The way I see it, feminism is about equality.  Women should be able to get the jobs they want, get paid equivalently for doing those jobs, should not be forced to be the “little wife,” and should be able to feel good about themselves in whatever they pursue.  Feminism is about choice too.  It is not about “having it all” if you don’t want to.  And it by no means makes you less of a feminist or less of a woman if you don’t.

I am a housewife, a stay at home mom, a home maker, whatever you want to call it.  This was MY choice.  I have never been able to see myself as full on having a full time job and staying at it for twenty years.  I get bored too easily.  It’s one of the reasons I went into theater, actually.  When you do a show, every night is different.  Heck, every rehearsal is different.  That’s not to say that I would never work.  I have, I may in the future (both near and far), but I will because I want to, not because some “crazy feminist” thinks that I should because I’m turning my back on all my “sistah’s” who burned their bras for our freedom to have it all.

I don’t want it all.

I want to be happy in my own life.

I spend my days right now playing with Enzi, spending time with C, seeing friends, passing the time online, and helping C out at much as I can with his business: puregrowthorganics.com. You totally should check out the website.  I’ll post a little review of what we have experienced by using these products in our own garden in a few.  You can see it as slightly biased, but coming from someone who has a “black thumb,” it really isn’t.  I also cook, do some of the cleaning, go to the gym, go out by myself, watch TV, and yes, sometimes I even eat bon-bons while I do that.  None of these things make me less of a woman.

I don’t vaccuum while wearing high heels and pearls and reading War and Peace.  I don’t have dinner ready by 6pm and wait for my husband with a stiff drink and a kiss at the door.  I hardly ever wear make-up or a dress.  I am not and have never been the “little woman.”

Yet, I am not feminist enough for many people?  Well, for many women because we are the ones that all of a sudden came up with so many rules about being a modern woman and a feminist.  Supposedly I should be getting up no later than 5am to go to the gym, working a full time job, preferably as a doctor, lawyer, lobbyist, or politician, come home and still have the time and energy to take care of myself and my family including cooking dinner and keeping a spotless house, and then after spending some “quality time” with my husband (who I really don’t need in any sense of the word and is only superficially important in my life) once the kids are in bed, where I am always on top, take a little bit of “me time” with a hot bath and then go to sleep to start all over again the next morning.

No, thank you.  That’s just not my idea of a good time.

These same women would dismiss my not wanting these things with the notion that I have been conditioned by our patriarchal society and my upbringing to want to take on traditional woman’s roles.  The big problem with that theory is that these same women have no idea at all about my upbringing.  They figure that my mom was a housewife and my dad went to work, bla, bla, bla.  They have no idea that while my mom did stay home with us kids, so did my dad.  Both my parents cooked and cleaned and took care of us.  We only ate dinner together on holidays and were, for lack of a better word, roomates in our tiny condo.  My dad was the one that drove us to and from school.  He was the one who would wake up early and have breakfast ready for us so that my mom could sleep.  Both would have to go to Brazil or Greece for different amounts of time, my dad to look over the factory, and my mom for either health or family reasons.  It’s definitely not what one could discribe as a typical patriarchal upbringing.  Very little of how I grew up is even how my friends grew up.  So don’t tell me that I’ve been conditioned against whatever you are selling just because I’m not buying.  I just don’t want it.

Not only do I not want to drive myself crazy by trying to do and have it all, which my perfectionist self would end up with a nervous breakdown trying to achieve and not succeeding, I also don’t want to be bombarded by the belittling views of self-righteous crazies who try to make me feel bad for not wanting to fit into their box when the whole idea was for us to not have to fit into any box.

Why did we fight so hard to not be oppressed by men, only to be oppressed by other women?