i wonder if she knows

I know I've been absent from here for a while. I started this post to write about how I was negotiating the world, but specifically, my marriage as a feminist. Although I no longer have that marriage, I'm still negotiating the world as a feminist, but things feel enormously different. I feel like I've become Feminist 2.0, my new understanding of who I am and how I should enteract with the rest of the world in order to achieve the results I want.

Let's start here. Nearly all of my feminist beliefs, at one point, could be boiled down to this point made by Simone De Beauvoir in The Second Sex.

"To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist to him also; mutually recognizing each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other."

A little more briefly, my main claim to feminism was this. There are men, there are women and there are variations that are in between, both or neither of those things. With little or no need to categorize or define gender or sex, also meaning little or no need to compare them to each other or to create one standard by which the other was judged, then we could all flourish and lead our most productive and happiest non-oppressed lives.

However, at some point a few months ago, I had a revelation. The issue, in my view, wasn't that we were categorizing, defining and comparing men and women, but that we as a society were fixated on trying to draw a line between masculinity, men and the male gender as well as feminity, women and the female gender.

I've discovered that I believe, among all the things I believe about God and the universe and our purpose in the world, that there is a cosmic balance between the masculine and the feminine, not a cosmic balance between men and women. All of us, regardless of sex, gender, orientation or age are composed of some parts feminine, some parts masculine. For many of us, we might find that we are far more one than the other, but I cannot see that one could exist without traits of both. The union of masculine and feminine is the resolution of cosmic unrest. We balance this within ourselves, we balance it with others in our romantic relationships, in our friendships, in our relationships with our family, with our goals and desires, our very being.

Okay, I know this all sounds kind of yin yang-y. But what I'm trying to say was that I found a lot of difficulty in arguing that we should stop worrying about the gender binary. And for the most part, we should. But it's not the gender binary that is the problem, it's the insistence that men are masculine and women are feminine. It's an inability to let people be people without holding them to these defined standards.

...to have independent existence.

Crap. I'm back where I started. I'm not very good at blogging about feminism. Maybe I should get a hobby and blog about that.

I guess the issue isn't so much that I don't believe what I did before, rather that I have a fuller understanding of it. And that I've come to appreciate the masculine and feminine within myself, and the masculine and feminine in others. And I'm learning to love the things about myself that I no longer view as contradictions, but part of a beautiful balance that makes up who I am.

Also. New "about me". (scroll down)

you're way too beautiful girl

I used to think that marriage was putting my feminist ideals to the test. I now realize that being single is going to put my feminist ideals to the test. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like, on the market or anything, but I could be if I wanted to. It feels way too soon to be dating, and in fact, my goal is to spend some time intensely focusing on myself instead of focusing on relationships, but I can't lie, the world around me looks so different. When you've been attached for your entire adult life your outlook on other people is different than your outlook when you're single. And this, somehow, is how my feminist ideals are being tested. The comfort and security to be myself while married makes me wonder just how much of my identity was wrapped up in being "taken" instead of my identity just being my own. It's not a scary time, it's an adventurous time, but that doesn't mean I'm not nervous. Nervous to be a feminist out there, not looking, but not not looking, and discovering how to manage this new person I'm going to become.

right out of my mouth

I don't need to ever post about name change because it's all right here.

what doesn't kill us is making us stronger

I recently experienced 10-months of unemployment. During that time I had periods of usefulness and periods of time where I really took life by the reins, but for most of it I caught up on television. So in the interest of full disclosure, I very recently watched every single episode of Roseanne from start to finish. I watched it pretty often as a kid, both during prime-time and in reruns, but as an "adult" (I think we all know why that's in quotations) I have a whole new appreciation for both Roseanne Barr and the show. During my 2 week long Roseannathon I followed Roseanne and Dan’s several career changes and bad financial decisions; Becky, Darlene and DJ growing up from kids into adults (and in the case of Becky, into a whole new person entirely); and I even watched the last season where Dan was mostly absent and the Conners won the lottery. I was so obsessed with watching it I stay up until 2:00 and 3:00am trying to fit in as many episodes as possible until I crashed, and when it was time to watch the season finale, I sat in the bathroom watching it on my phone in the middle of the night. Spoiler alert: Dan died, and I bawled my eyes out. Husband was pretty pissed when he found out I was crying about Roseanne instead of a real problem.

The Conners were down to Earth and real. Yes, many of the problems they faced were no more than your average situational comedy plots, but many of them were “firsts” of that generation, like leading characters who were overweight and a realistic blue collar family, and that dealt with taboo topics like birth control, social class and sex (fat seks at that!). And you know what, they fought with each other. The way real families fight. Not the way TV families fight, but the way you and I fought with our parents, our partners and our employers. (Okay, maybe we’ve never instigated a walk-out, but you know what I mean.)

