Not a Feminist

My latest round of soul searching has affirmed that I am not a feminist. Why not, you ask? 

I don't seek to trade one group of "control-crazed" maniacs for another simply because the one happens to share the same genitalia. 

I have noticed a trend among many women who espouse the classic feminist philosophy; a tendency to denigrate men who aren't "manly" enough.  These un "manly" men as they call them, are choosing to be stay at home dad's, forgoing the responsibility of being the breadwinner for careers that give them joy or that they are passionate about or would rather pay a lawn service than do it themselves. That same denigration is also reaped on women who take on "traditional" feminine roles or traits.  

In an article entitled "How My Mother's Fanatical Feminism Tore Us Apart” Rebecca Walker speaks about how angry her mother was at her for choosing motherhood because she believed that children and homemaking make women slaves within the feminist paradigm. And, while for some women this is very true yet for others children and homemaking are their greatest joys. It is certainly not the right of feminist to define for any women her life path.  The central aims of feminism should be to advocate for each woman’s right to define herself, chart her life path and to create opportunities for her move forward while mitigating institutional obstacles. 

Feminism in this country has long taken advantage of the hard won spoils of the civil rights movement but in large part has refused to address the unique issues facing women of color or poor white women for that matter. Feminism has long been a movement of well to do white women. Don't believe me, ask yourself the following questions: 

Did the suffragettes as a group stand with Ida B. Wells in the fight against lynching?

How many of those bra burners were also speaking out against the police brutality in urban America?

Where are they today as we watch the merciless prosecution of Marissa Alexander or as the Indigenous women in Alaska are raped in record numbers?

Is it possible that this support exists but just isn't being taught or promoted? Sure it is, but if that latter is the case then Audre Lorde would not have needed to pen these words, " Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support." 

Sadly, she did and it was the necessity of her words then and now that reaffirm that feminism is for those who can afford to "Lean In" the Master's House.  And, as such is not for me.

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. 110-114. 2007. Print.

Walker, Rebecca. " How Mothers Fanatical Feminist Views Tore Us Apart". Daily Mail, UK . May 23, 2008