I DON'T KNOW IF I AM A FEMINIST

Recently, my online life has included some discussions about feminism.  Specifically, I saw a post about a book called Rage Baking: The Transformative Power of Flour, Fury, and Women’s Voices.  I commented on the post that I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the premise of this book, given that for many of my years as a Stay-At-Home-Mum, it seemed that the traditionally female domain of the kitchen, and the skills that went with that domain, were denigrated by more “progressive” feminists.  I wondered if it was ironic that activist, feminist women were now attempting to reclaim the kitchen as a place of female/feminist power (I’ll tell you a secret – SAHMs know that the kitchen has ALWAYS been a place of female power!).  There were some supportive comments, but there were also negative responses to my ponderings.  One friend said that this was all in the past, and another dismissed my personal experiences as “pop-feminist nastiness,” claiming that feminism has always supported and fought for the principle of being a SAHM. 

  

There was also a fair amount of online discussion about the halftime show at the Super Bowl, and how it was supposed to be empowering for women.  I won’t regurgitate that discussion; suffice it to say that many of my online friends disagreed with my perspective.  Most of the comments were respectful and we agreed to disagree, but I also apparently lost a Facebook friend because of my opinion.    

These interactions about feminism and what I have been told it is supposed to mean for me bothered me.  So I have a couple of things to say before I move on.  

First some background.  I was not raised in a radically feminist household.  By that I mean, my mother did not preach feminism to me.  However, she worked in paid employment outside of the home for many of my growing up years through the 1970s and 80s, and she and my father were very much equal partners in their marriage, in every way that I was aware of as a child – economically, parenting-wise, decision-making.  I was never made to feel “less” because I was a girl, at least, not by my parents, and I was free (and supported) to make my own life decisions about university (I went) and marriage (I did). 

When I got married and had children, my husband and I decided together that I would be a stay-at-home mum.  I did some casual work here and there while our children were growing up, and A LOT of volunteer work, but for most of my adult life, I have been a SAHM.  We were fortunate that we were able to make that decision, although I won’t lie, it was not easily financially; however, I have absolutely no regrets with the choice that we made.  I WANTED to be home with my children. 

Feminism has been a good thing for many privileged, white, middle to upper class women in Canada.  It hasn’t been so good for women of colour, Indigenous women, or low-income or uneducated women.  In fact, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which boasted intellectual giants such as Doris Anderson and Judy Rebick (both former presidents), imploded once immigrant women and women of colour such as Sunera Thobani, Dolly Williams and Teri Brown demanded their place at the table; the irreconcilable tension that was created between women of colour and white women from the privileged classes was one of the main factors in NACSW’S dissolution.   

Feminism has not always been friendly to women like me either (white and “privileged” as I am), who chose to stay at home with their kids in an era where that was not necessarily an acceptable decision for feminists (even though feminists have always talked about the freedom of women to CHOOSE for themselves).  In fact, the statements that feminism has always advocated for SAHMs, and that any perceived tension between the two is in the past are patently untrue.  Simone de Beauvoir, the icon of second wave feminism, said “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children.”  More recently, women such as Camille Paglia and Elisabeth Badinter have written about feminism and its antagonism toward motherhood.  As recently as 2017, feminist writers picked up on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s report that SAHMs were one of the biggest drains on the economy of Australia, with resulting articles acknowledging that feminism is not actually about choice, and suggesting that women have “employment responsibilities,” and that it should be illegal for women to stay at home once their children are in school.  Yes.  ILLEGAL.  Emma Johnson, an American business journalist, published a list of twelve ways that SAHMs hurt gender equality, suggesting that SAHMs need to suck it up and make choices that benefit the greater good (and her personally, of course).  All you have to do is type “feminism” and “stay at home moms” into the Google bar to find a wide range of articles, blogs, and posts by and about women who feel that feminism has let them down (one that I re-read recently is here), or that denigrate SAHMs.  

Personally, I have been told by a feminist that I was not contributing to society because I did not have a paying job.  I spent years volunteering (working for free) in schools and community groups that my children were part of, unlike many “working” moms; in fact, it was overtly suggested many times, mostly by other women, that because I “didn’t work,” it was expected of me.  I have been to countless social functions where women who had careers had nothing to say to me; after all, if I’m a SAHM it must be because I can’t get a job since I am uneducated or stupid or have nothing to say about anything other than my children; at least I could always talk sports with the men.   

So here we are again in 2020.  Once again, in the past couple of weeks, my personal experience as a SAHM has been dismissed by a feminist, and another feminist has mansplained to me that I should have found the overt sexuality of the Superbowl half-time show empowering, without really any explanation of how exactly it is empowering to an overweight 55-year-old who doesn’t dance very well.   

So. HERE’S MY POINT. You can talk ideologies, and theoreticals, and principles, and empowerment.  Feminism has been good to you and you have adopted its tenets, terminologies, and philosophies.  Fine.  That’s great.  That’s your truth, and it’s the truth for many women.  You can discuss and disagree with me about some of the ideas about feminism.  That’s okay too.   

But IT IS NOT OKAY to dismiss and deny the very real actual not-so-positive experiences that other women have had within the framework of feminism, at the hands of people who call themselves feminists.  By doing that, you are guilty of doing the exact same thing that generations of men have done, which is belittling and trivializing and denying the lived experiences of women.   

These attitudes and this dismissiveness… this is why, even though I fully support equal pay for equal work, equal opportunities, equal choice, and political, economic, and social equality for all women, I personally have a great deal of difficulty embracing the feminist label.