Ex Libris Bitsy

A few days ago I decided to start participating in the Women Unbound challenge. A challenge where you are set the task of reading books about women’s studies, a certain number non-fiction, before November 30th of next year, 2010.

Since I’ve chosen my books and have started reading my first one, it’s now time to do the start of challenge meme. Just a few questions to set yourself up for what follows. Kind of a “you are here” on the map to see where you begin and hopefully, by the time I’m done, I’ll be able to look back and see where I’ve ended up.

Feminism for me is very simple the belief that women are equal to men, full stop. I don’t think that should be limited or set to a specific sphere, I don’t think it should control how you dress or how you act necessarily either. That’s just trading one set of shackles for another. I’m going to use an example to illustrate my point.

When I lived at home my mother insisted that I learn to sew. She didn’t want my brothers to learn, didn’t make them once pick up needle and thread, but insisted on my learning. I dug in my heels because I didn’t want to do something that was expected of me just because I was female. She finally settled on me learning at least how to sew on a button. In dire circumstances I might one day recall exactly what I learned then, hopefully. When I moved out and was on my own and could choose what I did and did not learn, I picked up sewing, mainly counted cross-stitch. Because it was no longer expected or being forced on me against my will, because I now had a choice, it was now okay for me to do so, and I enjoy it, even if my thread gets horribly tangled if I allow my attention to wander too far from what I’m doing. Looking back, my mother, who also enjoys sewing, was probably just looking for someone to share that joy with, but she went about it in a way that alienated me from my brothers, and that was just never going to work out.

This reminds me of a “discussion” I had with my husband when we were first living together before we got married. He declared that he was not a feminist and I was so surprised, as he didn’t strike me as the type, that I asked him if he didn’t believe that women should have equal rights and equal treatment as men receive. He said that he did believe that and I replied, “Well, then you’re a feminist.”

Inequality. This obstacle has not changed in essentials, only in degrees, and is prevalent just about everywhere. Except Antarctica. Maybe.