Be Careful What You Ask For

It is a common predicament of mine to be asked, "Why are you a feminist?"

Yes, I said "predicament". No one gets asked why they are female/male, why they breathe, why they brush their teeth, or why they want (and expect) to be treated justly. So it's a predicament because it's a loaded question. No one I've met ever really asks me just because they want to hear my answer. Mostly they already have a retort lined up and are asking the question as a launching pad to hammer me with their own opinion. I suppose it's human nature though. So many of us ask questions not because we seek the truth but because we have an answer of our own that is more important to us than what anyone else has to say.

I dream of a day when people ask questions because they honestly want to stop, listen, and appreciate a good answer.

There used to be a time when I looked forward to being asked this question. I saw it as my opportunity to enlighten people. I saw it as a doorway in which I could open their minds in a way in which I was an invited guest, rather than forcing my ideals and objectives on others; however, I now know better.

"Why are you a feminist?" is a question that does not fill me with hope that my dream will one day come true. Because, truly, most people are not prepared for the answer (whether they really wanted to know, or because they didn't realize the magnitude of what they were asking, or because they're too focused on their own motive to conscientiously listen to my response). Asking, "Why are you a feminist?" is a little like asking, "Why do we exist?"; it's difficult to deliver a short and concise answer that will fit into the typical human attention span. And it's usually conjoined with questions to the effect of, "Why do we still need the feminist movement?"

People ask, thoughtlessly, without realizing what they're asking for. So when my answer passes the three-minute mark, and eyes start glazing over, I become (to their way of thinking) the fanatic ranter, the hysterical femi-nazi.

Thus, I want to burn several CDs of this presentation and just keep oodles of them on hand for random "Why are you a feminist?" encounters. I'll hand people the CD and ask them to watch this presentation at a time that is convenient to them, and they shall have all the answers they require:

Then again, who am I kidding? No one will ever give this presentation a chance as long as re-runs of Jersey Shore are still being aired on cable TV.

Who Am I? Who Are YOU?

Writing assignment based on pages 269-279 of Darrell Fasching's "Comparative Religious Ethics"

The Feminist Challenge...
As you can probably guess, this particular reading assignment had a major impact on me. Furthermore, the timing couldn’t have been better as I struggled with my own sense of self and an ethic of care regarding my own family and friends. In this vein I will try to convey what I learned from the text in relation to my own personal experience.
First of all, I found it very enlightening (even as a refresher) to read about how the rise of patriarchy has affected not only women’s place in society, but also their sense of identity and how they reason ethically. It is interesting that women are expected to develop a sense of self, but in having done so are expected to abandon it to accommodate the needs of the people in their lives. This paradox sets a standard for women as they try to live up to male dominated ideals for happiness and success while struggling to balance a subconscious sense of inferiority and duty based on their gender.
I can say that I completely understand this conundrum from a personal perspective. As a mother and housewife for the past seventeen years I have tried to understand why and how I was living the “American Dream” and yet was so dissatisfied with my life. For seventeen years I have struggled to do what was expected of me, to fulfill my role in my family as well as in society. No matter how well I succeeded, at the end of the day I was always left with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction and unhappiness. When I confronted people with these feelings I was made to feel ungrateful, selfish. The irony, I now realize, is that before I was married I had had a sense of self, a personal identity that wasn’t associated with those to whom I was related but was defined by my own thoughts, achievements and beliefs. After marriage and children I found myself lacking a sense of self and could define myself only in terms of my relationship to others; and this was the point at which people accused me of being selfish!
How can one be selfish when one has no sense of self, no identity? How alarming is the notion that “a virtuous woman was a woman who sacrificed herself for others” (p. 274). This dangerous notion leaves many women in the same position I have been in, indeed the position you recognize as having once been in yourself. We have sacrificed, but when we are not personally gratified by the sacrifice we are labeled as deviant, selfish, ungrateful and un-virtuous. This is an important argument for why women must not only develop and define their sense of self, but also must find a voice with which to express it.
On page 276 it is suggested that men “…approach ethical problems as a matter of rational calculus… [While] the young female tends to see the ethical problem as having to do with how to sustain relationships and the responsibilities they entail…” This concept rings true of my own very recent personal experience. For many years I have struggled with my unhappiness and dreamed of ways to be free of it, but couldn’t see how to achieve my freedom without affecting the lives and relationships of the people in my life. This was a major factor in my choosing to have stayed in my marriage as long as I have. Conversely, when I finally did announce to my husband my desire to end the marriage his main concerns were monetary issues, care of the children and other material matters.

To learn more about this piece of literature and/or to purchase the book please follow this link: