I am feeling a little feminist today. A debate I heard on the radio about freedom of speech vs corporate owned cyberspace sent me on a mental tangent down the path of how women are treated, how they expect to be treated, and what is ok so far as small abuses that must be endured because we wear our nasty bits on the inside.
I want to be a feminist without the anger and contempt for the masculine and feminine.
My daughter is sort of the catalyst for the way I think about these things now. How a handful of words uttered in her presence can make me cringe.
It makes me a little upset to hear the older brother telling her what she can and can't do when they play
because she's a girl. He learned it from somewhere. Since I spend every freaking minute of the day with them, I suppose a fat lot of that learning lands in my lap.
Today is a day of change. I need to start setting the rules of what is acceptable and what is not. The sense of boundaries has to start with me. If she wants to play with Legos or the boy animals or pretend she's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, then by golly, she should be able to.
Husband and I have started cutting things out of the way we talk to the kids. "You [verb] like a girl." doesn't belong here anymore. Being a girl should never be an insult. Likewise, we want her to feel proud of the good things we notice in her. Little girls are more than just pretty or bossy. They are inventive, imaginative, rambunctious, silly, compassionate, intelligent, and a whole host of others.
If the older brother and younger brother see this, then hopefully the respect for womanhood will rub off on them. None of them should hear a joke about "What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?" None should have to feign a smile or set someone straight for being a horse's ass.
I cry over Hallmark commercials and PSAs for sunscreen. I am a hormonal lunatic 1/4 of every month. I am strong in a way that torture tactics of sleep deprivation have only begun to break me
after enduring it at the hands of my children for years.
I won't list out my feminine saving graces, as most of you know me, I won't try to pull a fast one over on you like that. But I think I am in possession of a few characteristics that are uniquely associated with the feminine balance in the universe, and I am not weaker for them.
I am a woman.
I am mighty.
