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Author Topic: Living your feminism
audra trower williams
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posted 16 November 2004 03:58 PM      Profile for audra trower williams   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How do you do it? Do you conciously make feminist choices, do you think, or is it second nature? Is it ever a sacrifice?
From: And I'm a look you in the eye for every bar of the chorus | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
periyar
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posted 16 November 2004 06:17 PM      Profile for periyar   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The choice of who to marry- I'd like to think it was my feminist orientation which lead me to recognize what an excellent guy my husband was when we first met. We had a lot of differences- age, religion, culture.

He wasn't politicized, but had/has egalatarian tendencies. He was also self-sufficient- cooked, cleaned etc. When we married, we shared housework equally- for real- none of that I do the inside chores- cooking,laundry,cleaning..., everyday, while he does 1 or 2 outside chores- throw out garbage once a week etc.
Now that we have kids- he is an equal partner in this realm too. It's had a huge impact on the quality of my life.

From: toronto | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 16 November 2004 11:36 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Audra, I agree with periyar, based on how I have carried out my life.

My first husband, and biological father of my daughter, was totally repressive of my freedoms, starting from day 1 after we were married. It lasted 6 months. I would not compromise self, for anyone.

My second, is much like periyars by way of equality in home chores, and life. Though when we moved to northern BC, he had a few moments of regression to a cultural norm. Again, that I did not allow, as it impinged upon what we had built realtionship wise for 15 years. I was not working when we first moved and that was when it began. He seemed to think it was my responsibility to do it all, just like all the other men's wives did, and all he had to do was work. Funny thing was he was not even supporting me. It became tough love, and I charged him an hourly wage for doing his share of the chores, if he was unwilling or had no time.

We each have a couple of individual bank accounts plus, and a couple of joint ones, that is key IMO. With most long term and sucessful relationships, that I know of, they have always kept own money separate and allocate joint funds for bills and special event savings. But spending large amounts, even from individual funds was/is discussed.

When I went back to school for my degree, my partner became a house husband for 3 years. I literally did nothing but occassional dishes and delicate laundry when I had the time.

One morning, I was writing a paper and I heard his friends bikes pull in the driveway, and Mr remind was still in his housecoat changing the living room around. I wondered how all 6'8" of the manly looking man would handle it, as they are much less humanist than we are. Well, they dutifully strolled into the living room and honestly admired the changes he made and promptly sat down for coffee and scones, that he served to them in his housecoat, while they sat in their leathers.

It was a normal day apparently, as I was not usually there at that time to see it. For us it is living it, and recognizing internally when we are feeling things are not equal, and address them openly and honestly.

quote:
Originally posted by periyar:
The choice of who to marry- I'd like to think it was my feminist orientation which lead me to recognize what an excellent guy my husband was when we first met. We had a lot of differences- age, religion, culture.

He wasn't politicized, but had/has egalatarian tendencies. He was also self-sufficient- cooked, cleaned etc. When we married, we shared housework equally- for real- none of that I do the inside chores- cooking,laundry,cleaning..., everyday, while he does 1 or 2 outside chores- throw out garbage once a week etc.
Now that we have kids- he is an equal partner in this realm too. It's had a huge impact on the quality of my life.

[ 16 November 2004: Message edited by: remind ]


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 16 November 2004 11:42 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by periyar:
The choice of who to marry-

Heh. For me, I lived my feminism in my choice of who to divorce.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 17 November 2004 12:20 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Feels good eh?
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Gir Draxon
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posted 17 November 2004 12:52 AM      Profile for Gir Draxon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't date women who lack the self-respect to consider themselves my equal.

Does that count?


From: Arkham Asylum | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
ShyViolet
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posted 17 November 2004 01:06 AM      Profile for ShyViolet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
um...just little things for me...and i'm not sure if any of them count.

*when i get married i will not be "given away" (makes me feel like a bag of clothes for goodwill) and i refuse to pledge obedience to my husband.

*dunno if this counts, but i won't let sean pay for me. i think in the 20 months we've been together, he's paid for me 3 times.

* i speak my mind to sean.

*i've turned sean down a couple times...


From: ~Love is like pi: natural, irrational, and very important~ | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
ShyViolet
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posted 17 November 2004 01:06 AM      Profile for ShyViolet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
I don't date women who lack the self-respect to consider themselves my equal.

Does that count?


i think it does....


From: ~Love is like pi: natural, irrational, and very important~ | Registered: Aug 2004  |  IP: Logged
beachcomber
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posted 17 November 2004 01:33 AM      Profile for beachcomber   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Heh. What Michelle said.

I live out in the country so it's harder for me to do "real life" activism. So I do a lot of 'online' feminist volunteer work to compensate. I administrate an EZ board feminist community. I am also publishing an online feminist magazine - Expository Magazine.

I wish I could do more, but what with working and commuting and trying to keep this little farm going. Well there's just not enough of me to do all that I want to these days.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 17 November 2004 08:55 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sometimes I think of my feminism as part of my struggle for personal independence (won a few battles, but the war continues ), but from the beginning (late 60s), I've believed it was important for feminists to keep remembering and honouring the many strengths of traditional "feminine" training, troubled though that was.

