velvetpage | Five Things Feminism Has Done For Me (Reply)

This is in response to Canada's Minister for the Status of Women Canada, Bev Oda, who has just presided over a 40% cut to her own budget and doesn't seem to realize what it is she's supposed to defend. Canadian women (or for that matter, women anywhere) feel free to take the challenge: name five things feminism has done for you.

1) I'm more than just a mom. I can be a mom, and be a good one; I can take time away from my other roles in order to raise my children; and then I can go back, without any stigma or loss of prestige. I don't have to hide my parenthood to have success.

2) My husband is my full partner. He doesn't "help out" around the house, because that implies that I am ultimately responsible. Instead, he does what needs doing. He participates fully in his daughters' lives, he takes care of household chores, and he does it with no condescension about how he's helping me with my tasks. They're his tasks too. We both accept responsibility for out home and family.

3) I can choose what happens to my body. I chose a midwife. I chose the books that informed me about my pregnancy. I had appointments with three different ob/gyns, two of them female, before my second daughter was born. The anesthetist was male but his resident was female. I choose doctors and medical practitioners who respect my intelligence and know that I'm going to inform myself about my and my children's health. If I come across a paternalistic, "Don't worry your pretty head about that," kind of doctor, I'll ask for a referral to someone else, because I won't let anyone patronize me in that way.

4) I got an education and I use it. I grew up with the assumption that my brother, my two sisters and myself would all go to university. That was what smart kids did, and we all grew up with the assumption of our own intelligence. Our parents, both of them, were feminist enough to believe in that equality and want us to have the choices that a liberal education would give us. I use my education daily in my job, where I serve as an example to the next generation of smart girls that they, too, can get an education and use it.

5) I don't need a nom de plume to be taken seriously when I write. There is no assumption that women to do not write serious things. There is no longer a need to write as a man to be taken seriously, as there once was. I have opinions, I know how to inform them and express them, and I can do so as myself.

The fact is, many people, even in our relatively enlightened society, still cannot take these things for granted. The Motherhood Manifesto, about the situation of mothers in relation to the rest of the workforce in the United States, bears witness to that sad state of affairs. Women in Canada who did not grow up with parents as enlightened and egalitarian as mine still do not embrace their own destinies. Women in the States question several of the points I just made, fearing constantly that these realities, already shaky, are being eroded. The elimination of funding for the Ministry of the Status of Women Canada reminds us that we in Canada are not without risk to the rights we have won or those for which we still fight. We cannot afford to rest on our laurels and assume the fight is won.

When you write your list, go to this site and post a link to it in comments: http://www.pogge.ca/archives/001283.shtml

EDIT: post it here, too: http://www.progressivebloggers.ca/blog/diary.php?cmd=view&id=1287