Welcome to Feminist at The Gun Shed!

What's this blog about?   

This semester in my Feminist Theories class at Utah State University, one of the class assignments is to blog about our reactions to the class.

I've titled my blog "Feminist at The Gun Shed" because the class is held in a building at USU called The Gun Shed.  After the first class period, I posted my reaction to holding the class in that building on Facebook (to the right).

I was joking of course, but as with many jokes there was a tiny bit of truth to it.  My interest in feminism has been met with a lot of different reactions over the years, and I've had many experiences in which people thought it meant I was a "man-hater" or that I didn't embrace being a woman.  Even many of the women in my life have been appalled when I tell them I'm a feminist.  Like it's a horrible thing.  I have always had a hard time understanding where that comes from.  I do not hate men nor do I desire to be one.  I just want the freedom to choose, and I want to be treated as an equal.  I found this blog post that lists what feminism IS NOT, and it resonates with me:

"Feminism is not:

• misandry (the hating of men)
• bra-burning/non-shaving/other like extreme stereotypes
• lesbianism
• “reverse sexism”
• female chauvinism (thinking women are superior to men, or being a woman who emulates male chauvinism)
• advocating a matriarchal world…

It’s true that some of the above things may coincide or dovetail with feminism, but that doesn’t mean they are what feminism is."

(Source: http://mandingueira.com/what-is-feminism/)

Hopefully as I study more, and blog more, I'll spend more time focusing on what feminism IS.

For now, though, I'll talk about how I became interested in feminism.

For me, feminism had a natural draw from the time I was in elementary school.  I remember being very young, maybe about 7 or 8 years old, and questioning why words like "man" and "he" were supposed to represent me, but words like "woman" and "she" could not represent men.  I did not feel any more identified with the male pronouns than a man would feel with the female pronouns, but I felt forced into accepting those pronouns as universally applicable and representative of me.  I have learned that maleness (much like Whiteness, and straightness) are the standard, the supposedly neutral and therefore the "normal" and that femaleness is the deviation from that norm.  In my Psychology of Gender class when I was an undergrad, I shared that observation with the class and a male classmate became very angry about it and argued with me that the use of male pronouns is not othering toward women.  Having never experienced having to apply female pronouns to himself, having never experienced being the 'second sex,' and having grown up in a society where males are the primary form of humanness and this is assumed to be the natural state of things, he had no ability to relate to my experience.  I see it everywhere, though.  

As a young woman, I felt like I was pigeon-holed into one set life path that I would have very little say in creating.  I don't intend to convey that my experiences are universal for all LDS (Mormon) girls, but growing up within the LDS church was a huge factor in narrowing my vision of acceptable life paths for me.  I was socialized to believe it would be a really bad thing if I were to work outside the home, because a woman's place is as a stay-at-home mother.  I prepared myself for a career ONLY 'in case' the absolute worst thing should happen: that I would not get married and have children, or that my family would need my income to supplement my husband's.  It wasn't because I felt free to explore and develop passions.  It wasn't because I felt my intellect was valued.  It was only a back-up plan.  I chose teaching as my career path because it was a job that could work around children's schedules, and that I could easily pick up and follow my husband wherever he needed to go for his work.  I knew that my career would never be primary, or even something that my husband or I would be happy about me having.  But, I didn't like majoring in English and education when I went to school, and I was very grateful when I went away to college and met intelligent, well-rounded, educated women in careers.  I began to expand my horizons, much to the dismay of my grandmother who said that "no man would ever want me" now because I'd be too intimidating.  I can't help but wonder if she thinks she was right, since I am (*gasp!*) 29 years old and still unmarried.  

Doesn't matter. I may be intimidating to a man who is not my equal in intelligence, but so what?  I am not interested in shrinking to make myself less intimidating or more attractive to anyone.  Stepping outside those narrow expectations has opened up my life, and my heart so much. 

I am a vibrant, whole woman and I finally feel free to be who I actually am.  I forge my own path, and do not base my choices solely on how they will impact my desirability to men.  For me, that is a big part of what feminism is about.  Just being free to choose.  Free to Be. It doesn't mean I don't love men.  It just means I don't worship them.

Of course I've gone on to learn about feminism in a more academic setting, but these more personal experiences are what have driven me in that direction in the first place, so they seemed like a fitting start to this blog.

I can't wait to delve deeper this semester in Feminist Theories!

(Source for Hoover pics: http://jskala24.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/stereotypical-gender-roles-in-marriage/)