I tend to be a rather opinionated sort of person. I've done the research and thought long and hard about who and what I am ( and I have changed as I've encountered rational evidence to make me think about my life differently).
I am, at the moment, an anti-feminist feminist. I support many of the ideals advocated by the feminist movement: equal pay for equal work, suffrage, right to initiate divorce, right to own property, pro-choice and so on. It's the implementation that I have a problem with. Most feminists that I've met are nothing more than wailing, screaming harpies.
They view men as inferior creatures, nothing more than walking, talking penises, who need to be controlled (even the ones who have happy, loving relationships with men.) Hmm...sounds vaguely familiar to how men used to view us before the woman's movement...walking, talking vaginas who couldn't think for ourselves and should be kept barefoot and pregnant. Yep, in raging against it, many feminists have become the very thing they hate.
So, come on ladies, use your brains, I know you have them. To quote Albert Einstein, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Let's look at it this way, how many "men bashing" jokes do you know and enjoy? How many "women bashing" jokes do you know and enjoy? Me, you ask? I know quite of few and get a great deal of laughter out of both. I'm an equal opportunity humorist. Everything and everyone is a target for me. And whether you like it or not, all jokes, regardless of who they poke fun at, do have a ring of truth to them. We are only human after all and stupidity is rampant among both sexes.
And speaking of stupidity, let's look at this whole gender-neutral language issue. What kind of silly, convoluted, insecure thought process originated this idea? Are women so insecure about themselves that they need to alter an entire language to feel better about their place in the world? Yeah, I know the whole argument, that the English language is derived from a patriarchal society and language perpetuates thought, therefore continually perpetuating a male-dominated society.
Ok, fine, you want to change chairman to chairperson or police man to police officer. Great. But where do you draw the line? Maybe we should do away with mother/father/daughter/son and just have parent/child. That way they'll be no more Father/Daughter Dances or Mommy & Me Yoga. It'll just be Parent/Child Dances and Parent & Me Yoga. Sounds great, now the butch lesbians can go to all the dances they've previously been excluded from and the dads can go and stare at women's asses when they're doing all the fun, bendy yoga moves like downward facing dog...yeah, lets teach the kids what's really important.
And while we're at it let's take it a step further and get rid of the title "downward facing dog". Is that a sexist phrase or what? Maybe we could change it to something neutral like "the triangle" or "kiss the earth". Or perhaps we should just get rid of the position completely. If you've never seen it, google it. If you have...we'll, you don't have to use too much imagination to follow where I'm going. Actually, on second thought, maybe we just need to put an end to yoga all together, some of those moves are just too suggestive and reinforce the idea that women are sex objects.
And while we're on the subject of language and equality, I do have to give credit where credit is due. I do indeed agree with the feminists on one change. I like the word shooter much better than gunwoman. The thought that it may be a woman on the tower plowing down innocent citizens provokes sympathy and the desire to rescue and heal. Whereas shooter rips out any reference to gender and its use is less likely to elicit a plan to save her and more likely to implement the talents of a sniper to put a bullet in the crazy bitch. Hey, if you're going to fight for equality, you better be prepared to go all the way.
Well, I think that's quite enough of me and my soapbox. So now your probably wondering what makes me a feminist and what feminism means to me.
It's quite simple really. I'm a feminist because I love and esteem both sexes equally. We are both amazing, strong, wise, stupid, incompetent, flawed, brilliant, beautiful beings. If women want respect, we need to earn it and more importantly give it in return. We can't do that if we're constantly ranting, raving and blaming all that is wrong with the world on men. The knife cuts both ways ladies. To me, feminism is about a woman's freedom to be happy, whatever happiness means to her. Be it climbing to the top of the corporate ladder and earning the same income as her male counterpart or living in a master/slave relationship and being tied up and beaten with a cat o' nine every night... or if it tickles her fancy...both.
