Feminist Friday - Words

What a coincidence .. the topic of this week's Feminist Fridays is words! Words. We love them, huh?

We sure do. But what about people who misuse our precious words? Like the word 'feminism'. This week, Sarah Palin took to Twitter to pronounce all of us feminists a 'cackle of rads'. She even went so far as to suggest that we hijacked the word feminism. Oh dear, where do I start?

Well, let's start with the ... ummmmm... dictionary, shall we? Here is how Merriam-Webster defines feminist/feminism:

1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

So, I'm going to step out on a limb and say Sarah knows nothing about the women's movement. At all. I mean the sheer nerve of that woman to post something as ridiculous as that on the 90th anniversary of U.S. women's suffrage is galling. But, even if I'm wrong about her lack of knowledge/education/thought-processes, how can Sarah not see that using a misogynistic term like cackle to try to denigrate OTHER WOMEN is everything that feminism is not. Moreover, she did not even use the term properly! Ugh. Plus, since when is the notion of equal rights radical? That is what she thinks of feminists? Double ugh.

It probably comes as no surprise that I do not care for Sarah Palin at all. Some readers could argue that I am not being a good feminist in attacking Palin. I would say to you, wrong you are. If a person works toward equal rights for women, both in word and practice, regardless of who that person is, then I will support them. If someone works against these things, then I will criticize them. That is my right, I believe. Sarah is doing more to hurt the cause of feminism than to help it. I am not aware of anything she has done as a half-term governor or as a full-time paid speaker that has furthered women's causes. In fact, she would have done a service to feminists if she had publicly stated that how she was treated as a vice-presidential candidate was related to sexist attitudes, instead of blaming the liberal media or playing the victim all the time. That is anti-feminism, in my opinion.

Even after all these years of the women's movement, many many people think of feminist as a dirty word or at a minimum they misunderstand what feminism encompasses. That is very frustrating to many of us already. Then to have another woman so blatantly misuse it and try to hijack its meaning is so offensive.

Words are powerful. Feminism is powerful. Words matter. Feminism matters.

Feminist Moms UNITE!

cross-posted at TheRantingMommy.com

The lovely blogger Transatlantic Blonde has started a new meme called the Friday Feminist Mom Roundup. I found out about this opportunity quite by accident, but in the way I find out A LOT of news … through Twitter.  The idea instantly appealed to me because 1) I feel pretty strongly about feminism, 2) I am a mom, and 3) feminism has traditionally gotten a pretty bad rap over the years.


Today, I am going to focus on one specific thing that relates to parenting and is a personal pet peeve of mine: gender stereotyping. More specifically gender-role stereotyping (which takes me into the area of psychology-isms, so I will leave it at gender stereotyping). I have some time restrictions today (story of my life), so I will keep it brief.

So here is my rant: it drives me nuts that we box in our children to certain stereotypical behavior, dress, toys, etc. at such an early age. Here are a few of examples that make me twitch:

• Little girls have long (or at least longish) hair and boys have short hair. My 4 year-old daughter already says this. Grrrrrrr. People constantly call my son, whose hair is longish and curly, a girl. It does not bother me in the slightest, but the presumption is silly.
• Girls are supposed to like the color pink, Barbies (another rant for another day), and playing dressing up. Boys are supposed to like playing in dirt, tearing up or crashing things, and bugs. Why? Says who? My daughter likes the color yellow, planting plants, and finding bugs. My son loves to wear my hats, glasses, and sometimes my shoes, does not like his hands to be dirty, and likes playing with his sister's dolls. Why should ANY of that behavior by either of them be even given a second-thought?
• I recently took my daughter with me to the nail salon to get her nails painted, as decidedly 'girly' thing. When we returned, my son whined a little because he wanted his nails painted too. My husband chimed in that 'boys don't paint their nails'. I bristled. Sure that is typically true, but why not just offer to do something else special just for him? Or paint his nails with clear polish?
• This summer, I enrolled my daughter in several different summer camps each with their own themes. There was a princess camp and a super heroes camp. Guess which one they offered her? Boo. She actually OWNS a cape and mask that she uses for dress up. Granted she also owns several princess and ballet dresses too because she LIKES dressing up, but still.

These are but a few. Now, don't get me wrong. I truly believe in celebrating all there beauty there is in being female. Those are lessons I hope to teach my daughter throughout my lifetime. In addition, I think boys should know that being male is special in its own right. And, no, I would not send my son to kindergarten dressed in a princess outfit or with his nails painted purple. But it bothers me immensely that both of my kids WILL go to kindergarten with all these stereotypes imprinted on their brains already. Bugs me. Anyone else?