Just Maybe

I always hear “Just Maybe” in Cookie Rankin’s voice.

Anyway. I wrote a while ago about how I don’t call myself a feminist anymore. I say that not being completely confident I ever did call myself a feminist in the first place. However it certainly was part of the environment I came of age in. So the beliefs and assumptions are all there in my awareness, able to be acknowledged and interrogated.

Sometimes I read something that does so in a usefully provocative way. After some years of reading mostly male writers, I seem to be finding interesting female writers as well.  Mary Harrington is probably the one I read the most lately, as well as Caroline Ross, Freya India and Ruth Gaskovski. But there are others too, and this piece by Emily Hancock was enjoyable and thought provoking today.

Femina Machina

I try not to over-focus on whether I’m a This or a That, or whether I’ve found a Way of Thinking that Explains Everything. I find such stances annoying, as in they annoy me in other people and sooner or later they annoy me even more in myself. But, I always have one ear open (two as often as I can spare them) for anything that will help me explain certain thorny matters to my daughters.

Mary Harrington calls herself a “reactionary feminist” and I’m not sure what if anything Emily Hancock calls herself. Anyway I’m not seeking another label. But if there is a kind of feminist who explores how to be a fully embodied being, how to find self-awareness elsewhere than consumerism, who can be ruthlessly honest, well maybe I could be that kind of feminist. Just maybe.

Edit: I have to add this quote from another of Emily’s essays:

“I don’t want to be a foremother who passes down a legacy of avoidance and disembodiment, I want to be a foremother whose legacy is one of facing hard things head-on, roaring reclamation, and tenderness for our innate female qualities and experiences.” 

—An Ungovernable Pain

Embodied

“  To consider the body as a tool of the mind, one that ought to reflect what the mind insists upon, is an unrecognizable view of human nature and is—in practice—impossible. Our bodies will never perform in precisely the manner our minds desire.”

Elizabeth Regnerous

Mental crossroads

I don’t remember what I was dreaming about early Sunday morning, but I woke up and decided I won’t call myself a feminist anymore. I don’t fully understand why I had this thought at this particular time, so this is a very roughed in post with ideas I need to think about and explore further. But I wanted to capture this moment, because this is actually how I build consciousness.

It’s not as if I have been advertising myself as a feminist, not lately anyway, and quite possibly never. I have rarely if ever actually said out loud to anyone or in writing “I’m a feminist!” (The only example I can recall right now was an email discussion with my brothers.)  But certainly I would claim to live by some feminist ideas or ideals at the least. I believe men and women are equal (but different too, so not necessarily equal on all objective measures). I believe in flexible gender roles, and certainly practice these in my marriage. I believe in independence. I believe women have their own “hero story” though it’s not identical to men’s either. And so on.

Most people who know me and care about such things probably assumed I am a feminist, and they wouldn’t have been wrong to do so. I thought of myself as a feminist too, but neutrally. I was feminist in the same way I am Canadian. I was born in Canada; I grew up with Canadian influences; there are things I like and appreciate about being Canadian. Likewise I grew up with feminist ideas and influences and some of them are positive as far as I can tell.  But I don’t think Canadians are superior, or that everybody should be a Canadian, or that people should admire me for being Canadian, or that Canadians should be above criticism. And I don’t believe any of those things about feminism or feminists either. I am 100% open to people saying feminists are full of shit and do not find that in any way offensive.

Where I’m most different from other self declared feminists is that I’m not oppositional. I don’t think that every problem in the world is caused by a person or group with malicious intentions. I’m not interested in “smashing the patriarchy,” probably because it’s never been very clear to me what “the patriarchy” is, exactly. In casual discourse, it seems to be a convenient stand in for “whatever is bothering the self-declared feminist at the moment.” Sometimes this is a serious issue and sometimes it’s something silly and trivial, and nobody seems to care either way, because, you know, it’s all The Patriarchy, and score points where you can.  Fuzzy terms and concepts are not helpful to me so this is one I can live without.

One reason that I find talk about “the patriarchy” suspect probably has to do with the fact I grew up in a pretty traditional nuclear family. My parents stuck to traditional gender roles far more than I do, especially during my childhood. My mom quit her job when she was married (even before having kids) and didn’t go back to work till I was a teenager. My parents never referred to themselves as feminists, at least not till much much later in life, when they might have in a cheeky way. However, there was NO devaluing of women in my childhood family. Mistakes and misunderstanding, sure, but not systematic disrespect. 

My dad would never allow anyone to refer to my mom as lesser. I was different from my brothers, with different interests and tastes, but there was never an implication that I should accomplish less with my life. Although my mom made the biggest career sacrifice, my dad made them too, and was open and unashamed of it. And when my mom did re-enter the workforce, my dad was very supportive, happily attempting to take on cooking and household tasks (not entirely successfully, but he tried.) The point is, my parents were family-focused. They respected each other and their children on that basis. It wasn’t about being a feminist, or a tyrant, or a selfish asshole. Although I don’t agree with all their values and I don’t want to replicate their life, there is no doubt it was built on something substantial. 

For as long as I can remember considering myself a feminist, I’ve been a “non-conforming feminist.” This means that I take from the body of thinking what makes sense to me, I test it in my life as I see fit, and I note the benefits and the limitations. I have always been happy to fail any real or subjective “are you a real feminist” test because, to hell with that.

So what’s changed now? I guess I want to become or grow into something that is beyond feminism or anything in its orbit. I feel no more personal attachment to the label. I don’t mind talking with feminists or having discussions about things people consider feminist but it’s not a map for where I want to go next.

Mary Harrington: reactionary feminism

This was a very interesting podcast, although a more abstract line of thought than I usually listen to.

Mary Harrington on Rebel Wisdom: reactionary feminism

I related to Mary and Raven’s discussion of creating “friction” within the information system that constantly motivates you to share, share, share yourself with networks. This same information system  analyzes your desires, repackages them, and then sells them back to you. I like the term “friction:” I have used the term “slowing down” with regards to being more mindful about life online, but friction describes what precedes the slowing down. Friction is questioning, stopping of automatic reactions and processes, thinking slow and imperfect thoughts that can nevertheless at least begin to be individual.

I definitely agree with Mary about keeping smartphones away from my daughters as long as possible (as I type this on my phone) but also about how you have to let go a little bit as a parent and trust yourself to model good relationships and thinking.

Mary also talks about a backlash coming against liberal feminism, from a variety of directions. I do not know how to analyze this, as I’m very pragmatic. I focus on what works for me and my family and I suppose I’m lucky enough to have been able to find a way to think about that throughout my life, even when I was young and naive. I would say as a young woman I was very ignorant but had good instincts. I paid more attention to my own experiences and sensations versus what people or media were telling me I should think and feel. Once I became aware of the difference between the two it was impossible to ignore that the differences were there. Is that reactionary, or did it take me in a reactionary direction? Perhaps.

I know that I turned against things like porn and promiscuity very young. The culture around me was saying I should act on every fantasy I had (or that others had) and this never seemed like a great idea to me. I did not want to have sex with a lot of silly or damaged men (or even a few, or one). I am sure that everyone in my friend group questioned their sexual orientation at one point or other, including me. But on second thought it didn’t seem like a great idea to spend a lot of time pursuing same sex relationships, when such things weren’t really compatible with what I wanted from life. It is inevitable that as a flawed human you will make mistakes and do stupid things. That is not at all the same as doing stupid things on purpose, or telling yourself there is nothing better out there to do in the world.

Anyway, I would like to continue to learn about Mary’s ideas though I will have to do so when I’m awake and fairly aware.