Anyway, it’s not news that Roseanne is a progressive feminist and absolutely totally fucking awesome, but recently she’s been making her rounds back into the spotlight, and it couldn’t be better. I mean, she’s still kind of fat, but is visibly happy and healthy, and *gasp* she has gray hair. Let me rephrase. She is ROCKING the gray hair. Could I love her any more than I already do? Apparently I can.

So when this article was recently published in New York Magazine about Roseanne being a domestic goddess and a feminist pioneer (and subsequently made its rounds on the feminist blogosphere) I just had to make my comments on it. It’s totally worth the read but if you find it too lengthy here is my favorite highlight.

"Nothing real or truthful makes its way to TV unless you are smart and know how to sneak it in, and I would tell you how I did it, but then I would have to kill you. Based on Two and a Half Men’s success, it seems viewers now prefer their comedy dumb and sexist. Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him. That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife -sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right! People do what they can get away with (or figure they can), and Sheen is, in fact, a product of what we call politely the 'culture.'"

You say it, sistah! There's almost nothing progressive on TV anymore. And don't even think about commenting about how Modern Family or The Closer or The L-Word or Murphy Brown whatever fucking show you think is so progressive is truly modernizing television. They're not really. I'm not saying Roseanne was a total game changer. In fact, it obviously wasn't, because even Roseanne claims that it was "television’s first feminist and working-class-family sitcom (also its last)."

But in reality, I think Roseanne's shining feminist moment was in the very last episode in her revealing monologue. She said:

"We didn’t hit our children as we were hit, we didn’t demand their unquestioning silence, and we didn’t teach our daughters to sacrifice more than our sons.

As a modern wife, I walked a tight rope between tradition and progress, and usually, I failed by one outsider’s standards or anothers. But I figured out that neither winning nor losing count for women like they do for men. We women are the ones who transform everything we touch — and nothing on earth is higher than that."

Well to the major networks and the cable stations, I say: You've underestimated us. Trust us, we can handle it. Just try it. And don't be snarks about it. Do it for real. We're capable of handling it. And don't say you don't know how to create a progressive, real tv show that's also funny and gets high ratings. We have faith in you. We know you can do it :)

And for a little fun, the funniest Roseanne moment ever. Guess what? Sometimes parents are irresponsible. And it's fucking hilarious.

And for good measure, here's the closing song from the finale, because not only was the message a pivotal part of the show, but because it signaled the end of my Roseannathon, and I'm still grieving.

The Feminist Diaries

My experience with feminism is approximately 7 years in to what I assume will be a lifelong journey. I have a bachelor’s degree in Gender & Women’s Studies which I suppose makes me qualified to talk about the basics of feminism, but I’m not an expert and I’m still figuring it out. And since the world isn’t static, the relationship between me, feminism and the real world is constantly changing.

I know a lot of feminists. I’ve read about and by a lot of feminists. Some of those feminists came from a completely academic standpoint and some were diehard radical activists, but most are a combination of the two. The glaring truth about feminism is that there is no one way to be a feminist. I am a feminist, and I can’t even describe it.

There are lots of things that feminism could be, but there is essentially nothing that feminism must be. I know what you’re thinking. “I’m sure we could all agree on at least one thing, that in order to be a feminist you must believe in equality for women.” But no, I’d have to disagree. There certainly are feminist theorists (Margaret Fuller for example) who would argue that women and men are very different, each having different strengths and inherent characteristics. I’m not here to give you a feminist theory lesson, but know that there are many feminist theories, some that radically differ from each other, and they are still all feminist.

In the real world, however, feminism matters more in practice than in theory. Being a feminist affects everything you think about and everything you do, and sometimes you think so hard about something it makes it difficult for you to integrate into mainstream society, something I lovingly call “too feminist to function” or TFTF.

It is these interactions that I plan to explore here, for you to read and discuss. I am not right or wrong in any of my observations, because they are just that. As I said, I am still negotiating my place in this world as a feminist and it helps to talk about it.

I expect that posts will be described as equal parts thoughtful, intelligent, funny and batshit crazy. I’m also hoping to regularly feature guest posts so if you’re interested, get in touch with the “ask me anything” button.

My last request is to keep discussions civil, but please share your insights and opinions so that we can have thoughtful discussion. I won’t delete comments just because I disagree with them but I will delete any posts that are overtly racist, offensive or full of profanity. Let’s be adults, guyz.

Happy reading!