Just What Kind of Feminist Are You?

Yeah, so I'm still irritated about this piece of business over at Kleinheider's*. Feminism is not some monolithic well-articulated philosophy hell-bent on ruining the lives of men**. (That's just a happy side-effect***.) For me, feminism is about promoting a belief that women have worth, that our experiences are valuable, and that we should have opportunities to make the most out of our lives. I don't believe that there should be any places that are off-limits to women; I think we should have the right to self-determination; and a right to free self-expression, especially sexually. I don't believe that feminism is a moral position and I get irritated with people who do. Feminism ought to mean that we are recognized as fully human, as capable of evil as the next person. But at heart, I'm selfish, and there's certainly a way in which much of my feminism is not about changing your mind: do what you want; just don't get in my way. So, obviously, if I want folks to get out of the way of me doing the things I want, it does sometimes become about changing your behavior. There are a lot of ways that y'all--men and women--are fucked up, and it gets in my way****. I don't want to be a man or be like men, because I don't think men are better than women. I don't think how y'all are is something I should aspire to. I also don't think it's something I should shirk from. I'm not in competition with you. I don't want the things you have because I think you've had them for too long and now is my turn. I want the things that would make my life easier. I just want space to be myself, fully. But at heart, I'm a feminist because it makes me happy*****. And, the more I talk to some of you, the more I think I've waited too long to articulate that. Being a feminist makes me happy. It makes me happy to believe that I have inherent worth and that I ought to be able to do what I want when I want with whom I want and, as long as I'm not hurting anyone, I shouldn't be punished for it. I like knowing that I can support myself and sometimes splurge on my friends. I like having roll models who resemble me. I appreciate efforts to see facets of the sacred as feminine because I feel that being a woman has facets of the sacred inherent to it. I like being able to read and write and vote and drive and go to school and speak openly in public. It's true that things are different than the used to be and that negotiating relationships is tricky. But isn't that kind of cool? Here we are, kind of freshly birthed into this new paradigm, and we get to try together to figure out what it means. I think that's cool and, though at times painful, bound to be fun. I think feminism is inherently optimistic, advocating, as it does, for the belief that there are people of value everywhere. *And not just because, if it's true that we feminists are singlehandedly responsible for ruining marriage, I'm getting cheated out of my exciting social life full of leading poor married people astray. If you are a married person who needs to be led astray by a feminist, I guess drop me a line. I'm not sure how we schedule this crap and to whom we report my success at ruining your life, but let's have fun first and figure out the bureaucratic nightmare later. **Many of us feminists are hoping that our Marxist tax structure will ruin the lives of rich people and since most rich people are men... Voila! Two oppressive birds with one stone. ***I'm kidding, obviously. ****To return to Kleinheider, I'd like to have a discussion with him about the ways in which both feminists and anti-feminists trade on this notion of the moral superiority of women and how that's detrimental to men, especially when it comes to deciding who gets kids, but the piece he quotes has such a fun-house mirror definition of feminism that I feel defensive from the get-go. If Kleinheider would stop endorsing idiots without comment, we could have an intelligent exchange of ideas, but instead, I'm loathe to admit the ways in which I might agree with him, because I don't want folks to mistakenly believe I endorse all that nonsense. *****This must be very shocking to the folks who believe that Maureen Dowd is the epitome of feminism. Take a moment to recover. [Edited to add: I love you, Fritz. You are totally my internet boyfriend. Or son. How old are you again?]