I believe that one can be a feminist without having a detailed, thought-out, nuanced, foot-noted position on any and all issues related to feminism. I believe one can be a feminist without having read the canon of books, articles and manifestos. I believe one can be a feminist without having ever taken a Women's Studies course.

I have read most of the seminal (love that word) works, but memory being what it is, and time passing as it does, it may well be as if I haven't read any of them. I try to keep up by reading one or two of the most talked-about works every year, but since I usuallly pick these up during hockey playoffs (for a little balance in my life), I'm behind this year.

I have gone through many phases of feminism(s) and have been comfortable now for many years with 'my' feminism. I have had many (most?) of the arguments with other feminists: rape/power, media representations, pornography, feminisms inclusive/exclusive, separatist/integrationist, the sex trade/industry, nature/nuture, affirmative action, and so on and on and on. I know what I think about these things, but there's always room for more thought.

So, what do I do as a practising feminist?

First, a couple of things I don't do. I don't try to change minds. If someone espouses some fundamentally misogynist or misogynistically fundamental position on something, I just leave. (Or, here on babble, I yell 'troll' and leave.) I try not to judge people quickly. That said, there are some things that are a dead giveaway: 'nuff said, shut the fuck up.

What I do do. Where I can, I shut people up when they speak hatefully. (For small example, my sweetie often employs people talented in various arts and crafts. One such is a guy who is very good at a particular job and otherwise a waste of $2-worth of chemicals. Originally in my presence and now in sweetie's presence as well, this guy is not allowed to talk about women, Native people, gays or lesbians, ethnic groups in general, you get the idea.)

I try to learn from other people's experiences. I love talking to the young men and women who pass through sweetie's studio. I try to talk to them as I would to my (age) peers, asking them what they think about this or that. Most of them are recent art-school graduates and they are -- mostly -- a wonderfully open-minded lot.

I turn out for (some) demonstrations, sign petitions, write letters of complaint, that sort of thing. I try in my small way to be an example of a middle-aged second-waver with nothing much to prove to anyone.

I'd consider myself a pro-feminist (I don't think guys can be feminists (blah blah (I did Women's Studies in academia))).

I chose my field of work because it is female dominated and many progressive women in the field want more men in it, on principle and for pragmatic reasons. It also gives me an opportunity to role model and support gender equity in the workplace, families, and peer groups.

In my political work, I support a socialist feminist organization and try to promote feminist causes, mobilizations, and culture. I also support the right of women to organize independently of men.

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I'm starting this thread for those of us feminists (male and female) who may have been alienated by what's been going on in various threads recently.

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I have read most of the seminal (love that word) works, but memory being what it is, and time passing as it does, it may well be as if I haven't read any of them.

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Isn't that a bittersweet truth, though. *wry smiley*

I first joined a women's liberation group in 1968. I had read Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, years before that, although, perhaps oddly, perhaps not, I drew at that time absolutely no connection between her meditations and any kind of political organization or action. I was a student of literature and that's how I read her, in the context of other mid-century French existentialist writers.

I came to the women's movement through the classic political shifts of the late fifties / early sixties: recognizing and challenging anti-semitism, then the U.S. civil-rights movement, then the student movement, then the anti-war movement, and then (partly provoked by the male heavies in the other movements) the women's movement. It was a wonderful time. Whatever the subsequent failings of my cohort, it was a wonderful time to be alive, and I will always be grateful to everyone who recognized its liberating potential and plunged in.

If I have any special, personal take on feminism that has lasted steadily since then, it flows from my deep respect for many women's traditions and my conviction that feminists need not be ashamed of a lot of the traditional "feminine" training we have had.

Fetishized and oppressive notions of "femininity" needed to be confronted and critiqued, no question, and they still do. And I am 100 per cent supportive of women who have looked at traditional women's roles and rejected all of them, either because more traditionally "masculine" roles just came more easily to them or out of firm political conviction that they must remake themselves. One of the best physicists I know chose her work in self-conscious defiance of femininity, not because she initially loved physics. I understand and support decisions like that; I know a lot of women who made them; and I think it has simply been necessary for a lot of women to do that. We all owe women who made such choices.

Me, though. I've spent my whole life teasing shape or meaning out of things or animating other people. I think that a lot of very traditional "feminine" training develops those skills -- I've always felt that my scholarly and writing skills were deeply rooted in a kind of attention to detail that my mother taught me -- so I refuse to be ashamed of being "feminine," and always have.

I'm not as good as I should be at supporting others (I'm lazy and somewhat anti-social, bookwormy), but I can do that sometimes, and when I do, I do it well, I think because I've practised being psychologically perceptive, as most women inevitably have. I listen; I intuit and empathize; I support -- I do not impose solutions unless invited (or in emergencies).