I really respect, for instance, women who keep craft training and skills alive, since I consider craft-consciousness politically important, however neglected it is currently.

And while I don't think it should be only women who nurture, I also don't want to see women rejecting nurturing roles just because they were once foisted on to us almost exclusively.

That double-take on feminism is partly a product of my own life and training, which has been heavily craftwork-oriented and then has repeatedly dropped me into situations where I have to nurture. Neither orientation is a fast-track to money, power, or even independence. Yet.

But to me that is a political problem to face and fight against. I don't think we should be ashamed of our complexity.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
brebis noire
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posted 17 November 2004 10:18 AM      Profile for brebis noire     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
skdadl, I admire that approach. I think it takes conviction and a kind of self-assuredness that goes beyond feminine or masculine ways of thinking - it is humanistic. When I worked in a traditionally male-dominated field along with a few other women, I saw that we were doing most jobs as well as men, and sometimes, our different approach made the end result even better. (I guess I should specify it was large-animal veterinary medicine.) However, since we were all labouring within a system based on arbitrary economic results rather than aesthetic or nurturing values, in the end, it really didn't seem to matter who did a "better" job (except to the individual animal and usually the farmer -for one thing, we were reknowned for cutting down our own bills to enable better treatment.)
I have a feeling that the same issues apply to human doctors as well - with cost and time-cutting measures vs. the kind of care that can't be calculated in terms of monetary value.

From: Quebec | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Puetski Murder
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posted 18 November 2004 12:06 AM      Profile for Puetski Murder     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Whenever I'm in a situation where I need to be demanding and must to be a total bitch to stand up for myself, I pay a lot of attention to my makeup, clothing, and hair. I super-"feminize" myself. Knowing the confrontation may get ugly, I feel as if I have to arm myself in a girly way. As if accoutrements and my brain are all I have.

I've been trying to justify it to myself for forever, but the arguments are feeling weak. It isn't convincing.

Mostly I'm very pedantic in my feminism. I hate double standards and point them out at every turn. But you know, I try to do it nicely. This is another habit I must break. I'd like to be one of those uber bitchy girls who's all "SUCK IT HYPOCRITE MISOGYNIST!" I just don't know if I have that amount of energy.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
exiled armadillo
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posted 18 November 2004 12:31 AM      Profile for exiled armadillo   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I really don't think about it, at all. Unfortunately, Iwas raised with the idea that my views or ideas are just as important as anyone elses. I've had some women tell me they admire how I will speak up, sometimes regardless of the consequences. But in a lot of places I am considered "not submissive enough" and was actually denied a promotion once becuase my "eyes occasionally look very hard".

Sometimes I wish I were different, but after my first marriage to the son of a pentecostal preacher, everything changed. Three months into the relationship he started re-arranging furniture in my direction. we went to 4 counsellors 3 of whom were also Xtian. when he hit me I kicked him out. Then I was ostracized by parts of my family, because as a good xtian wife I would submit (even when he hit me) because "afterall, its only for a season".

since then I've become almost militant about rights, I've trained some high risk women in self-defense to excercise my own demons and because I can't stand to see someone just "take it". I am a pacifist, but if i were to be hit again, he'd have a whole fucking world of hurt coming on.


From: Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently and for the same reason | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Princess Denise
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posted 18 November 2004 05:34 PM      Profile for Princess Denise     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think the most interesting part of the question is the most ignored part... is it ever a sacrifice?

All the time!!! Being a feminist can be really hard - and though I revel in, celebrate, and bask in my feminism... sometimes it makes me cry too.


From: peterborough | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
athena_dreaming
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posted 18 November 2004 08:37 PM      Profile for athena_dreaming   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Denise, yeah. I think that's the trickiest part. On the one hand it's hard for me to think of it as a sacrifice because I am, after all, fighting for my own benefit. For my own rights. So in that sense it's not a sacrifice, quite the contrary. And when I make choices that support me as a full, equal person (i.e. choice of partner), I don't feel there is any sacrifice involved at all.

But then there are times when not being the submissive, docile, lady-like girl I'm assumed to be does cost me something. Usually that something is hard to quantify, but it's there.


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
steffie
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posted 18 November 2004 10:53 PM      Profile for steffie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Puetski Murder:
I hate double standards and point them out at every turn. But you know, I try to do it nicely. This is another habit I must break.

Nah, stay nice. It's the best way to feed a spoonful of "eat shit!" to some chauvanist - if you keep the tone and expression just nice enough, they don't fully realize that they have just been exposed for the fraud that they are!

As to sacrifice, I think that what I sacrifice (if that's the proper term here, maybe trade is a better one) is the dependence on others that might make my life easier in some ways. Being feminist, i.e. being myself, means actualizing my need to have things my way, to demand a standard of emotional living which cannot be met by most partners I have been with.

Working outside the home and caring for my young are things I'd be doing regardless of whether or not I depended on a man, but the difference is the sharing of the domestic and economic burden. That's what I'm missing.


