I am a Feminist, but I suspect most people—hell, most other Feminists, might be surprised by this.
I’m married (to a dude). I have a toddler who I stay home with. I only have half a college degree. I love cooking, baking, and knitting. Hell, I having a spinning wheel that I know how to use. I’m in the process of becoming a certified birth doula. None of this exactly calls to mind images of bra burning and upraised fists. I am a Feminist, even if I don’t fit into the same little box that, say Andrea Dworkin, Gloria Steinem, and Ani DiFranco do (you know, inasmuch as these women fit into boxes. i.e. Not at all).
This Feminist Box… I think it only exists because the Media and the Patriarchy built it. You know the tropes: Feminists hate men. Feminists don’t shave. Feminists don’t wear bras, make-up, or skirts. Feminists hate children. Only lesbians are Feminists. And on and on and on. You know what Feminism is?
It is the belief in the equality of all humans- genitalia is irrelivant (unless you’re trying to decide on a below-the-belt piercing. Then it’s pretty damn relevant). The desire to raise up the oppressed, and stamp out hate. And there are a lot, a lot of people in this world who hate women.
When I first considered starting this blog, I was skeptical. First, there’s the obvious problem that blogs are all over the damn place. I’ll borrow from video game reviewer and author Yahzee Croshaw and go so far as to say blogs pop up like “mushrooms in the darkened trough of shit that is the internet.” Then, there’s subject matter- feminism is pretty well covered in cyberspace and by people more qualified and “in the shit” than I.
Jezebel.
Feministy.
Greta Fucking Christina.
What have I got to contribute? “Your own perspective,” said one acquaintance. I supposed she had a point.
And then, last week, an old friend dropped dead. We hadn’t spoken in years, since shortly before I graduated from high school. His sister was Maid of Honor at my wedding.
Now, he and I had exchanged pleasantries here and there over the last few years, but only via Facebook, which doesn’t really count.
Anyway, he died at 32. For, according to the postmortem, no reason.
There was an hour of “visitation” before the memorial service, a word that I have since come to understand is a euphemism for “stand in line so you can shuffle your feet and mutter bullshit at the berieved that is meant to be comforting to at least one of you (but isn’t), and then stuff your gob with cold cuts and coffee while you wait for the service to start.” I wasn’t hungry, in all likelihood none of the food was vegan anyway, so I made myself some tea in an Earth-hating styrofoam cup and looked around for familiar faces I’d not seen in at least a decade.
The wife of one of my husband’s co-workers walked by, and we both did a double-take, surprised.
(Now, I am sure that this woman is really very nice. She’s just not my type of person. She and a handful of husband’s-coworkers’-wives make up a little clique that I refer to as the Perfect Mommy Brigade, who long ago decided to give me a wide berth when it became apparent that I couldn’t care less about scrapbooking, that I didn’t change my name when I got married, and that I would rather talk about abortion and tattoos than how to turn my daughter into a pretty pretty helpless princess.
The Perfect Mommy Brigade makes me nervous. They make me feel like a shitty mother, even though my daughter is happy, brave, strong, and curious.)
“Oh… Hi!” We smiled as our brains collectively figured out that we weren’t hallucinating.
Hi there.
“Isn’t this so sad?”
I know, right?
“And no one knows what happened?”
Not that I know of.
“That poor baby,” she says, referring to Emmett, my dead friend’s infant son. “He’s never going to know his Dad. It’s just so sad.”
Yes. I can’t imagine.
And it happened. She smiles at me again and says “So, how do you know Carol?”
For a nanosecond I don’t know who she’s talking about, then I remember. Carol. My friend’s wife, who I met for the first time in the receiving line, ten minutes before.
I don’t, I say. I went to high school with Chris.
“…Wow,” she says. “Huh.” She tells me that she and another Perfect Mommy are friends with Carol, who teaches at the daycare they send their kids to. I nod. “So, you knew Chris?” She’s giving me a curious look, like she’s wondering what I’m doing here.
Yes, in school. I was closer with his sister, but he was my friend.
Chris, my best friend’s brother.
Chris, who introduced me to Dennis Leary by giving me a dub of No Cure for Cancer.
Chris, who had an endless supply of There Once Was a Man from Nantucket limericks.
Chris, who once said, “Here, listen to this,” between classes and handed me his headphones. It was Marilyn Manson singing Fuck Frankie.
Who hung back with me when our school had to walk across town for something (a public speaker, I think) when I’d pinched my sciatic nerve and was using crutches.
Who never got mad when I gave him shit about smoking.
Chris, who at that moment has been cremated for all of 24 hours, and his nine-month-old son is squealing somewhere behind me and his mother is making a noise that might be a laugh and might be an attempt to supress a sob, and this woman says to me
So, how do you know Carol?
Maybe this assumption only happens among the Perfect Mommy Brigades of the world. This notion that once we enter puberty, the sexes don’t mingle platonically. That, as a Married Woman(tm) I am not really allowed to care, feel sad about, or maybe even acknowledge other men in my life who I have ever been close with. The only reason for married women to attend the funeral of a man is to provide support to the women who are grieving, not to greive–even a little–ourselves? Is that what’s going on, here?
Christ.
So here I am, blogosphere. Have a cookie– they’re vegan, but you’d never know.
Shouts & Murmurs 