Click.... when we knew we were feminists

[Jess]

Second grade. I had joined the Brownies. It was about half way or a little more through the school year when we got our uniforms and were to wear them to school for a meeting immediately after school was out.

Kevin, a boy in my class who I usually played basketball/ kickball whatever with, walks up to me when I arrived in my uniform ( mind you, I had shorts on under it) and yells mockingly: " You Got a GIRLS dress on". I punched him in the face explaining quite vehemently that " I AM a girl!". Short trip to principal's office and I came back quite entrenched in feminism.

[lettertodaddy]

I don't mean this to sound confrontational at all, but I'm a black woman who grew up in the South and I came from a long line of Black Southern women. I don't think I've ever not been a feminist for those reasons.

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by lettertodaddy

I don't mean this to sound confrontational at all, but I'm a black woman who grew up in the South and I came from a long line of Black Southern women. I don't think I've ever not been a feminist for those reasons.

Not confrontational at all LD! Each of us knows for ourselves how and when our eyes were opened.

[Quintease]

My mum was supposed to have been a feminist yet I grew up such an angry teen as it wasn't feminism I saw in our house. I was the one she was expecting to cook and clean, while trying to stop me from hanging out with my friends. My brothers were given bikes, expensive toys and all the freedom they could ever want.

Guess who it was that wildly rebelled.

It took a long time, but luckily my mum and I are friends now. She's even admitted to me that she didn't know any other way when she first got married and had kids. She just wanted me to have a happy life and she thought that meant being a good wife and mother. I just thank my lucky stars I turned out to be a lesbian *phew*

[Estella]

I do not remember a time when I wasn't a feminist. My mother was very involved in the women's movement of the 1970's, or as involved as one can be from Platteville, Wisconsin. One of my earliest memories is being in the crowd at an ERA rally in Texas, shouting "hey hey waddaya say, ratify the ERA!" I was probably six or seven. But my "click" moment happened in the third grade, when a substitute teacher was making some sort of remark about ladies. I raised my hand and pointed out that my mother wasn't a lady, she was a woman. What's funny is that I subsequently ran into this teacher, now quite elderly, while I was in high school (veeeery small town) and she actually remembered this incident. She laughed about it, in a sort of weren't-you-a-silly-impertinent-little-girl way. My mother also raised me to be polite, and I saw no point in challenging the old woman.

[Bad_boi]

I don't really think I could ever be a feminist. I would rather be a gender equalist. I see females as equals. Some feminists twist it and wind up hating males and that is the same problem just reversed. (not saying ALL feminists do this) Sexism is sexism. One thing that really bugs me is when a woman will get mad at me for holding a door open or something of the kind. I help people because it is nice. It does not matter to me the person's gender. If they are behind me I am not letting the door hit them and that is really the bottom line there.

[Sparkle]

I have the Catholic Church to thank for my feminism.

I was born "out of wedlock" to my still-in-catholic-high-school taught-by-nuns mother when she was barely 18. My very catholic grandmother was very concerned for my soul; consequently I was in church with her from the time I was an infant and I was enrolled in church school from the moment they would take me.

At age 6, when I discovered that I could neither be a priest nor an altar boy I was shocked and taken aback, when I was told I could not hold those roles BECAUSE I was girl - I was disgusted and appalled. (and I still remember that moment distinctly). I spent the next ten years of my religious education questioning the rationale of every sexist policy, practice and story in the books.

[Dominique]

Originally Posted by Bad_boi

I don't really think I could ever be a feminist. I would rather be a gender equalist. I see females as equals. Some feminists twist it and wind up hating males and that is the same problem just reversed. (not saying ALL feminists do this) Sexism is sexism. One thing that really bugs me is when a woman will get mad at me for holding a door open or something of the kind. I help people because it is nice. It does not matter to me the person's gender. If they are behind me I am not letting the door hit them and that is really the bottom line there.

Hey Bad_Boi....I am going to ask you to elaborate a little further (please)
on the part I changed to red. I find it confusing. Anti woman sentiment. Thank you.

[Bad_boi]

Originally Posted by Yellow band

Hey Bad_Boi....I am going to ask you to elaborate a little further (please)
on the part I changed to red. I find it confusing. Anti woman sentiment. Thank you.

What I mean by that is the feminists that get pissed off for no good reason. If I am polite to a feminist woman, they perceive it incorrectly. I am being nice because I am nice. It has nothing to do with me patronizing or thinking a woman is weak. I know women are capable. The fact of the matter is people are people and should be treated equally.

