|
I'm going to have to reminisce some to remember how I was first awakened to feminism. I don't think it was a book. I remember in high school wearing the tshirt with the words to the ERA on the back. The first feminist book I recall reading came years later. It was Gloria Steinem's Revolution From Within & I loved it.
|
|
RG
- Edited Friday, May 9 2008
|
I'm sure not all of us experience an epiphany and most of us grow into it or were always feminist. The writer who put my thoughts together in some coherent form for me was Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex) and still keep coming back to her, even though I had read Greer and Wolf before that, as well as much girly and fantasy lit that had feminist undertones before I ever stopped by the feminist section in the library. 'Why' would take longer for me to answer, I'll probably take some time to put together something in Word and then copy paste it :-)However I must say we shouldn't stop short at books here, if there was a moment or experience that turned us then we shouldn't stop ourselves from sharing it.
|
|
Judy L
- Thursday, May 15 2008
|
I have racked my brain to figure out the origins of this. I think it may be so far back that I could not clearly verbalize it at the time. I know that I heard early on that women needed to be submissive to their husbands & then a bunch of tripping over themselves trying to justify the ridiculousness of that. I know it never resonated as truth though I played for the patriarchy team sometimes in my life. Being untrue to myself always makes me angry though. It either comes out directly or it comes out sideways, as they say.
|
|
zawadi
- Thursday, May 15 2008
|
I don't think it was a book though books in general are significant way of learning, growing and becoming aware for me.
From the time I was a child, I strongly identified with being female and feeling angry about how my gender was used to regulate me. I knew this awareness long before I knew what feminism was and even after knowing what it was, it was years before I identified as a feminist. Like many women of color, I saw myself as a strong black woman in a traditional way that many of us culturally see ourselves.
I've mentioned here before that I predominantly read women authors and as an English major, I have a strong affinity for literature so it was not women's studies that I came to identify with feminist thought but through women's literature.
|
|
|
My feminist awakening didn't happen reading a book. For me it was a verbal exchange with a RC priest when I was about 12 or 13. He was trying to explain to me why girls couldn't be altar girls and I was challenging his views. Reading books came much later -Gloria Steinem, Marina Warner, Carter Heyward, Virginia Mollenkott
|
|
She
- Saturday, May 24 2008
|
I know it wasn't my awakening to feminism but it was my awakening to femininity (not sure of spelling) was Madame Bovary. I suddenly became aware of sexual desire, social restrictions, double standards, and outdated Victorian mores. I'm not sure if things have really changed - maybe clothes and modes of transportation, but not else, not really.
|
|
|
I was lucky enough to have an older sister who was an eighties punk rocker, and pretty liberal parents. I saw the movie adaptation of Orlando when it came out in the mid-nineties (eighth grade?), and that led me to reading more Virginia Woolf. In high school, I was blessed with a young teacher who gave the title of her course "American History Through Womens Perspective.", with the textbook being "A Peoples History of the United States." by Howard Zinn. This was incredible considering that I went to a public school.
|
|
Mashi
- Monday, June 2 2008
|
My feminist awakening happened after I joined a pro-choice discussion group. There is only so much one can discuss about abortion, so after awhile topics went in other directions... I was 14 at the time, and I learned so much from the women and men who posted there. Later I joined several livejournal feminist groups and started picking up on reading suggestions. Now I'm going to be 20, and I'm in my second year as a women's studies major.
|
|
|
That's wonderful. I wish had someone I could have talked to sooner. I was pretty much alone in my feminist journey and only figured where I stood around the age of 25. Luckily the friends that I made are what you could call feminists, though they don't indulge in the same literature they speak with their actions and general outlook.
|
|
|
Mashi
Congratulations on your second year. Thanks for sharing your story with us.
|
|
|
I guess I've always been a feminist, but the first book that seemed to make everything so clear was Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher. I read it my senior year of high school, about two years after it was published, and it put to words everything I couldn't seem to say. There have been a handful of books since that have touched me profoundly since then, but if I had to put an "awakening" moment on a book, that would absolutely be it.
|
|
|
I think I've always been a feminist at heart, so I didn't have an awakening that I can specifically point to. But there are a couple of books that had a HUGE impact on me - they are eye-opening, life-changing books.
The Chalice And The Blade, by Riane Eisler
and
The Price of Motherhood: Why The Most Important Job In the World Is Still The Least Valued, by Ann Crittenden and Sarah Blake
|
|
|
Hi everyone
In the 70's, two things happened. my 1st husband ran off with my best friend.
I read the Feminine Mystique and a book about the burning of witches in Europe. It was downhill from there. LOL I slid into membership with NOW, marching, picketing, protecting, working in DV, and then even being on the board of NOW in Cleveland. By the way, I have read about 20 books on the Burning Times and it still is a trigger for me. Some things just never go away.
|
|
Nicole
- Tuesday, July 15 2008
|
My revelation happened after getting out of a bad highschool relationship with a "controling" a**h*le, which made me into the opposite of a feminist in order to make my bf happy. Because he was dumb I downplayed my natural braininess and had lower self esteem. My plans for the future were to be a math/sci teacher only beceause it SEEMED easy at the time (now i know better -i have friends that teach and it sounds hard!)
pretty soon after we broke up i got more ambitious and decided on engineering which is much more suited to me and my nerdiness. and the whole thing taught me to not take any crp from a guy.
around that time i started reading more again and one of my favorite authors was margaret atwood. so for a book i'd have to say the handmaids tale which is one of my fav. books still.
|
|
Meg C
- Edited Wednesday, July 16 2008
|
My feminist awakening came when I was a child of about five, and I took off my t-shirt on a hot day like my older brother and my mom scolded me and told me girls don't do that. My Goddess I was mad! Totally not fair. So my whole life I have been a bit tapped in. Ironically, it was my mom who was my biggest supporter in being a Women's Studies major. I guess my awakening helped in her awakening too.
