What marks a feminist?

[NOTE: I'M LEAVING THIS UP FOR NOW, BUT I'M INTENDING TO MODIFY IT SLIGHTLY - LARGELY BECAUSE I GOT SIDETRACKED AND CONVEYED SLIGHTLY THE WRONG MESSAGE. It's posted on Feministing somewhere, where someone's comment alerted me to the fact that I was, in terms of my intended message, talking bollocks.]

There are several saying out there which talk about how a true friend will support you through the hard times as well as the good, stick by you even when they disagree with you, that sort of thing. I've been drafting a couple of posts and they got me thinking about some feminist acts I've encountered recently:

• On the news last night, I saw Zahra Rahnavard, wife to the Iranian presidential candidate and reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, stating her view that women should be allowed to choose what they wear without fear of recrimination by people like the current morality police. She herself was fully covered, with not a hair visible, though many of Mousavi's supporters are less strict about their headscarves.
  
• I have a few devoutly Christian friends who would never terminate a pregnancy unless their lives were at risk, but have no qualms with other women choosing otherwise.
• Feminists all over the place decide not to remove their body hair as both a political statement and personal preference, but don't chastise other feminists when they choose to be clean-shaven.
• Stay-at-home mothers are often uncritical of the decision of other mothers to join the workforce. Don't let the Daily Mail fool you, these women aren't in the minority.
  

It's all very well to be a feminist, or to follow any political or religious movement because it happens to agree with your own personal choices. But sometimes I just feel that the true feminists among us are those who, regardless of their own beliefs and practices, are willing to trust other women to make their own decisions in life without simultaneously making judgements and demoting them as 'less good' because of their choices. Opposing all attempts to restrict our freedoms, even if you yourself may never make use of them, preferring to spread honest information to allow others to make up their minds as you did rather than force everyone to follow your own line of thought. Allowing women to make truly free decisions.
In essence, supporting every woman's right to choose - in ALL areas of her life.

What would YOU define as truly feminist?

Full post tomorrow

But for now, a memento from Monday's protest in Glasgow and a message to all the anti-choicers out there:

Why I'm a Feminist

On Saturday the Glasgow Feminist network held a public participatory reading at Borders entitled 'Why I'm a Feminist'. Instead of coming along and having an author or scholar do all the talking, people brought along books and materials that opened their eyes to the fight for gender equality.
I searched around for something by Ensler or Dworkin or Greer or... well any of the feminist authors in my bookshelves that would sum up my reasons, but no-one truly represented my reasons for being a feminist. I then forgot about it until the day, and with nothing else to read I wrote down my piece on both sides of an A4 sheet and jumped on the subway into town without editing or re-reading (looking back, I'm proud that I remembered my statistics correctly!). Here it is with added references.

I wasn't always a feminist. When I was a little girl I just assumed I would be treated fairly... or better than boys because they were smelly and I was pretty and a princess and everybody loved me, of course - but even then there were signs that I was wrong. An example of this is the nursery picture books I loved. There was mummy the housewife or the beautiful queen, and there was daddy the farmer, baker, banker, king, outdoor hero, he-who-saves-one-from-the-big-bad-wolf. The princess would love being pretty, was chastised for messiness and a temper (also known as an opinion) and always needed a prince for lifelong happiness. Lastly, the doctors were men and the nurses were women. Always.
I internalised all of this. I hated trousers and Lego because those were for my brother and told Dad that I wanted to be a nurse "because that's what girls do". He told me that was good and nursing is an honourable profession, but girls could be doctors too. I didn't believe him. (I recently discovered that, around this time, my mum finished her job as a research Biologist not only because she wanted to see her children more but also because she was being given a hard time at work since giving birth to us.)
Then I entered the real world. A world where famous chefs are men but we'd never dream of giving a boy a toy kitchen or iron or anything domestic because it's too feminising. A world where Wal-Mart pulled a line of T-shirts featuring a girl saying 'Someday a woman will be president' because it was in some way 'anti-family values' yet kept the one of a boy shoving an 'uppity' girl ("Problem solved!") despite the worldwide epidemic of domestic violence. A world where I'm told to be scared to go out after dark, even though statistically I'm 10 times more at risk of victimisation from an intimate whilst my brother's more likely to be, and has been attacked by a stranger when out. Where the woman who married Steve Wright, the Ipswich murderer, was recently asked if she thought that if only she'd had more sex with her husband, he wouldn't have seen and killed those women. Where my bodily freedom is government-controlled, whether I want to plan or end a pregnancy. Where I'm 'asking for it' if I get raped whilst drunk even though the majority of rapists are inebriated when they attack, yet that somehow excuses them. Where I'm still likely, in our modern country, to be paid less and given fewer opportunities than my male counterparts, where male violence against women causes more deaths and disabilities to 15-44 year olds than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war put together, where almost a third of the British public say violence against women is absolutely fine and half - 50%, one-in-two! - say domestic violence is a private matter that should remain behind closed doors where we can't hear or do anything about it - and where people who say they want this all changed for the better are called man-haters, crazy, or worst of all, ugly fat spinsters *cue mock distress*.

I don't have the answers to this. I believe that my position is perfectly logical and morally right, and I want people to know that when half the population of the world is poorer, less healthy and more frightened than the other, I care. I want REAL equality, new attitudes, men proud to be sensitive and women proud to be assertive; people being who they are as opposed to what they are told they should be.

