Feminism
from Adele's perspective
I'm a feminist. This is not news to folks who know me! But for those of you reading this who don't know me, I grew up with Free To Be, You And Me and all of the associated equality and freedom and empowerment movements of the 70's. Mom read Ms. Magazine back when it was really amazing, and I found Star Trek and sci-fi and fantasy for heroes, and studied the few women in NASA's astronaut program in the 70's and 80's for role models.
My parents are so cool.
They raised me the same as they would have raised a son, to know for certain from the very start that girls and boys have just as much potential and skills to offer the world, and are just as deserving of equal treatment from society in general...
Not so deep down inside me is the little girl who adoringly put up an 8x10 photo of Sally Ride up on her bedroom wall; the preschooler who told off a three-year-old boy who'd tried to tell her that girls couldn't do everything boys could; the first grader who didn't scream and run away when a boy waggled a live worm right in front of her face during recess; the one girl in the 4th grade class who drank Freckle Juice on the equivalent of a dare ("None of the girls would ever drink this nasty stuff, only us boys are brave enough..."); the middle schooler that got bumped up a year in math, thus having to deal with social ostracism and mistreatment from peers in exchange for knowledge; the high school science club president who made sure cool stuff got included from local men and women scientists on career day.
I've since realized, of course, that the world hasn't come as far as Mom and Dad thought it would have by now. But I'm coping with the fact that we still have a long way to go...
It's not that I don't like men; men are just fine and dandy. But women are just as fine and dandy, too! I'm quite passionate about the concepts of equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities (not the bureaucracy, I mean the concept itself), equivalent health research and insurance and treatment, equal division of labor in families, and acceptance of nontraditional roles for both men and women. I'm quite intolerant of intolerance.
Career women who do not want children should not be held back because "they might get a bun in the oven." There are some of us who do not want or plan to reproduce, and we are just as driven as career men. That said... some us want it all.
At the same time, I know that much wisdom which was the pervue of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers has been lost in our modern push to have it all. Homemaking is an art and a science, and many men and women who are now running households did not learn much of the skills and knowledge of their elders.
Children need parents. Two working parents are sometimes an economic necessity, but someone must teach the new generation values, knowledge and wisdom. If full-time mothers are not doing it, full-time fathers or part-time parents must take up the slack. Our schools and daycare centers cannot shoulder that responsibility.
a few useful starting points
- The 3rd WWWave
- Web, by Women, for Women
- The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS)
- Boston Women's Health Book Collective
- National Women's Health Information Center
- Women
of NASA
- Women's Biographies: Distinguished Women of Past and Present
- National Women's History Project
- The National Women's Hall of Fame
- Making It Their Own: Women of the West
- Annie Oakley Foundation
- Girls Who Wear Glasses
- Good comics: Geek Girl and Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet and User Friendly and Piled Higher and Deeper and Crippling Depression: Life At Caltech and anything by Roberta Gregory
- Sally Ride Science Club
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Adele
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