It's time to make this blog serious business and tackle some serious issues. I'll probably switch back to our regularly scheduled programming, also known as "whatever random crap crosses my mind," soon, though.
I have a problem where, when I try to talk coherently and
rationally about something that I really care about, I can’t. I set out to be
logical, and it turns into a stream of consciousness thing that really only
makes sense to me. And it doesn’t usually make that much sense to me if I come
back a few weeks later.
This is a problem because when I get really passionate about
something political or human rights-ish or why you should study abroad or what
have you, I have a really hard time conveying that passion. Examples that make
sense in my head don’t translate well onto paper or into spoken word. For
instance, a real train of thought I had: I am a feminist. Also a normal person.
Well, actually I’m kind of a dork, but it’s okay! I like karate, so this is
clearly valid. Women can like karate and it’s okay! I also like baking and am still a feminist!!
Wut.
If I don’t care about something, I can write really
logically and dispassionately. I can argue both sides with total abandon, which
is really helpful in discussion-based classes. I can really get into the
motives behind why people think the way they do, indicating that I have chosen
the wrong profession. However, as soon as I try to really persuasively argue
for a side, it all goes to hell. I become fervent, passionate, and incoherent.
I can’t understand why anyone would ever believe anything else. It’s a major
failing, indicating that maybe science is for me after all.
So when I set out to make a post about feminism, I sat on it
for a while. I edited it three times. I used the example from earlier, then
took it out, then put it back in, edited, in another place. I still didn’t click
the “publish” button. Now, I’m going to try to collate the ideas from that
post, which shall remain unpublished in its current form, into something
coherent.
Outline
1. My experience with feminism.
a.
Pre-college
b. College
- present
2. Feminism is not one-size-fits-all
a.
Differences between me and some straw feminists
b. Gender
roles
3. Activism
I had zero experience with feminism until I hit college. It
seemed unnecessary to me, honestly. Growing up, I was very lucky to have lots
of positive, supportive, encouraging female role models, and my mom and dad
were both really great at letting me do my own thing most of the time and
holding me to high academic standards. I vaguely knew that women hadn’t always
had the vote or the right to work outside the home not as secretaries or the
right to wear trousers, but that seemed like it must have been a long, long
time ago. Anyway, I can wear whatever I want, to the point of ridiculousness,
so that’s sorted. Feminism is dead.
The entire science department at my high school was female.
My chemistry teacher had worked in power plants and in research at PNNL before
she taught high school and middle school science, and I still think of her as
pretty much the coolest person ever. She really inspired me to do science and
seek opportunities in that field.
Also, the entire lab group where I interned in high school was
female. My mentor was female, her boss was female, the other interns' mentors
were female. Half the post-docs in my office area were females from various
ethnic backgrounds. Who needs feminism when we’ve come so far?
Once I got to college, 5 out of 6 of the chemistry
professors were female. They had PhDs and families and reasonably-paying
careers. I lived on a hall with girls who are going on to start businesses, translate plays from French to English, and work for change in the education, judicial, and
foster systems in America. It never occurred to me that people still believe
that women should limit their dreams because we are women.
I had never personally encountered nasty sexism, either. No
one made “sandwich” jokes at me or told me I belonged in the kitchen. I had
been encouraged by male and female role models alike to reach for the stars and
pursue a career in science. I also benefited from being a woman in the form of
lower car insurance rates as a teenager and better odds of getting a job via
equal opportunity than my male friends. Feminism seemed like it was done. The
only encounters I’d had with “feminism” was with caricatures of radical,
man-hating feminists who get mad when a man holds the door for them. I didn’t
want to be like those women. I like my male friends, and I have no problem with
door-holding. Heck, I try to hold the door when I see someone walking in close
behind me. It’s called common courtesy.
Then, spring semester of freshman year, I took a class
called “Women Writers” to get my “American Diversity” credits out of the way or
whatever. Remember, my experience with feminism was with straw feminists, so I
was pretty pessimistic about the class and expected it to be pretty much a time-suck
from my three lab classes.
It was pretty easy. I breezed through the coursework, got an
A, and then went back and re-read the books I’d skimmed and analyzed at a
pretty superficial level. My favorite books were The Story of Avis and Reading
Lolita in Tehran. Avis is
fictional, but it sparked a question in my mind about how I was expected to
live as a woman in modern society, and what people give up. Reading
Lolita is a memoir by a female professor of English literature at the
University of Tehran during the overthrow of the Shah and the rise of a Muslim
government, and it opened my eyes to how women in other cultures are treated. I
began to realize how privileged I am to have choices in how I live my life.
Around this time, I also learned about the
discrepancy in pay. If learning about the plights of women
in more oppressive cultures tugged my heartstrings,
the wage gap really brought it home to me that women are
still not considered equal to men. Even though, as my grades routinely demonstrated,
I was at least as competent as the average male college student. I graduated at
the top of my class in high school, beating every male in the class in GPA
while working a part-time job. I took AP classes and did as well as or better
than the boys in those classes. College was proceeding in a similar manner; I’m
about average for the courses I take. I’m not that fantastic, but I’m not
stupid, either. I got into graduate school. It logically makes no sense to me
that I should do the same work as a man with the same qualifications
and get paid less. This is where I get really incoherent in my arguments, because I have a hard
time moving past “that’s STUPID.” as my opening point, rebuttal to all points,
and closing argument. It makes no sense to me why anyone would support that.