[CherylNYC]

Originally Posted by Bad_boi

What I mean by that is the feminists that get pissed off for no good reason. If I am polite to a feminist woman, they perceive it incorrectly. I am being nice because I am nice. It has nothing to do with me patronizing or thinking a woman is weak. I know women are capable. The fact of the matter is people are people and should be treated equally.

Bad_boi- Why do you assume that a)When a woman is impolite to you that it has something to do with them being a feminist? b)That you are not a feminist if you believe that women and men should be treated equally? (See the definition of 'feminist' as posted by Anya above.)

As weatherboi wrote, it's extremely IMPOLITE of you to come into a thread about when we knew we were feminists and gratuitously trash feminists and feminism.

You continue to defend your offensive post. Perhaps something else you're doing or saying is pissing off those feminists, (exactly the way you pissed off THIS feminist), not the fact that you're holding the door.

[Dominique]

Originally Posted by Bad_boi

What I mean by that is the feminists that get pissed off for no good reason. If I am polite to a feminist woman, they perceive it incorrectly. I am being nice because I am nice. It has nothing to do with me patronizing or thinking a woman is weak. I know women are capable. The fact of the matter is people are people and should be treated equally.

Thanks for coming back and answering. I agree, people are people and always will be. Frustrating sometimes. How do you readily Identify a feminist if you are being nice and treating people equally? Or is that How you Identify a feminist? They object? (I know previously you said some, we will stick with some).

[persiphone]

i was raised in an all female household by a hippie feminist mom, and one very pissed off grandmother. we lived in the ghetto and all the kids on my street were girls, but i went to a christian private school, so there was a strange dichotomy i grew up with. at home, i could grow up and be anything i wanted. at school, i was to grow up to be a good and obedient christian wife and have babies. clearly, that didn't happen! lol!

however, my AHAA! moment happened when i was 17. i was in DC visiting a boyfriend in the air force at the time and we happend to be on the mall at the same time a major NOW march on the mall was happening. it was the most amazing thing i'd ever seen. there were 100,000 women in that march and the banners were so big that it took 20 women across to hold them. i still get goosebumps thinking about it. i stood there for an hour or more waiting for them to pass. and they were so loud! i really felt those women move through me. i've been true to the cause ever since.

i get sad sometimes that there is strife about feminism in the b/f community. i hear it often brought up that feminists pushed back hard on the b/f community and i'm both sad it happened and sad that there is a stigma about feminists that exists today because of it.

[weatherboi]

the whole point to this thread is to celebrate feminism. it is a mystery to me why you would choose to come in here and share this particular opinion. why come in and share your NONfeminist point of view in a thread that is focusing on the complete opposite? how is this relevant?
can you please clarify why you would come into this thread and insult some of our feminists (not saying ALL feminists will be insulted).

Originally Posted by Bad_boi

I don't really think I could ever be a feminist. I would rather be a gender equalist. I see females as equals. Some feminists twist it and wind up hating males and that is the same problem just reversed. (not saying ALL feminists do this) Sexism is sexism. One thing that really bugs me is when a woman will get mad at me for holding a door open or something of the kind. I help people because it is nice. It does not matter to me the person's gender. If they are behind me I am not letting the door hit them and that is really the bottom line there.

[Dominique]

Originally Posted by weatherboi

the whole point to this thread is to celebrate feminism. it is a mystery to me why you would choose to come in here and share this particular opinion. why come in and share your NONfeminist point of view in a thread that is focusing on the complete opposite? how is this relevant?
can you please clarify why you would come into this thread and insult some of our feminists (not saying ALL feminists will be insulted).

Thank-you weatherboi. Always the Gentleman, I was starting to think I was being overly sensitive.

[*Anya*]

fem·i·nism
[-i-niz-uhm]
- noun 1. support of social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men

Thank you Weatherboi.

It was inappropriate to post an anti-feminist statement in a thread supportive of said topic.

[Quintease]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

fem·i·nism
[-i-niz-uhm]
- noun 1. support of social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men

Thank you Weatherboi.

It was inappropriate to post an anti-feminist statement in a thread supportive of said topic.

I'm not so sure. I consider myself a feminist, yet just the other day I had a rant on a blog about 'man-hating' feminists getting involved in the sex worker movement - in that I don't think their involvement is appropriate. How can any woman who hates men be involved in any movement that involves women interacting with men, loving men or transitioning to be men?

The trouble with feminism that is against men rather than for women, is that it is often Louder than regular feminism and thus becomes the 'face' of feminism. So part of MY feminism is rejecting the oppression of women by other women.