And I'm going to med school this year.
Your future doctor is a feminist.

New Blog Links!

I've added a couple more feminist sites to the right there, and you'll also notice a new section - "Of Interest". This is for not-necessarily-feminist sites that are well worth a look at - and the first one, Ramblings of Today's Yoof, is written by a friend so I will be very sad if you don't visit it. It currently focusses on consumer advice for people interested in all things green and earth-friendly, as well as products that could be better for you. She's covered budget- and environmentally-friendly household cleaning products (and knows which ones do and don't work!) and even fairtrade contraceptives, so go have a look. She also writes about human rights, and this includes feminism - she's just put up a video of standard anti-feminist bullshit, which we've both flagged.

Politics

While it was no surprise to learn that Gordon Brown will be running the country for the next few years, our new Deputy Prime Minister was a little more unexpected. Harriet Harman won the race by an approximately 0.6% lead, finally pulling ahead of Alan Johnson in the final round of voting.

Ms. Harman has been described as 'Labour's in-house feminist', and in her acceptance speech said that she would work for equality of women as well as men, among many other things. However, some of her comments were a little confusing. She said that she realised the need for more women in power in order to have a truly representative and fair government, but then went on to say that, as women need more opportunities, she would be 'championing the family'. Now, does that mean she'll work for childcare, to allow more women to pursue a career? Is she somehow assuming, because or despite her own position as a professional working mother, that all women want families if they don't already have them? Why were 'women's rights' equated so flippantly with 'family rights'? They may be closely connected, but they are by no means one and the same. What, exactly, did she mean? Mwezzi doesn't know. Hopefully her intentions in this area will become clearer.
Despite these initial musings, I'm not going to dismiss her out of hand. After all, she has campaigned for more female MPs, paid parental leave and has been critical of the party's stance on women's rights - definitely a good thing to keep in mind when mulling her speech over. Her other policies, including improving youth work and apologising for the war, and her focus and willingness to go against the grain if she opposes something are all promising. The only thing left to do now? Wait and see how she performs in her new role. Good luck to her, I say.

On 'freedom' and our rights.

I lost the link to it, but I read an interesting post somewhere today on how, despite being on opposing sides, the current Christian extremists of the Bush administration and the Muslim extremists seem to be 'defending' the same values. Bush accuses the 'terrorists', whoever they are at the present moment, of attacking our freedom, while he defends it. Unfortunately, his version (and, often, theirs) seems to apply exclusively to the male [insert religion/political preference here]s of the human race. So, with the aid of Answers.com, I'd like to provide them with a more accurate definition of what 'freedom' is:

1. The condition of being free of restraints. (For example, that means not trying to keep certain people, e.g. women, in one place, e.g. the kitchen/maternity ward, if they do not want to be there.)

2. Liberty of the person (note the neutrality of that word!) from slavery, detention, or oppression. (That means treating all women and all people of different ethnic origins/religions with the same respect that you demand, and awarding them the same privileges that you would allow yourself.)

3.
1. Political independence.
2. Exemption from the arbitrary exercise of authority in the performance of a specific action; civil liberty: freedom of assembly. (Being allowed to voice our opinions without being ignored or forced to shut up because they aren't YOUR opinions)

4. Exemption from an unpleasant or onerous condition: freedom from want. (Freedom from obligatory pregnancy, or 'pre-pregnancy'; freedom from being judged by our appearances simply because we are female.)

5. The capacity to exercise choice; free will: We have the freedom to do as we please all afternoon. (We want the freedom to choose between staying at home/going to work or staying single/getting married without having that choice influenced by a loss of rights or status in choosing one over the other. Freedom to choose an abortion if so needed, without being forced to either have one or to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy that may be harmful to us.)

6. Ease or facility of movement: loose sports clothing, giving the wearer freedom. (Woot! Comfy apparel!)

7. Frankness or boldness; lack of modesty or reserve: the new freedom in movies and novels.

8.
1. The right to unrestricted use; full access: was given the freedom of their research facilities.
2. The right of enjoying all of the privileges of membership or citizenship: the freedom of the city. (Citizenship should not hinge on religious beliefs. Being accepted for/being dismissed from a job should not hinge on race or gender unless there is a VERY good reason for doing so; very few workplaces have such reasons.)

9. A right or the power to engage in certain actions without control or interference: “the seductive freedoms and excesses of the picaresque form” (John W. Aldridge). (Uh... anarchy?)

Add your own definitions!

Afghanistan's women, 5 years later.

If you feel like a bit of reading, Guardian Unlimited is running an article discussing whether the predicted emancipation of women in Afghanistan has been successful.
To summarise:
1) On the surface, things do seem to have improved, most notably in Kabul.
2) Although women have entered previously forbidden workplaces (radio stations, government etc.) they often face threats and violence for doing so.
3) Despite the hopes that education would open up for women, some of the schools opened for them were quickly shut down again.
4) Men who teach women face violence, as do female teachers.
5) Although the Taliban were removed from government, there are still thousands of sympathisers who continue to exert control ofver the lives of outspoken women.
6) Warlords, tribal leaders etc. command great control, and practices such as trading of women like goods to settle disputes are still in use.

In other words, there has been some improvement, but not a great deal of it. Yet another unfinished job from the Western Liberation Forces Against Evil And Nasty Things from our side of the world.