It's a little bit late for International Women's Day, but it slipped my mind that I'd planned to replace this post then. But I guess it's always International Women's Day at Ovarit!
We've all got a Peak Trans story, but this thread is more of a 'Peak Patriarchy' - a place to share your journey into feminism.
I'm particularly interested in answers to questions like:
- What drew you towards feminism?
- What have been your experiences the feminist movement?
- How did you first encounter feminist thought? Books or blogs, youtubers or conversatisions with feminst friends?
- Has your feminism changed over your life? For instance, were you a liberal feminist who radicalised?
- What changes has becoming a feminist made to your life, your perspectives, your activism, your relationships, etc?
- What are your priorities as a feminist?
(This is not a questionnaire or a test - these are just prompts to get you thinking.)
Looking forward to reading everyone's responses!
My mom raised me to be a feminist. She's not highly educated, but she knew that if her girls didn't have a means of supporting ourselves independent of men, we'd be vulnerable to abuse. She was adamant that we all become college educated and self-supporting for this reason. That's what feminism meant to her. The ability to live free and independently.
She's had a string of abusive marriages herself, but she finally found a husband who is kind to her. I am very proud of her for making it out of an abusive marriage to my dad, where she was trapped as a SAHM with several kids and no education, to becoming an RN to support herself, to getting herself out of a really violent situation with my first stepdad.
And I definitely learned from her mistakes. I've been fortunate never to be more than verbally abused on occasion.
That said, I never studied feminism very deeply, and mainly took it as presented to me in the media. So liberal feminism to me was feminism. My understanding of second wave/rad fem was that it happened, but they lost steam because they hated men. And then disappeared. So I was told basically it's good and empowering to be a slut and perform femininity. Ended up with an ED and having very unsatisfying relationships.
Eventually I found radical feminism was still alive and not manhating like I thought. It was just realistic. I learned about it through /r/GenderCritical when someone called me a terf online and I had to look up what that meant.
My main priority as a feminist is protecting women and girls from violence, especially male violence and sex-based oppression. Aside from maintaining safe spaces for those who need them, the greatest means for this is economic assistance. So basically rewarding the hard work of mothering financially. Ensuring that women are paid the same as men for the same work. Ensuring that children's needs are met, because their needs disproportionately are met by their mothers. Taking care of kids and women go hand in hand, to me.