I'm a Little Feminist

Well...

I've been thinking about writing a post about my feminist inclinations, but Phyllis Schlafly has pushed me over.the.edge. I cannot keep silent about this. I'm pretty positive that this won't be the only response to her rather radical comments about a causal link between income disparity and marriage stability. Just because someone else will be saying it doesn't mean I can keep silent. I'm not that sort of girl.

{For those who haven't read it, here is her op-ed piece without the (righteously) indignant commentary of others.}

First, let me just say:

What the frick frack was that about, ma'am????

Ok, now that I finished with that...

I'm a feminist. I am. It's a label that's tossed around, sometimes as an accusation, sometimes as a commendation. What does it mean, though? What implications does it necessarily have?

Feminism, to my mind, is simply the conviction that women are intelligent and capable. It also means that they are independent. I don't use that word to mean "non-social" and "completely self-sufficient," but simply that women are independent in same way that men are independent.

When you say a man is independent, what do you mean? You mean that he can take care of himself and his needs in a reasonable and expected manner. It doesn't mean he doesn't need a community to help him live a good life. It doesn't mean that he doesn't need a woman for companionship and support. Independence in a man isn't considered to be a bad thing.

So what changes when you transfer that label to a woman? Many traditionalists throw up their hands in despair and say that any woman who considers herself independent is uprooting the foundations of society by casting aside the notion of marriage and family.

That escalated quickly.

A man is allowed to be independent, but to be a woman is to be a dependent? Femininity and dependence aren't the same thing. Masculinity and independence aren't the same thing. Being independent simply means that you aren't a helpless leech that sucks the life and money out of the people around you. It means you have two feet, you can stand on them, and you will stand on them. That's it.

So a woman can be intelligent, capable, and independent. She can view herself as all of these things. This would make her, to my mind, a feminist.

Her values, morality, ideology, etc., are not contingent on this view in a logically necessary manner. Her values, morality, ideology, etc., are prior to - or, at least, separate from - her feminism. They will dictate her reaction to societal injustices, however.

To go all geeky-nerdy on you, Nick Fury, of the Marvel universe, tells Captain America, "S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be." This may not seem relevant, but give me a couple hundred words and I'll draw the dotted line for you.

Let's take, for the sake of clarity, although not to start a war on the internets, the case of abortion. Abortion is pushed by many feminists as a way to make women equal to men. How does it do that, exactly? It frees women from the consequences of sex (well, at least the pregnancy consequence - STDs are still problem shared by one and all... yay) so they can continue their lives as planned. Lets leave aside the issues of whether or not you can actually do that (can you really just erase any part of your life like it never happened? Seems unlikely...) and assume for the moment, that you can. Historically, a woman who was impregnated before marriage was a social outcast for the rest of her life. Chew on that for a minute. She was often unable to get work, shunned from all good society, and frequently banned from entering a church.

Where is the man in all this? Off impregnating other women. Or marrying some respectable, "pure and blushing" girl. His life is fine.

That isn't fair, is it?

Taking the world as it is, we can make the men accountable and punish them equally or we make the problem disappear. Clearly, making men accountable wasn't even possible before paternity tests. Even after paternity tests, the stigma associated with out of wedlock pregnancy is heavily prejudiced against women, not to mention that it is ridiculously expensive and complicated to make the man legally responsible in any way. So some feminists "take the world as it is" and formulate a different solution. If there is no pregnancy, there is no societal shame. There are no repercussions on her education or her career. She is able to marry, have a career, have a family, without any "complications." She gets to be equal to men. She gets to walk away, just like he does.

The other alternative that presents itself to a feminist is the one where we take the world "as we'd like it to be." The moral code of society should be dictated by absolute right and wrong, whether or not the world makes that easy and neat.

Like Captain America, this type of feminist resolves to be ethical, moral, and traditional, even at the cost of some messiness. Ok, lots of messiness.

However, choosing the messy doesn't mean we aren't intelligent, capable, independent, self-respecting women. It doesn't mean we don't have ambition, strength, and courage. Hopefully, we won't be literally dying like Cap, but we have to be willing to die to self. We have to be willing to put our selves aside for a greater good. This requires intelligence. It requires the capacity to see and understand and act in a logical, effective, and compassionate manner. 

It is necessary for women to be intelligent, capable, and independent. 

So, Phyllis, I deny your claims of causality between wage gaps and marriage stability. Any self-respecting woman - conservative or otherwise - doesn't get married for economic stability. She gets married because she loves a man. And yeah, I believe in traditional family roles. I believe that a woman should be able to stay home with her kids while the man supports his family in the workforce. I believe this is rooted in the differences between men and women's psychology, anatomy, and emotional makeup. Ideally, in this traditional family, the man will make more money in his career than the woman did in hers because, well, duh - that makes sense. You should keep the higher income earning spouse in the workforce. You're providing for yourselves and your children. You should be fiscally responsible.

Phyllis, I hate to break this to you, but what you said just sounds stupid. (I'm not saying you're stupid - I don't know you well enough to say whether or not you lack intellectual acumen - but this theory of yours is stupid)

If anything, you hurt the credibility of people who believe in traditional family roles. I am a very traditional person. Being lumped in with a group of people that publishes such silly things doesn't help my dialogue with people on the other side of the political fence.

We have to dialogue. It's necessary. We need societal support to survive as a species. Throwing the argumentative equivalent of custard pies in each others' faces isn't a step forward. It isn't even a stand-still. It's a leap and half backwards.

...

"Upon my word, Emma, it would be better to be without sense than to misapply it as you do." ~Mr. Knightley, Jane Austen's Emma.