Some food for thought

I love my partner and my children with passion. This neither defines nor detracts from my femininity or my femininism.  My femininity and feminism are a result and refelction of my thoughts and actions. 

 I feel the need to put this out there in the blogger-sphere.  I am getting really sick and tired of the expectation that as a feminist I will have a butch persona, hate men and withdraw from the care, love and support of my family.  I am sure that some feminists are butch whether this is a result of their feminism or their personal style.  The idea that ones personal style is intrinsically linked to ones feminism irritates me to the core.  Feminists are people who have to deal with normal everyday situations.  As a feminist I continue to learn about the suppression of women's rights and the political backfoot that women are placed in and need to address.  While feminism is the lens I envoke to view most issues with, I am not conciously a feminist most of the time.  I have absorbed the ideology and continue to quesiton much of it.  Feminism should not be dogma or stereotypical.  It should be dynamic and evolutionary. It should be questioned and refined.  Feminism is not static.  

The quote I placed above is a reminder to those out there who believe that their encounter with a feminist will follow some script or that the feminist they encounter will be stereotypical.  BEWARE:  we may be mothers, lovers, artisits, professionals. We may wear make-up and designer clothes or we may wear op-shop or bargain basket attire. We may be black, white, asian.  We are wealthy, poor, middleclass.  We may be beautiful or plain. We come from many cultural and religious backgrounds.  We are income earning or supported.  We can even be male or female.  The one thing we will be is vocal about equality. I am woman who loves her partner and children.  This does not define my femininity or my feminism.  My defininition of myself is a totality of my thoughts and actions.

Welcome

The purpose of this blog is to provide commentary on feminist issues in the context of gender equity. That is to say, my feminism is squarely founded on the idea that in a society where gender determines the roles of individuals and groups, people are denied certain privileges and rights. I want to make it clear from the outset that the privilege in society is cast toward men in some cases but also in favour of women in other cases. Through the use of this blog I will endeavour to treat both genders equally. As this is an initial posting I will leave the in depth discussion of gender equity to play out over the time I maintain this blog. My intention will be to post weekly and comment on media reports that highlight gender inequity. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that I will go off on side issues and report or comment on movies, books, music, politics as the mood takes me. However, rest assured, each blog will focus on gender equity.

What expertise do I have in the area of gender equity commentary? Not much. I am a woman which gives me a unique perspective of the issues that have an effect on myself and other women I have contact with. I am a psychology graduate so I have an insight from a social psychological perspective on the effects and affects of stereotyping. My studies also focused on the effect of perception of gender equity and feminist identity within intimate long-term relaitonships. I have also had exposure to "feminist" arguments while engaging in a major in philosophy while undertaking my psychology degree. I am engaged in a long-term intimate relationship and I am a mother. My education has been undertaken recently. This gives me a unique insight into the demands placed on men and women who tackle multiple roles. I am also a student of feminist literature and observer of individuals and of society.

So there it is. I have no formal qualification to comment on these issues but I qualify that statement by stating that these issues impact on me and by extension on my partner and my family. If the issues at hand effect me I guess they effect others. I look forward to my next posting.