The Feminist Chronicles - part 2

I was initially planning to post a picture of myself from the era I wrote about--me in my 20s. I saw this picture first, though, and just had to post it because it's cute. I was doing my toe presses on the steps, with sandbags on my shoulders. I was very faithful about lifting weights religiously in that era. I really miss that body. Anyway, my little workout buddy put the lightest sandbag on her shoulders and joined me. Dej was almost 2 in this photo.

College was such an exciting time of discovery for me. I delved into studying feminism, religion, philosophy, ethics—all the things my brain had been craving. I took every feminist/women studies class that was available. I had a very interesting feminist philosophy class early on, which was taught not by a woman but by a gay male. He was a good professor, and I ended up taking a couple more philosophy and logic/rhetoric classes with him. He was the first ‘GAY’ I had encountered. I was at first, quite nervous about being in a class with him—he was very out, so it was apparent immediately. Although I knew the religion stuff was BS, I still wasn’t completely sure how much of the BS propaganda I had been fed my whole life was true and how much was lies (98% of it, I know now!), and since they equated gay males with pedophiles (they were one and the same), I was feeling a little sqwicky at first. Adjusting my views on homosexuality to be grounded in reality instead of lies was important in my feminist adventure.

Along this journey, fully enjoying exploring and taking charge of my own sexuality, I ended up pregnant. My birth control pill, the great liberator, had failed me. I would forget to take one now and then, but would always take two the next day to make up for it. I’ve always had hormone/female problems, and so sometimes taking two would cause me to get really sick and vomit. I probably didn’t keep my pill down. Anyway, it was a disaster. I was in college and heading in the right direction but was certainly not prepared to deal with a baby that I really didn’t desire. I thought extensively about what to do. First I tried to ignore it for a couple of weeks and pretend it wasn’t really happening. That didn’t work so well.

After a lot of analysis, I decided in all of my feminist glory, that I would have the child and would raise her to be a feminist, animal rights warrior. I felt that men were actually distractions from parenting, presented danger to children, and were completely unnecessary to parenting. I knew that I would be able to support her by myself. I would never (then or now) have a child that I couldn't completely support and raise on my own. It worked well for bio dad, who wasn’t really interested in parenting and was pretty happy to be let off the hook. So you may have already come to the conclusion that I decided to have my child for all of the wrong reasons—poor kid! I had quite an agenda and was ready to mold the perfect female (despite not yet knowing the gender). This was only one of so many mistakes I would make with my first child, but despite my screaming fuckups, I couldn’t have loved her more! I’m glad she survived me and my ‘growing into myself’ period.

I met my soul sister, shortly after Dej’s birth. She was a liberal, vegetarian, bisexual, feminist extraordinaire, and an amazing writer. She also loved Prince as much as me—maybe more (though could that really be possible?)! It was so awesome to have discussions for hours and hours with her. We worked through many of our past, present, and future issues that way.

I’m not sure how much to attribute to just growing and maturing, becoming a mother, or finding Susan, but this was around the time I started to re-examine and move away from my early feminist ideas. I started to really embrace those things that were unique to women. This journey continued throughout my 20’s.

Eventually, I no longer wanted to interpret my strength by how male I could be. I was in a predominantly male major (MCS – geeky computer stuff), and while it was easy for me to get along with males (yeah, I thought they were inferior, but I never had any problems getting along with them), I always felt a bit of a loss when I entered McGraw Hall. My minor, however, was in English. My intent at the time was to use the high-paying IT career to pay for the rest of my schooling, so I could be a women’s studies professor. I loved and wrote extensively about female authors of the late 19th/early 20th century. That was my passion, and when I entered Heidi Hall for my Lit classes, I felt so at home. I definitely felt more authentic in the more female-predominant English/Lit classes. I’m grateful for that minor today. It really fed my soul (not to mention made me extremely employable as one of the few uber geeks with great writing/communication skills.

I grew to enjoy all things female—even those that are less than enjoyable. Menstruation, previously was a shameful, repulsive, nasty experience that I dreaded. Oh, and I should back up to say that I hated pregnancy. I hated everything about it. I hated childbirth. I only had natural child birth at that time because there wasn’t an anesthesiologist available to drug me up. But throughout my 20’s I began to appreciate my monthly cycles, not the cramping and soggy crotch so much, but the way my body cycled; the way I felt so much a part of nature, the moon, the earth, and her cycles.

I started to feel more and to acknowledge feelings other than anger. I became softer. By that time, I was finished with my undergrad and working in my career field. I noticed that the males I worked with always approached things differently than I did. It was those character traits that I was starting to develop (or maybe more accurately to acknowledge and express) that helped me be successful in my job. I spent much time thinking about male and female behavior, nature vs. nurture, and just which gender differences were innate versus socialized into us.

Romantic relationships didn’t go very well for me, because I approached them with a very adversarial attitude. It was all about making sure that I retained all power and control, so there was no way I could be oppressed. The fact that I struggled with monogamy didn’t help the situations either. At this point in my life, there was absolutely no way I could have or would have entered into any type of equal partnership with a male. I also, for the most part, chose the type of men who reinforced my belief that they were pointless diversions, good for nothing other than sex and heavy lifting.

Despite all of this feminism and my hostility toward men, I was still more comfortable with males than females for the most part. I had some extremely close female friends, but definitely spent the majority of time with my male friends. It did strike me as odd at the time, and some of my male friends teased me about it.

By the time I met Mark, in the last half of my 20’s, I was much healthier, both in my feminism and in my life as a whole. I was finally reaching a point where I had collected all the information I could about feminism and had percolated through it enough mentally, that I was able to through away that which didn’t work for me and keep that which did. I was starting to find a feminist philosophy that was MINE and was coming from a place of resonance within me, rather than strictly from my anger and rage.

More later.