I wouldn't have much to add... My studies and work are in quite "female" soft-knowledge fields, fine arts, literature, and social history ("female" to a lesser extent but no doubt more than economics, for example). I have been involved in feminist movements for pretty much the same reasons as skdadl. Though I am certainly still involved in the World March of Women and am a committed socialist-feminist, most of my social committment recently has centred more on refugee and other issues. One famous case involved a young woman seeking protection on the basis of sexist discrimination, but these days most of the cases seem to concern men...

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The female physicist, yes. I still get a little thrill when I see a woman in a hard-hat.

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physicists wear hard hats?

[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
I don't really think I can contribute a whole lot to this thread,

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Originally posted by MasterDebator:

A statement destined to create little controversy.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
I find it hard to leave behind the women who are living out traditional roles and impossible to scorn them, since I still see the immense potential for human goodness in the nurturing stereotype, even as I cheer the rebels on.[/QB]

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[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

But there has historically been a problem with assigning the full burden, emotional and otherwise, of nurturing to women. It has distorted our society, for one thing, produced not just men but entire classes who would feel ashamed to nurture, who scorn those who do, who celebrate aggression in various forms, and so on.

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But there has historically been a problem with assigning the full burden, emotional and otherwise, of nurturing to women. It has distorted our society, for one thing, produced not just men but entire classes who would feel ashamed to nurture, who scorn those who do, who celebrate aggression in various forms, and so on.

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Well then, I suppose the question that must now be asked is, If we live in such a toxic, oppresive, agression friendly environment, how the heck did we end up getting sensitive stay at home dads? Manly Men are everywhere. In such a situation, how was our society able to produce the magoos an Jeff Houses of this world?

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That last sentence, CMOT ... heh heh heh heh ...

But seriously: Well, for one thing, the world has changed a lot, just in my adult lifetime. Encouraging men to see that feminism could be liberating for them too, could help us all to live fuller lives, has long been part of feminist politics, and in the context of some economic/employment shifts over the last couple of generations, that has had some effect -- on some middle-class white men, anyway.

I'm not sure that, even in that limited sphere, though, things have entirely shaken out, or that everything that has happened has been an unmitigatedly Good Thing. There are lots of problems surrounding women's employment still, and in broader terms, with the need of most families to have two earners.

[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: skdadl ]

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

Well then, I suppose the question that must now be asked is, If we live in such a toxic, oppresive, agression friendly environment, how the heck did we end up getting sensitive stay at home dads? Manly Men are everywhere. In such a situation, how was our society able to produce the magoos an Jeff Houses of this world?

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Um, no, that's not a question that must be asked HERE. This is the feminist forum, specifically a thread on feminist practice. And while feminists practising their feminism may well have had a hand in making stay-at-home fathers more acceptable, that's not really the point here. Or at least in my view. . .

edited to add: Unless, of course, someone has a story about how practising feminism DID allow a father to stay at home.

[ 02 October 2005: Message edited by: fern hill ]

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In such a situation, how was our society able to produce the magoos an Jeff Houses of this world?

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I'll be expecting some amusing answers to this.

For the record though, I'm neither stay-home, nor a dad. I'm a go to work, come home, cook and clean non-dad.

Maybe I think this because social history is a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine, but it has helped me sometimes to back up a bit from my own political frustrations and to try to see myself (and my contemporaries) in historical context.

I mean, it is hard, when you see an injustice, not to want it to be cured yesterday. And some injustices really are that immediate -- we have to act on them before we sleep. But there are other kinds of deep changes that I have come to accept I will not see in my lifetime. I'm not saying that I don't believe we should still act to start correcting them: we must. Continuing to fight for others and to model our own ideas of women's liberation in our lives is where our real accomplishments come from, I think.

Sometimes it helps me, though, to sit back and think about women of my cohort and to say, "Well, we had that to do, and we did what we had to do." In social history, you can always see groups of people of whom that was true -- they may not be you, but they made a difference in getting the world to where you are.

I have never read any feminist text, nor taken any courses in women and gender studies, and I find 90% of the debate over the last few weeks here to be over my head.

So, what have I done that would lead me to belive I was a feminist all these years? Whatever the hell I want to!

I 'practice feminism' by doing what I want to do, and encouraging other women to do the same. By nature, I am a very mathematical person (with degrees in engineering and computer science), and a lot of the social sciences are hard for me to fathom. I also grew up in a very partriarchial family (paternal grandfather in charge), and was forbidden by said grandfather from becoming an engineer, unless it was all a ploy to pick up an engineer husband. Luckily, my parents and I never paid him too much attention. I still remember at my convocation (graduated cum laude), he came over to me and said how proud he was. Changing the world, one sexist farmer at a time.