From: What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 19 November 2004 01:35 AM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by exiled armadillo:
Sometimes I wish I were different, but after my first marriage to the son of a pentecostal preacher, everything changed. Three months into the relationship he started re-arranging furniture in my direction. we went to 4 counsellors 3 of whom were also Xtian. when he hit me I kicked him out. Then I was ostracized by parts of my family, because as a good xtian wife I would submit (even when he hit me) because "afterall, its only for a season".

since then I've become almost militant about rights, I've trained some high risk women in self-defense to excercise my own demons and because I can't stand to see someone just "take it". I am a pacifist, but if i were to be hit again, he'd have a whole fucking world of hurt coming on.



You know this whole cult religious submit thing, because afterall it is "just for a season" or it is a sin, blows my mind.

Such as Hailey quoting Corinthians regarding it it being a sin to say NO to your husband regarding sex no matter how times a day. Corinthians, just a bit further on in the same Chapter says just the opposite, it reiterates that it is not a sin. Moreover, it states equality of compliance and consent.

Sometimes I think a organization should be started by feminists and/or women's groups to rescue these so called "Christian wives" from the obvious brainwashing or the Stockholm Syndrome of the cult they belong to. My girl friend who used to be Pentacostal, says that this sex everytime demanded is not normal thinking or teaching in any Pentacostal Church she has been to though. So perhaps it is limited to the more cultish ones.


From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Crimson
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posted 19 November 2004 04:13 AM      Profile for Crimson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, fortunately or not, I am living my feminism with every waking and sleeping breath...aka ALL THE TIME. I've discovered that sharing and splitting everything half-way is not all it's cracked up to be. Too much margin for mysoginistic gray area....

So, while my marketability may be diminished, I am one damn self sufficient woman/mother/business owner/student.

I DO miss intimacy, as well as companionship. I DON'T miss the many conditional strings so often attached to both.

And, (just out of curiosity), why do certain, assertive-type men seem to be so damn attracted to my independence and self-sufficiency when (after a short time) all they want to do is sabotage and undermine it? Seriously. "You've come a long way, baby...let's regress". Is it some sort of twisted challenge?

IF I was just passivly waiting for that proverbial knight-in-shining-armour, would he even take notice? Or, does he only notice that I don't appear to NEED him, and hence the challenge?

Oh well. Whatever. I'll just continue to raise my four petites and keep up my grades and run my biz and hope that the universe sends me an intellectually stimulating, well endowed boy toy with no agenda (HA!)


From: The bug sky | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 19 November 2004 09:46 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
"You've come a long way, baby...let's regress". Is it some sort of twisted challenge?

IF I was just passivly waiting for that proverbial knight-in-shining-armour, would he even take notice? Or, does he only notice that I don't appear to NEED him, and hence the challenge?


I think it's the same old power game, except it feels different, to me, anyway, when I'm looking at it from the other side.

It's sad and funny both when you realize that you have some power because you gave yourself some, just by deciding that you're willing and happy to go it alone. You might not even have been looking for power when you did that -- probably weren't, just independence, security of mind.

But to people (not just men, either -- this has happened to me with a few long-time women colleagues) who play power games, whether you identify with them or not, you can suddenly look awfully attractive.

I'm not perverse enough to enjoy this. Much. But it happens.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
audra trower williams
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posted 19 November 2004 11:27 AM      Profile for audra trower williams   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
ShyViolet417, if I can ask a personal question, have you "turned down" (and it could be that I don't know what I mean, but I think I do) your partner every time you've wanted to do so? I am not attacking, I just think about this sort of thing a lot, and have written a bit about it, and it makes me sad that we even think of saying "Not right now thanks!" to sex as a political act. Do you think that men do?

I'm probably presenting this badly.


From: And I'm a look you in the eye for every bar of the chorus | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Rebecca West
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posted 19 November 2004 02:28 PM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I couldn't live a "traditional" or "conventional" life if I tried (and I have tried a couple of times, with miserable results). I think that if I'd never been exposed to a feminist or progressive thought or idea, I would have sought them out, or created them where none were. My natural temperament, combined with a very dysfunctional childhood, have propelled me in the direction of social justice and equity all my life.

I'd like to say that I had great female role models, or that I was a precocious youngster with a natural sense of justice, but the fact of the matter is, I had to be repeatedly beaten up and made powerless before my innate sense of self-preservation, my anger and outrage at injustice proclaimed "THIS JUST FUCKING WILL NOT DO!" Of course, the "moderating" influences of age and education helped broaden my perspective to be inclusive of not just the female me, but of all women.

Sacrifice? Oh, I suppose the loneliness of having chosen to identify with relatively marginal intellectual and political ideas has been something of a sacrifice, but I think that my temperament, my perversity of spirit would have marginalized me anyway. The elitism, uniqueness, individualism, whatever you want to call it, of the rarified environment of our small band of progressives, gives me no pleasure or satisfaction. It is hard work. It is often lonely work

As Mrs. Lessing once wrote: We are the boulder-pushers.


From: London , Ontario - homogeneous maximus | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged

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