I now consider myself a staunch feminist, or “women’s rights
activist/supporter” if you prefer. Supporter is probably more accurate because
my only activism has taken place on facebook, really. I don’t think that should
count.
Feminism is not one-size-fits-all. Remember that shirt from
the beginning of the post? I know it was a long time ago. Anyway, I found that
on a google search, which brings up a lot of different images including men and
women and groups of kids and trolls. Much as there are a lot of differences
between people in real life, there are a lot of differences between people who
support women’s rights. That doesn’t mean that we don’t agree on big things,
like women should be treated equally under the law, just that we have some
religious and/or philosophical differences. A main platform of the feminist
movement is abortion rights. I’m not sure where I stand on that matter. Many
feminists are not particularly fond of men (man-haters); this is often because
they have been personally victimized or abused by men. I’m rather fond of the
sex as a whole, even if individual members can be exasperating and even worthy
of hate. Then again, I’ve never suffered sexual harassment or abuse or rape. I
can’t, literally cannot, bring myself to judge anyone who’s suffered horrible
abuses for hating anyone who reminds them of that abuse. This holds true for
anyone victimized by anyone, including (but not limited to) women victimized by
men and men victimized by women (oh, yes, I believe they exist). The closest I
can come is that I have a really hard time eating canned green beans because I
once opened a can that had gone rancid and it was a terrible, disgusting
experience. Note: this is not to compare rape and various abuses to rancid
green beans. Rape and abuse are much worse. I’m just saying that I’ve been
lucky so far.
This is the part about gender roles now. I’m leery of
getting in too deep here because all I have to go on is some light internet
reading and my own experience. My parents had pretty fluid roles in their
marriage, with both working from home and sharing cooking, cleaning, and other
duties based on who was less likely to fall asleep while working, who was
allergic to what, and who was doing something else at the time rather than on
who had lady parts and therefore belonged in the kitchen. My mom went back into
the workplace before my dad did, and she makes more money than him. As far as I
know, this was only tough on them when my dad got laid off, which would be
tough on anyone with two kids.
I expect that I’ll do a lot of cooking in my future, but
that’s because I love cooking. Something about making cookies is really appealing
when doing homework. In addition, I vastly prefer to cook my own food rather
than spend lots of money to eat junk food. For me, cooking is like science you
can eat. I also anticipate keeping up my habit of knitting. I really like
knitting. It’s relaxing and useful. I mostly make scarves; my neck will never
be cold. I don’t have a problem doing “traditionally feminine” things, but it
bugs me when people expect that because someone is female, she will do the
housework and housewifely things and that because someone is male, he will do
tough manly things. I think women who want to stay home and raise families
should absolutely do that. Raising kids is a full time job, and I have nothing
but respect for women who devote their lives to that. They are at least as
important as women who go out and get in the news for being awesome. I just
also think that I shouldn’t be required to do that simply because I have a
uterus.
Speaking of “traditionally gendered” things, I love science.
While science does have a long tradition of fantastic women, it also has a
longer tradition of being peopled by jerk faces. People I actively dislike
include Watson and Crick because they were jerk faces who screwed over other
scientists and stole their results. Still, I love it. I occasionally freak
myself when I think too much about how incredibly tiny atoms are (but what’s in
the space
between air and water
molecules?!) or about how I’m a system of biochemical processes happening
all the time including
right now and here I am studying biochemical
processes
while they’re happening in my
body. I am following in the footsteps of some of the coolest, most awesome
people in history (see:
Marie
Curie,
Rosalind
Franklin,
Dorothy
Crowfood Hodgkin,
Bill Nye the
Science Guy, and
company)
just by being interested in this stuff and pursuing a career in science. And
maybe, just by being me, I can help push the scientific community to stop
screwing people over.
What I’m getting at with all this is that it’s time for
people to stop marginalizing women simply because we’re not male. It’s also
time for people to stop telling women what we can and cannot do with our lives.
I should be free to stay home or go to work as I see fit; I am not a delicate
little flower who will get broken if someone doesn’t tell her what risks she's allowed to take. We are all of us capable of genius and strength.
This "all of us" I speak of includes everyone, by the way. Not
just women, not just white people, not just heterosexuals, not just English-speakers,
not just persons raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition. All. Of. Us. Humans.
This leads me to my next point, activism. My version is
currently limited to facebook and, more recently, twitter. However, I tend to
feel simultaneously inspired and guilty when I hear a feminist message (see:
Miss Representation,
a movie that has the opinions of some of my favorite actresses and politicians
and people as well as some of my least favorite, which makes none of their ideas
less valid). I’m inspired to go into political or social work, and I feel
guilty because I know full well that I won’t be going into those fields. I’d be
a terrible politician and a worse social worker. My passion lies in science,
and I remember that after the glow of righteous indignation wears off. I still
wish I was suited to politics because lord knows something needs to change
there, but I’m really not. Right now, my life is headed in a laboratory
direction, and I think I can do good from there. I might have a high school
intern who sees a woman doing science and thinks to herself, I can do that too.
Or I could have an intern who sees a woman doing science and thinks to himself,
women can do science. I might have a niece who sees her aunt living her own
life and thinks to herself, I can be whatever I want to be. I will for sure
have undergrad lab students who see a female grad student teaching and being
generally awesome, who think to themselves, women can do what they want. I
don’t think you have to go out and march in the streets or be highly visible in
the public eye to be a women’s rights activist; I think you just have to be the
best you possible and share your beliefs with anyone who asks.
Also, "eighth" is a weird word.
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