Take This Pink Ribbon Off My Eyes, Then Burn It

Currently Listening To No Doubt’s Just A Girl

Rosie The Riveter 21st Century

I’ve been asked many times how I could consider myself a feminist when I am me.  And I every time I’m asked this, I want to know what the basis of this statement is because no one person seems to have the same answer.  Here are some of the highlights:

• You hate other women.  Let’s get one thing straight, my hate/dislike/indifference/love/affection has nothing to do with your gender, orientation, political choices, hockey team, preference of finger to pick your nose.  If I don’t like a particular person, it’s because I don’t like that person.  My friends are women.  My friends are men.  The people I avoid, yeah sure, some of them are women, but that is not their defining characteristic!  If a man disagrees with a man, does he hate all men?  No.  If my one dog picks a fight with the other dog, does it hate all other dogs?  No.  Don’t be mean to me or my friends and there’s a pretty good chance I won’t dislike you.
• You wear dresses, high heels, and makeup.  They are all patriarchal symbols!  I wear dresses because I hate the low-cut thing going on with pants.  There’s nothing sexy about showing the world your butt crack or having the waist of your pants squish your muffin top up and out!  I’m sorry.  And high cut pants seem to give me weird camel toe issues.  I don’t want the world seeing me like that!  Call me crazy but people should be spared those images.  As for the high heels?  Well, yeah I enjoy them.  I also own Chucks, cowboy boots, sandals, and sneakers.  Sorry you happened to catch me on days when I’m in heels.  You’re never going to catch me in Birkenstocks, I can’t walk in them.  Flats make me look like I’m waddling.  Good news, though!  When there’s one pair of size 11 perfect brown Birkenstocks sitting on the shelf, I won’t wrestle you to the ground to have them.  They are all yours.  And the makeup?  It’s adult finger painting!  I’ve never met a man who sees me smear red lipstick on and go “ufn! I wanna kiss you so I too can wear your red lipstick”
• You cry. I’m sorry?  When did expressing the full range of human emotion become bad?  I think if I wasn’t supposed to cry, the tear ducts would have evolved out of the human body at some point in time.  Call me crazy, but some days a good cry in your car or your bed is as therapeutic as laughing your ass off.
• Your choice in movies/books are all girly or man hero based (ie James Bond): I spend all day kicking butt and taking names.  When I go home, I look for an escape.  The last thing I want to do is be motivated to go do more to better myself.  So yeah, the damsels in distress movies and books appeal to me.  It would be nice to take a day off from saving myself, but at the same time, I know I’m never going to allow that to happen.  Much like I know I’ll never pilot the Millenium Falcon.  It’s okay.  And things are changing.  Who know’s what my favorite movie or book will be next week.

Now I’m not the biggest Zooey Deschanel fan, I’m sure she’s a very lovely lady, but she’s never been in anything that I’ve enjoyed watching.  But I have to agree with her in her interview with Glamour magazine last winter:

“I’m just being myself. There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a fucking feminist and wear a fucking Peter Pan collar. So fucking what?”

My point exactly.

There are tons of forms of feminists out there and we aren’t all going to agree with each other.  It happens when there’s a large group of people, consensus is hard to reach!

My final thoughts on feminism.  You can define it by the dictionary, the local women’s lib group, by going in and doing the opposite of future generations, or whatever, but I think the common idea of people (not just women) wanting to move the status quo to a place of female betterment is what we all need to remember.  You’re never going to have everyone agree on the details, but if the larger picture is still intact, well hell, I think whatever you’re doing in the name of feminism is pretty damn good.