What was your first "feminist moment"?

[catrose]

52. 1972!

Last edited Sat Jun 30, 2012, 04:19 PM - Edit history (1)

When they came up with a reason why you couldn't wear a LONG skirt! "Unprofessional," that's the ticket! Long skirts violated the dress code of my small religious college. I remember days in winter at the bus stop wearing boots and the dreadful "appropriate" length skirt/dress, bundled everywhere except that thin space between boot and hem, which was freezing. And the wind going where it liked, I don't mind telling you. The only dress code the guys had was to wear a tie, which they wore over T-shirts.
ON EDIT: Does anyone think it's strange that dresses come in 2 lengths: up to your nether regions and down to your ankles?

There were other moments. When my Catholic boyfriend said he'd let me die in childbirth rather than use contraceptives. When my brothers got cars for graduation presents while I was hitchhiking to classes in college. Studying the lives of famous women writers, musicians, and artists and seeing the struggle they had. I think I went into music and writing under the impression that those fields were open to women. Music turned out to be a sexual harasser's dream--and although you auditioned behind a screen, eventually the hiring committee had to see you, and jobs you won frequently evaporated for a woman. And as recently as the late 90s, WOMEN in writing critique groups were saying stuff like, "Your story doesn't have any strong male characters." Ever heard of anybody telling Stephen Crane, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, et many cetera, that their stories are flawed because they don't have strong female characters?

And then there's the financial stuff...my ex-husband had excellent credit for awhile because I'd made sure all the bills were paid. I had lousy credit after the divorce because I was, you know...I tried to get the house refinanced to a lower payment after he declared bankruptcy and his share of the debts from the marriage came back on me, but I didn't have good enough credit to do that. Oh, and all the times I held the same job as a man and outperformed him...for a fraction of his salary.

My aunt had the same thing happen to her; it was a bond between us. She was the only working woman I knew when I was growing up. Her mentally ill husband ran up debts and committed suicide, and she almost lost everything because no one would give her credit, though she'd had an excellent job (for a woman) for years. She finally found one banker who did, so that she was able to save her house and farm. She had a master's degree and almost finished her doctorate, but one day when she was working on her final requirements, she heard her boss walk by, talking about her to someone else. "When Agnes finishes her doctorate, I'll get a big raise." She decided she didn't need to put money in his pocket and put her pen down, never to finish the degree.

For all our horror stories, let's not forget to be grateful to the women of previous generations. They had it worse!