Feminism

This page, like all my pages which deviate from my regular blog page will serve to summarize the "state of affairs" or where I'm at in my thinking about some key subjects that keep coming up in my life. Please realize that my thoughts and theories are a work in progress and likely to offend someone. If you're a person who reads this and thinks that it is wholly inadequate, well then I suggest you talk to me. Let me know what I'm doing right and what I'm missing. Blatant criticism for the sake of criticizing me will be quickly and quietly deleted.

First, I'd like to give voice to something that was really hard to vocalize when I was first trying to make headway in understanding what feminism is. Coming from an ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christian background, as a white male, I felt like I had all the cards stacked against me. Anything and everything I said that was perceived as wrong or something Patriarchal was shot down and told was wrong. It was so hard for me to see what feminism was. It's like there was a disconnect between myself and people who called themselves feminists. It was like an inside joke that I was encouraged to get in on, but nobody was giving me the "in". For a while, I would get feminists telling me that feminism isn't about hating men, but then I would hear people talking about all this horrible stuff men have done to women throughout history. It was very confusing and not very reassuring to an individual who was already confused, brainwashed, and desperate to understand without being judged for the mistakes made along the way.

That is why I advocate for what I shall call Organic Feminism. I believe that feminism is as personal to an individual as their spiritual beliefs, their sexual habits and preferences, and so on. These things are things which we shouldn't bash people on the head with, but it happens all too often. Yes, I believe that feminism is an essential step towards equality, but I don't think everyone can simply be told what feminism is and be convinced of any ideals which one might describe as "feminism". Some people, like me, need to experience or see the disparity and the inequality first-hand. It's easy for men who live amongst women who are not afraid to advocate for themselves to forget that there are women out there who are oppressed because they are women. In our 21st Century Western civilization, where the oppression may not be an outright act of violence, but a subtle pass of a promotion in favor of a male colleague; the need to make it known in what ways sexism still exists should be apparent.

I talk to my family quite a bit about my feelings on feminism. I half-jokingly, half-hoping tell my sister, "I'll make a feminist out of you yet!" In many ways, that goes against my theory of organic feminism: that I should allow my sister to discover feminism on her own. I can't really take credit for her discoveries though, since she's the one who has done all the research. She's one who's been reading the books. I just pointed her in the direction I thought would be most helpful. On the other hand, my family has heard me say the phrase, "I am disappointed in your gender normative thing". They give me funny looks when I say that, in part because they don't know what I'm saying but also because they don't agree. For them, to get upset when they say things like, "Girls take longer in the bathroom" (implying that all women spend too much time doing make-up and other miscellaneous things in the bathroom that men do not) is to deny a basic fact. It's not like my family hasn't heard of stereotyping and how awful it can be, but more like they can't fathom how gender normative statements and stereotyping are just two branches of the same ugly tree.

That's all for now...