I also noticed in university that some of the (female) friends I made ended up leaving the college and pursuing other careers. They said later that they felt pressured to go into a 'non-traditional' study and they didn't enjoy it. Almost all of them were happier once they left. I never thought any worse of them for leaving, and actually cheered them on as they pursued whatever it was they wanted to do, regardless of societal or familial pressures.

Anyways, that's what I mean when I say I'm a feminist. I'll do what I want to (and if that includes wearing a thong and enjoying porn, that's my choice), and I'll encourage all other women to do what they want to. I'm not completely unaware of the challenges facing women in whatever endeavor they choose, but, in my observations, perserverence trumps asshatishness 9 times out of 10.

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Originally posted by Sleeping Sun:

And finally, a big BIG thank-you to all the women who went before me, making my path through life a little easier. I always hope that I am doing the same.

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Well put, Sleeping Sun.

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Originally posted by Sleeping Sun:

And finally, a big BIG thank-you to all the women who went before me, making my path through life a little easier. I always hope that I am doing the same.

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Originally posted by Sleeping Sun:
And finally, a big BIG thank-you to all the women who went before me, making my path through life a little easier. I always hope that I am doing the same.

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I am a feminist. I love sex. I'm not crazy about porn, but what I've seen isn't very interesting to me. I can imagine porn that would be 'interesting'. I have long hair. I wear dresses (very comfy and cool in summer). I don't wear make-up much, but that's just laziness, I used to wear a little (I was a teenage hippy and never got the hang of it). I have worn sexy and revealing clothes.

I remember hearing for the first time 'lipstick lesbian' from a gay friend. I was electrified. In my then-innocence, I thought that the lesbian 'uniform' was the short hair/overalls/no make-up look. I thought it was great that lesbians didn't 'have to' give up the fun stuff of being a woman.

Because for all its downsides, being a woman can be FUN. I can wear a skirt or pants. I can wear a silly hat. With the help of my cosmetician cousin, I can transform my face into a Hollywood version of my own.

And I have struggled with conflicts between my own sexual desires and what various feminists have said are 'correct' sexual desires for a feminist. I've read the stuff that made claims that all hetersexual, penis-in-vagina sex is rape, and while that resonated only a bit for me, I can sure see how it would really resonate for some women, depending on their experiences.

Because here's the thing -- we have ALL been conditioned by our culture and our experience. All of us, men and women, hetero and homo and all the combinations. There always have been and, I imagine, always will be people who want to control our sexuality. Just as there have always been what used to be called 'libertines' who will call into question any claim that a person actually likes the kind of sex that is being promoted as natural or normal at the time.

I DON'T know how much of what I find sexy is me, my own, and how much is conditioned by my culture. But I CAN think about it, question my desires, my lover's. Talk to people about it. . . oh, maybe not. That, to me, seems to be where we go off the rails in this forum. On the one side, it seems that people are saying 'It's all conditioned, you are a total slave to what your culture has imposed on you, you are a dupe'. On the other, people are saying 'none of it is conditioned, my desires are totally my own and you are a totalitarian fascist'.

My two cents. . .

edited to add link to thread started by Michelle

[ 12 October 2005: Message edited by: fern hill ]

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While CMOT's question about fathers might not be right for the forum his question to Magoo about whether his mother was a feminist I believe is.

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If you asked my mother whether she was a feminist, she'd likely have pictured bra-burning and picket lines outside nudie bars or something, and she'd likely have said "no".

In practice though, she saw herself as equal to a man, better at some things even, and tried not to be "girly" if she could help it.

She was a tomboy in school, did well at sports (she used my uncle's hockey stick, though he was a leftie, and so she played hockey and golfed with a peculiar "crosshand" style) and other than choosing nursing as a career (very female thing to choose in 1966) she was a free spirit.

As a lesbian she was entirely closeted up to her death and was entirely apolitical.

My father, the salty construction worker, was oddly amenable to my mother's unconventional choices (lesbianism excepted!) and he too did things that didn't fit his manly-man image. It's from him that I acquired a love of cooking, and a comfort with any kind of housework.

He used to work a lot of what are called "shutdowns" (brief periods of intense maintenance at a plant or factory) that would let him earn a year's wage in 6 months, then he'd have 6 months of no work. So, he'd shop, cook, clean, bake... whatever.

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posted by fern hill: ... I believe one can be a feminist without having read the canon of books, articles and manifestos. I believe one can be a feminist without having ever taken a Women's Studies course.

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