By all definitions that I could find of “feminism” it is simply the belief that there should be equal rights for men and women. I remember in the 70s when I was just a little girl, hearing the extreme arguments that if women and men are equal then there will cease to be women’s and men’s restrooms in public places.
Equal does not mean the same. Two eggs are not the same as two pickles, but they both deserve to go in the refrigerator. Gloria Steinem and her friends seem to have ignored that fact. Likewise, you can have the same rights as men and still be feminine.
I have heard a lot of women bashing Sarah Palin as an anti-feminist. Huh? She is exercising her equal rights as much as anyone can. She is a working mother leading a state and might just be moving the family across the country for HER new job. How is that not being a feminist?
It seems that feminism, is defined by many, as meaning that you don’t have healthy relationships with men, you don’t have children, and you strive to have the reputation of being cold-hearted instead of friendly. If they had it their way, a woman would never revel in ruffles or blush in pink and anyone who enjoys being feminine is an empty-headed plaything.
I read an article recently where the author said she thought Palin was “an insult to feminism.” I can think of insults to feminism and Sarah Palin is not one. When my friend’s mother told us that being a checker in a grocery store was “a good job for a woman,” or when shopping for houses someone told me that a kitchen “is an important room for a woman”–those kinds of sexist remarks that limit a woman’s potential are insults to feminism.
If Sarah Palin cowered behind her husband and shied away from politics because she believed it wasn’t ladylike for her to do man’s work, then yes, that would be an insult and an embarrassment to feminism.
It’s shameful to be proud of your gender if all you are doing is acting like a man–and I don’t mean lesbians. Gays and lesbians should have the same rights as everyone else, even marriage. And if a lesbian wants to wear satin and lace on her wedding day, have at it!
Speaking of equal rights, men’s rights have gotten lost along the way, especially where reproduction is concerned. We have focused so much on a woman’s right to choose what she can do with her body, we didn’t notice that men have lost that right. There is nothing that says the men must know if they fathered a child before a woman can decide to end the pregnancy. While women can elect to have their tubes tied without consent of their husbands’, men in California (and perhaps other states) have to have their wives’ consent to get a vasectomy.
In the pursuit of equality, we have created an equally lopsided situation with genders on the opposite sides of the scales.
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