Feminist Friday is on hiatus this week but instead I bring you this guest post from my fellow expat and general bad-ass the Stay at Home Babe. We met for the first time this summer and I have a feeling if we lived closer we'd get up to some major hi-jinx and I'd make her cook me dinner at least once a week :)
When good old Blondie asked me to guest post, I immediately started brainstorming ideas. Our blogs aren’t completely similar: I like profanity. A lot. I also talk about my vagina in a much less anatomical way than she speaks of hers.
But there are several common grounds to our lives and therefore our writing. We’re both American transplants to the UK. We’re both suckers for our husbands’ accents. We both love blogging, motherhood, womanhood and food. In fact, the first things that popped into my mind were Oreos and feminism.
So, I thought I’d be honest about my struggle with being a modern-day feminist and a foodie at the same time. It sounds like a weird combo to be conflicted about, right?
When I was growing up, my mother worked full-time and it seemed like she was too busy to cook. As an adult, I know that she was home in plenty of time to make supper, she just didn’t. But still, I grew up thinking successful, strong, career-minded, feminist women weren’t barefoot in the kitchen.
For now, I’m a stay-at-home mom. I LOVE to cook. I love the planning, choosing of ingredients. I love the preparation and combining of flavors. I love the process of cooking and of course… I love eating. Food is a very big thing for me.
It means I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and a lot of my identity gets wrapped up in this fact that I’m a good cook and someone who enjoys feeding friends and family. It makes me sound like such a mom. It took me a very long time not to think that sounded like a complimentary-insult.
It also means that if I’m not really careful, I end up ten to fifteen pounds heavier than I feel comfortable. When I can so easily make myself really yummy food in fifteen to twenty minutes, and when I really enjoy the process, I cook stuff just because I can. Then it needs to be eaten. It’s not very feminist to be wrapped up in the vanity that makes me hate being squishy around the middle.
It’s taken me years to realize that I don’t have to burn my bra as a modern-day feminist (editors note: feminists actually never burned their bras; it was back of the backlash). My mother’s generation did that for me so that I don’t have to. I get to be in the kitchen because I want to be. I am staying home with my daughter until she starts school because I am lucky enough to be afforded the opportunity to do so. I get to do it because I want to. I could just as easily have gone back to work and found a good daycare if I’d wanted to.
I’ll be totally honest, I still struggle with the whole vanity pounds thing, but I figure that will come with time. At least I hope so. Because I know that loving myself means I should accept myself as I am, but do I have to? I just don’t know.
I just know that, luckily, most days my life has more important things for me to address. Like taking care of my kids; making sure they know they’re loved while still trying to set aside some time for myself at the end of every day.
Hopefully the conundrum of the extra ten pounds can weigh heavily on my mind well into old age when I finally have time to sit and ponder my feminist stance on vanity weight. Until then, you’ll find me in the kitchen at least once a day—barefoot, in an apron. Because that’s exactly where I want to be.
Lerner is a heavily-tattooed, hen-keeping, profanity-loving, die-hard foodie mom who has a personal blog (with moxy) at Stay At Home Babe. She spends way too much time on Twitter and is also available on Facebook or by email at babe@stayathomebabe.com
This week's theme is there is no theme. You can write and link anything as long as your post has a feminist slant.
This week I've been thinking about being a modern feminist; obviously I'm not first or second wave, but I'm really not third wave so where does that leave me? As far as I know there hasn't been any academic discussion of a fourth wave so I'll go with modern feminist, which I'm stealing from Caitlin Moran. I don't know much about her, but from an article I read in Stylist, How to Be a Modern Feminist, I like her.
I completely agree with her on Lady Gaga, fashion and bitching. Have you ever seen Gloria Steinem up close and personal? I have and she is stunning; immaculately stylish with long, manicured nails. Does that make her less of a feminist? Does that change the amazing writing she's done or devalue her activist activities? No. You can be a feminist and get manicures. Hell you can be a feminist and wear short pink dresses and heels; I personally prefer flip-flops for most occasions but I just bought a pair of amazing Steve Madden nude wedges today.
I think for me a large part of being a modern feminist is tackling the image the general public has of feminists. The de-feminization of feminists is clearly part of the backlash and tackling that is one of the much needed steps to turn the "F-word" into a title young women and girls want to claim. I think many women are hesitant to claim their feminist identity because they are worried of what people will think of them.
I went out to happy hour in DC one night in my "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" fitted t-shirt and I had some guy come up to me and say "So do you shave your armpits?" Much to my friend's dismay I rolled up my shirt and said "Yes I do, you want to see my legs, too?" I'm not sure where this "hairy-legged women's liber" stereotype has come from but if we aren't eschewing hair removal then we are butch lesbians.
Feminists can be pretty. Feminists can wear pink. We can wear dresses and hell, even ribbons in our hair if we so choose. Feminists can come in every shape, colour, size, style, age and sexuality. Do some feminists not shave their legs? Probably. Are some feminists lesbians? Yes. Note the word some. Vast generalizations do not do any movement good and the sooner we cast off these generalizations clearly put upon us to scare off women who like being feminine the better it will be.
I hate when I hear women say they aren't feminists. (So what are they then? Masochists?) Maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of them are just afraid of the label. This feminist is proud to wear the label and I'll do so while wearing a pale pink dress and fabulous wedges.
Here's how it works. Write a blog about being a feminist mom, raising a feminist child, a rant or anything that falls under the realm of the theme for the week. Come back and link your post and post the button on your blog.
That's it.
You don't even have to be a blogger to take part - just send me your post and I will publish it on my blog for you. You don't even have to include your name if you prefer.
When you've published it, come back on Friday and via a widget thing you can add a link to your post and share it with everyone. The link remains open for 4 days.
Visit others, comment if you like them or feel inspired by them. Just go out and encourage and support other feminist Moms.
The more support you give, the more you will get back! I can't wait to meet and interact with other feminist moms around the world!
