I was goin gto wait a little, to see how this thread did, before
contributing, but Barbara Benesch <BJBenesch@AOL.COM> got ahead of me with
a comment Re: child raising, etc.
>Basically, my point is this: As I see it, feminism is basically about giving
>women the right to choose the direction of their own lives. It's about women
>evaluating the options available to them (feminism is also about opening the
>arena of options wider than it would be if left to patriarchal mores), and
>deciding what is the best option for *themselves*. I've always believed that
>the point is feminism is to give the same level of legitimacy to *all* women.
>The point is that women should be free to make their own choices, free
>of society-induced guilt or pressure.
I come to "feminism" from sort of a minority direction: I'm an anarchist.
I believe in free, informed choice. I believe one-size-fits-all doesn't.
I oppose enforced formulas.
If you start near there, feminism is, in my opinion, implicit. Some women
want to cook, sew and keep house. Some women want to raise children. Some
women want to do both. Some women want to be astronauts. Some women want
to be lumberjacks.
One of my favorite bits from Emma Goldman's autobiography is from the first
decade of this century, when she made a lot of her income as a public
speaker on the Chautauqua circuit. Some of her friends took her aside and
told her she'd do a lot better if she didn't give such prominence to what
today we'd call gay rights and contraception. She replied that since it
was all of a piece, she didn't understand how she could.
& incidentally, Barbara, welcome to the list!
Neil Rest
NeilRest@tezcat.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:53 PDT