Feminist Goddess of Dooooom

As lots of you probably know, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This makes me a Mormon. I do not have horns, though, because I had them filed down in a special Mormon ceremony.

I also consider myself to be a feminist. It didn't really occur to me to think of this as a controversial thing. I thought everyone with any sense was a feminist to some degree. Even though it takes in a lot of different movements and opinions (such as ecofeminism, lesbian feminism, anarcha-feminism, and fat feminism) here is what the basic concept of feminism is:

Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes (American Heritage Dictionary)

The thought and actions of people who want to make women's (legal, political, social, etc.) rights equal to those of men (Kellerman English Dictionary)

The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men (Dictionary.com)

Belief in the need to secure rights and opportunities for women equal to those of men, or a commitment to securing these (MSN Encarta)

Exactly where is the problem, here? Are there people who don't think this is a good idea?

And yet. I dated someone who broke out in hives at the mention of the word feminism and secretly considered breaking up with me early on because what if we got married and I just suddenly one day decided to start burning bras and sharpening knives before a shrine to Lorena Bobbitt? Because to him, that's what the word meant. Then we have my Dad. This is the man who encourages me to aim high, get all the education I can, and always hold out for more money. If he found out I were being discriminated against in the workplace on the basis of being female he would go nuts. And yet if you drop the f-bomb in his hearing his left eye starts to twitch. If you suggest that he might, in fact, be a feminist, he has a heart attack and dies.

I'm thinking this is because people (especially men) are too quick to associate the word feminist with the 2nd-wave feminism of the 60s and 70s, which was all tied up in the Sexual Revolution and pretty much the end of the world as they knew it.

But there were also the 1st-wave feminists of the 1800s and early 1900s, who had the crazy idea that, gosh, maybe women should be allowed to vote and hold property and get a job other than that of governess or chamber maid or prostitute. Not a crazy idea, if you ask me.

And now we have the 3rd-wave feminists, whose main platform is that women should be able to choose and pursue the life that they want without getting crap about it--whether as a CEO or as a soccer mom (or both, if you have some magical source which supplies you with endless energy and time). I don't think that as a woman I should expect to be able to have it all and simultaneously succeed at everything I want to do--I know life doesn't work that way. So I pick and choose where I'm going to put my efforts, based on my goals, skills, interests, and opportunities. I frequently make these choices a matter of prayer. Right now it's just me, but once I have a family I will have to take their needs into account as well, while continuing to pray about what is best for me and my family. How is that scary or radical? It just means that I get to make these choices and decide what's worth my time and efforts rather than having other people tell me what I'm allowed to do or what I should be doing.

There are some LDS people who use the word feminist when what they really mean is "rabid career-driven man-hater who doesn't wear makeup and possibly eats her own young." Or they might mean a woman who is still single at the age of 30, or who has a successful career, or who doesn't have 3 children in the first 5 years of marriage. It just sounds easier to chalk it all up to an abstract idea like feminism rather than to face the sometimes uncomfortable fact that not all women's lives are going to be identical, and that it's okay. But the thing is, those are people. That is not the Church, or its leaders.

I do think feminism can be taken too far. In an illustrative example of just how broad the opinions can get, you can take a look at Feminist Mormon Housewives. A lot of those women and men have great things to say and are normal and right-thinking. Others . . . seem a bit crazy to me.

Some people don't understand how one can be LDS and a feminist, because they think that our church is inherently sexist and descriminates against women. I don't feel that way at all. I think that there are definitely members of the church who are sexist and old and misunderstand basic principles. My friend Banana was teaching a an adult Sunday School class and corrected a gentleman on a point of doctrine. He puffed up and blustered, "You can't talk to me like that! I have the priesthood!" Thing is, that man will find no justification for that kind of attitude in any scripture or in any statement made by any authority of the Church. Because there just isn't one. The priesthood is not meant to be a "man" thing. It is specifically not about placing men higher than women. It is meant to bless everyone and to help us all move forward--and it does.

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the prophet, has probably done more to encourage women in their educational, professional, and leadership pursuits than any other Church leader. And for that I say he's a feminist. I don't know how he would react to the word, because we haven't chatted about that, but he and other Church leaders have demonstrated how much trust they have in the abilities, intelligence, and aptitude of the women in this church. They don't tell women to dumb down. They tell the men to smarten up.

So. Is the basic problem just with the f-word? Is it that people can only think of militant man-hater feminism when they think of it? I can't think of any other reason for all of these otherwise right-thinking people to get all frantic and twitchy.

Would love to have your thoughts.

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