Five Things

Responding to Landismom's request, albeit a bit late, my five favorite things about feminism are:

1. Twisty. Sometimes I want to move to Austin so I can find her and buy her tacos and beer and get her to tell stories. Critiques of the patriarchy are more numerous, and more available, than they were when I was a teenager, and Twisty's is one of the most thought-provoking, and most accessible, ones out there. I've long thought that people only begin to Blame slowly, and that it takes someone prodding, and pointing, and maybe saying something with which you disagree but you don't quite know why, but figuring it out in part because of the things Twisty wrote.

2. Being able to make my way in the world. Back in the day--and I was alive while this was true, but not in a position where it mattered personally--it was much more difficult for women to get credit, or mortgages, or jobs that would enable them to maintain either of those things.

3. The possibilities it has opened for men. I suspect my sample is skewed wildly, but I have several male friends who spent significant time as the primary caregiver for their child(ren), who moved for the sake of their wives' careers, etc. I know many men who simply do not like the frat-boy dude behavior that Twisty so often points out and critiques, and not because they're Nice Guys (a Twisty-ism), but because they do, in fact, regard women as people, not as receptacles. Feminism has provided men and women with alternatives to the strait-jacketing roles that bound our parents and grandparents (and that bind many of the people around us still) and has provided a language for disdaining the patriarchal view of women (and men).

4. The possibilities it has opened for women. Oh, there is still so very much work to do, but each step enables us to see more possibilities. Doctors, lawyers, executives, professors--they were all men when I was a kid. All. (Not that I knew any executives or professors, but still; even in college, there weren't all that many female professors, and none in either of the departments in which I majored.) Yes, what we see on television is the girls gone empowerfulled version, where every woman has been surgically altered to achieve perfect sexbotdom, but in real life, there's a little more going on.

5. Sex. Yes, I know, woman had sex--and even enjoyed it, at least some of the time, presumably--before feminism, but feminism has helped women reclaim their sexual experience as their own. The sexbotification and empowerfulication notwithstanding, there are at least a few of us out here who enjoy it for its own sake and do not feel the need to justify that in any way, shape, or form.

I'm not going to tag anyone--not least because I'm almost a week late here--but anyone who wants to join in, either in the comments or on her/his own blog, is welcome to do so.