My Continued Evolution as a Feminist

My interest in feminist perspectives began in graduate school, when I took a Feminism & Literature course that made me feel as though a veil had been lifted from my eyes--a student of primarily canonical literature, I never realized the power that a male-dominated world held over me. At the time, the term "feminism" connoted "bra-burning-man-haters" and other ridiculous associations that were remnants of my limited exposure to what it meant to be a feminist. My mostly-male teachers, instructing with mostly-male-authored materials, narrowed my scope of what it means to have a feminist outlook on life. Obviously, if I had the desire to find out more about feminist philosophies, I could have forged ahead on my own. My ignorance prevented me from realizing how pervasive the male-dominated culture was in my life. I had spent years defining myself--my "SELF"--through a gender-biased lens.

During my graduate course, I started to evolve as a more feminist thinker, and my feminist perspective continues to this day--about eight years later. I investigated how I parented my (at the time!) young son, and worked to expose him to female authors, artists, and thinkers. Once, during his elementary school years, we were talking about mothers and fathers. At the time, I was a single mother, and I raised him without a traditional "father-figure" presence in his life. For twelve years, I filled the role of the mom and the dad. So I was surprised during our conversation when he delineated which tasks are for "the dad" and which were for the "mom."

"Moms do stuff in the house, like cook and do the laundry," he explained, "Dads are the ones who go to work and make the money to take care of the family." I was really surprised--how did he, as a second-grader--come to decide this is how the roles worked, especially when he had a mother who went to "work" and "earned" the money to care for us? I said, "But honey, I go to work and make money, and when I'm home, I cook and do laundry. See how Moms can do both things?" He shrugged his small shoulders and said, "That's just different."