women whose thoughts, feelings and ideas match those of Rick Santorum.
What we NEED...is to stop judging and grouping people along gender lines. Period.
A policeman has to become a police officer.
A manhole cover became a peoplehole cover and so on.
It was UNACCEPTABLE to just call it a manhole cover and understand that it referred to any "huMAN" who might open it...it had to be gender neutral because anything less conveyed the idea that men were the "normal" or the "default", etc. etc. etc.
But we are ALL supposed to unite behind the idea of FEMIN-ism as equality for all humans?
How does that work?
No one is asking you to unite behind fanaticism, which happens in every organization from politics to social causes to feminism. The majority of feminists are not asking to have the name of manhole covers changed, what they are saying is that women's contribution to our nation, society and families is of equal value to that of a man's. It does not diminish my husband's role in our family or our society to equally acknowledge my role. It does not diminish a man's rights to acknowledge equal rights for women.
A. hypocritical.
B. Very hypocritical.
C. Very, very hypocritical.
http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/sharon/gless27.html
Meanwhile, you cannot deny the rest of what I said.
The ABSOLUTELY UTTERLY STAGGERING HYPOCRISY of demanding the DE-genderization of words that convey the superiority of men while SIMULTANEOUSLY demanding that "feminism" refers to equality for all...
So, you try to nitpick.
Typical.
Women in the workforce would have evolved eventually; but, the breakdown of the family started to occur when women wanted to become the "Supermom" that feminism declared every women could become.
We could do it all and have it all; and yet,how many of our kids were raised by strangers in a day care?
Being a mom has to be the hardest job in the world because it's the only job where you have to work yourself into a fenzy working 16 waking hours a day, then you're oncall for the next 8 hours.
Maybe if we would quit trying to keep up with the Joneses and live within our means, maybe ADD and ADHD wouldn't be so prevalent.
Just think about it. We abandon our kids every day when we drop them off at daycare then they vie for attention all day long, then that carries over when they get home. They are just trying to get your attention and you're too busy to listen or too busy to play or too busy to help with homework.
Just sayin'.
I'm curious if you also equate school with the abandonment of daycare, or is there some age at which it's acceptable to put your kids into someone else's care? My kids went to preschool even though I was, and still am, an at-home mom. They went because I felt it important that they socialize, that they have a more structured environment, and so on. So, is preschool also abandonment? Preschool only lasts 3 hours, instead of 8. It was run by the church instead of as a business. What's the distinguishing line between abandonment and informed choice?
I am a military veteran and I've also been a stay at home mom. I can say that while the military was mainly a fun adventure of my youth, the stay at home motherhood was the hardest and most productive work I ever did. Yet which one of those things do you think I STILL get respect from society for? The 4 years of fun I had in the military. That's considered something the whole world will always respect me for. The part where I was a mom is considered a blight on my resume that I should try to hide by pointing out the volunteer or part time work I was doing, so that it won't look like I was just sitting home eating bonbons.
Women left the home because they were never respected for the work they did there.
Some things never change.
I certainly wouldn't. I think that is an EXCELLENT definition of feminism...because the words that are left out speak volumes.
Feminism - The advocacy of supporting women's rights as equal to men (and then sometimes more) WHILE ignoring the idea of equalizing RESPONSIBILITY.
I couldn't agree more with that statement.
And that is why feminism is carrier pigeon of equality...it was useful, served it's purpose and now it just gets in the way of further progress.
Modern feminism is a cesspool of narcissism and misandry.
It is an obstacle to egalitarianism and must be replaced for true equality to occur.
Always talk about females making "double digits" less than men which isn't even true if you do a fair comparison based on skill level, experience, hours worked, and overall benefits that get used. And never any talk about how much wealth gets transferred from men to women via our biased family courts that work to punish fathers rather than to try to protect families.
Always talk about phony abstract concepts such as "glass ceilings" but never any talk about how men are treated unfairly at every level of the criminal justice system starting from how they are viewed and treated by police during investigations to how they are punished more severely than women even when the same crimes are committed... and how they are punished more severely even if the judgement is the same based simply on the condition of male vs female prison systems.
Now having said all of that I think equality is a worthwhile goal but the feminist movement itself is long outdated and is at this point simply ridiculous. Men and women have different advantages and disadvantages in society but if the goal is to look at everyone as an equal individual then it doesn't make sense anymore to only look at the problem through a feminist perspective and focus on only the stuff that seems to hurt women.
It is an obstacle to egalitarianism.
Team Pink vs. Team Blue helps no one...except a narrow self serving interest group.