As for books, I have a wonderful collection from my education, but the first book for me was "Sisterhood is Powerful," edited by Robin Morgan. Maybe even before that, my favorite childhood book was "Miss Rumphius" by Barbra Clooney.
|
|
|
this post has been removed
|
|
|
What a great story. Thank you for sharing.
|
|
|
That's awful - it seems like a lot gets lost in the translation of being a 24/7 parent. Sleep deprivation probably has something to do with it. I also think sometimes parents do need boundary checks for how they're interacting with their kids psychologically.
It's very hard to be that noisy bystander though. In situations like that I usually just focus in on the kid and have a little conversation that says "it's ok, you're liked, and one day all you will remember of this day is the fun we had." Doesn't work for big things, of course, but I've seen kids change for the better when you show them they're really respected. I think I may have watched too much Mr. Rogers as a kid.
Coincidentally, I spilled a drink on my school shirt in the car one night when I was a kid, and my mother told me to take it off in the car. Then she got out and took it with her. She had to convince me it was ok to walk half naked to the house. I was mortified. Not as mortified as the time they hung me out the car door on the side of the interstate to pee when I was three, but then maybe I've always been a prude.
Something about the car not quite coming to a stop, I suppose.
|
|
|
I have always assumed I was a feminist by default, in the act of being a woman. You look out for yourself and empathize with others who share your quandaries. In my lifetime, feminism has always been. Girls play football, enjoy relationships, cross dress, and try and figure out sexuality and monogamous commitment and how to pay the bills.
There is a thin but tough layer of social oppression in the form of feature exaggeration, but as I've never had the opportunity to fit in that mold physically, I have had to define my own ideas about what can and can't make something feminine.
I think men are feminine, too. Being able to uncastrate your personality against the social pressure that is urging you to fit into a mold is a blessing. In a way men are also castrated in the oppressive act of forcing them to be men. Without recognition of their parts which do not fall in the halved scope, they also endure.
Real feminism seems much less foot stamping and much more moderate and androgynous these days. I think that's a sign of coming to terms, and is a good thing. Equality is androgynous. It's living your life.
|
|
|
Hello Ida Ming
Thank you for sharing. I can't get past the image of your peeing out of the car window when you were 3. I think men run from their feminine side because they fear it. That is why they like very feminine women...they make them feel more manly. I have been a feminist since the 1970's and I will tell you that we have lost much of what we had gained for you, the younger women. We are on the verge of losing more. Big business is moving to accomplish this every day. Won't it be nice when the balance between the male and female sides in both genders will be honored and encouraged?
Have you read Starhawk yet? I hope you will join our discussions often as you have great ideas and that makes us all think more.
Blessings
Khabira
|
|
|
I absolutely peed out of the side of my family's car when I was three on the interstate to Florida, where there were no stops for miles and it was illegal to park, not to mention soggy, so they were afraid of the car getting stuck and rolled very slowly. They just kept asking "why aren't you peeing" and I kept saying "Because I'm outside the car. Put me back in." It was windy and I was a prude with no TP.
I haven't read Starhawk yet, but since you mentioned it I think I'll have to mosey down to the bookstore. I just re-found and finished The Gravedigger's Daughter. It was excellent. Thank you for the recommendation.
|
|
Judy L
- Thursday, July 17 2008
|
I can relate to the whole taking off your top thing. My brothers were allowed to take their tops off & I was not from a fairly young age.
I think there is a worse problem now, though. My friends were in a national park with their daughter, then not quite 2. They were hiking with a group of people. It was hot. Their daughter took her clothes off & they didn't make her put them back on. There was some trouble ahead of them on the trail & a police woman came down the trail with a man in custody. As she passed by, she told my friends to put their babies clothes back on or she would arrest them. They laughed at first until it became clear that the police woman was serious.
Today a baby can not run around with it's parents with it's clothes off on a hot day.
I would probably be in jail if I were a young parent today because I had trouble keeping my daughters clothes on them until they were 3+. The little dickens liked running around in their bday suits at every opportunity.
|
|
RG
- Friday, July 18 2008
|
This reminds me of the public breast-feeding stories I've heard in the united states.
The people who should be arrested are the ones who sexualize children and can't handle a happy naked kid running around. What's the danger, precisely? The adult, not the kid!!!
|
|
|
I never noticed it until I went to Spain, but it seems like in the U.S. the only place that kids are allowed to be naked is the beach, and only if they are not yet out of diapers. Once they are potty-trained, it's swimsuits no matter what.
Contrast that with Spain, where kids run around naked on the beach right up to puberty and no one blinks an eye. Ten, eleven, twelve years old, male and female. I'm sure that's why they have healthier body images there.
|
|
|
Meghan - An essay in one of Kingsolver's essay books talks about when she was traveling how differently children are treated elsewhere. She particularly talked about Spain & how children are loved there & not treated like an inconvenience. No one stares meanly if your child is boisterous or loud, etc.
Have you been in a public school cafeteria at lunch time lately? Even at lunch the poor things are not allowed to converse freely. At our lunch periods the cafeteria was loud enough that adults did not want to be there. & guess what? There were no bullies, no one got hurt. I feel so sorry for children in public school & in this country today. I so fondly remember getting up on summer mornings, putting on my bathing suit (2 pc but no bikini) & a tshirt, usually no shoes, taking off out the door & not even thinking about mom or home until lunch time. Can you imagine that happening today?
|