Sojourner Truth once famously asked this question, “Ain’t I a woman?” Ever since I heard of it my life has never really been the same; I believe the feminist in me woke up.
But ever so often I question what kind of a feminist am I and if I should simply embrace that I’m a woman and leave it at that. Strange enough, when I asked my mother whether she was a feminist (a few years ago) she looked at me and said, “I’m a woman if that’s what you mean”.
Mom, I hear you and that is exactly how I rationalize the whole thing; if you’re a woman you’re a feminist, simple. Nothing I have come across in my readings has told me otherwise, but the literature aside, I personally feel this way.
Sometimes just out of the blue I am home doing some chore or another and the whole feminist thing hits me. For instance, if I’m cutting up cabbage and my brother passes by I realize that if I ask him to do it he will simply say, “No”.
No, because he feels it’s a woman’s thing to do and because he was conditioned to believe that all chores comes with a stamp on them saying, “this one is for chicks” and “this one is not for chicks”. Honestly, I can’t remember my mom sitting any of us down and explaining what chores were for whom; she just assigned them.
And she assigned them in keeping with her own conditioning, but this is not beat up on mom day. I just grew up going along with the rules as they were set in the home, at times rebelling and saying when I felt discriminated against.
If I had complaints on file for how many times I felt wronged in my home growing up there would well be over three volumes compiled by now, and every time I complained the words, “is because I am a girl” somehow came up. For so many years I was the only girl among the boys and it sure felt lonely, but good lonely.
Today, I look at mom and my brothers and you know what, things are pretty much the same. It still feels like we’re in the early 90s and everybody has a special chore. However, this girl is all grown up now and most of the time when I have a ‘female-related’ chore to do I give a speech; more like a monologue about how society continues to repress women by defining our roles.
My older brother loves to tease me about how my husband is going to have a hard time listening to my theories, but I like to tell him, “He’ll be a feminist too”.
I know, some people argue that a man can never be a feminist, but after much thought and I mean, a lot, I disagree. If a man can understand that women are born into a patriarchal society which needs changing and, he can identify with our struggles for equality then he is a feminist. This is my opinion, and I’d appreciate if I’m allowed to own it.
(thescene@stabroeknews.com)
