Thoughts on feminism

In my early 20's I would have been considered a feminist.  I had never come in contact with any feminist organization or remember being exposed to any feminist ideas in school.  In fact, if you had asked me if I was a feminist at that time, I would not have been familiar enough with the term to have given you an answer.  I came by my feminism through a thought process of my own.

The seeds of my feminism begin with my father (whose doesn't?).  I think that he tried to cultivate an air of iconoclasm and would have been proud to be considered an iconoclast.    It seemed to me that he wanted people to think that he gave no consideration to how he was perceived in the world.   One example of this that stands out in my mind:  I was probably 12 or 14 at the time.  We were standing around with our extended family in the yard saying our good-byes as we parted from each other after a small family reunion.  My dad needed to pass gas, so ... he did.....with a straight face the whole time.....loudly.... long.... and repeatedly.  I died about 10 deaths in that 30 minute span of time.

My dad also had a thing about power.   He was horrible to my mother.   (He was also horrible to us kids but that is tangential to this discussion.)   I remember his whipping my mother with a belt when she displeased him.  There would be terrible fights at times when he thought that she had worn too much make-up and at times when he thought that she had not worn enough make-up.  He dictated everything about everything.  You could never know what would set him off next.  He found dust on something?  Explosion!  You served a visitor coffee in the wrong cup?  Explosion!  These were not instances of defiance, but simply times when he was enraged by some decision, action or lack of action that we had taken.   I spent my childhood walking on egg shells, never knowing what was going to set him off next.  When I was younger, of course I didn't question the way things were.  I thought that this is how strong fathers acted and I blamed myself when I had displeased him.  When I got older, I noticed that he would often order my mother to do something simply because his doing it for himself made him scared or uncomfortable and this gave me a little peek behind the curtain.  I realized that he was not strong.  He was weak!  From then on, I despised him and couldn't wait to get away from him.

My thoughts followed this progression:  My dad used his power to make our lives miserable -> I will never give another man that kind of power.  To my credit, I think, I followed this thinking to it's logical conclusion.  I realized that living in a world where I had as much power as a man meant living in a world where I had as much responsibility as a man, so I tried to proceed accordingly.  I sought a degree that would support me financially.  I learned to repair my own cars etc.  {I'm still the only female I know who has replaced a clutch master cylinder, replaced brake pads or bled her own brakes -admittedly not the pinaccle of auto mechanics.}  Making your way through college while never asking a man for help in the Southwestern U.S. is quite a feat and a strange sight to most.

It is still difficult for me to partition out in my mind whether male power is a good thing or a bad thing.  I can see that my husband being the leader of our family is a really good thing.  But he's a good guy.  Men having power but using it poorly is a REALLY BAD THING, so I have trouble when other bloggers blame many of society's ills on a lack of male leadership.  I would agree that many of society's ills can be blamed on a lack of GOOD male leadership.  Extreme instances such as bride burnings etc. would certainly fall on the Male Power is Bad side of the ledger. 

I would welcome anyone helping me sort this out logically.

The Irony!

I was MAD!, but now I'm just laughing.

For the purposes of this post, my inner thoughts will be posted in this script.  I think it will work better that way.

We have an event coming up with our church, so the family discussion was:  To go or not to go?  Here's how it went:
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Me:  Are we planning to to go the event?  If we're going I'll need to plan what food I need to prepare and take.

Him:  What do you want to do?

Me:  I hesitate to tell you because I think that any time I give my opinion, it is taken as the law and I hate that.  

Him:  No, I'm just asking your opinion.

Me:  Okay then, I'd rather not go.

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My husband has been gone all week with our oldest son on a camping trip.  It was a long week and I am so glad to have them back home.  Everyone slept in this morning and I cooked a large, late breakfast.  As we were eating I broached the subject again.


Me:  Did we decide if we were going to the event?

Him:  You said we weren't going.

Me;  [angry now]  Please never say that "You said we weren't going" as if I have laid down the law.  That was my VOTE, nothing more.   

He ALWAYS does this!!  I wish he'd go back to the woods for some more camping!

Him:  Okay, let's take a family vote.  Who wants to go to the event?   

Wow, way to avoid any leadership at all.  Coward.


As it turns out, two of the kids want to go to the event and one doesn't.  One of the kids who wants to go is of  driving age.

Him:  Okay, those who want to go, can go [with the driving kid] and those who don't want to go, can stay home.

Well, at least that was a shade of leadership.

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After breakfast, he decides to clean out his hiking backpack.  He has some leftover snacks that he doesn't know what to do with.  He brings them to me with this comment:  "Here's some nuts for you."



Really, what would YOU have said?