And the words have been spoken

Alas. Four weeks of teaching have passed smoothly: students are mostly on board with my variable nonsense and attrition rates are at zero. But then it happened.

Thursday night, I teach a delightful group of introduction to literature folk at ACC. The class is small at 17, and among them there are five high school students and at least that many more who are my age - all of which adds up to insightful and rich conversation. I know she meant nothing by this, but one such older person in the room uttered the phrase, "From a feminist perspective" and I think I might have visibly winced. I didn't have the heart to tell her that despite the intelligent thought backing her opening clause, those words in that order make me want to go postal. Those of you who've read my fiction know that I have composed entire chapters of work dedicatd to why I never want to hear those four words again after graduate school.

Not that I hate feminism out of hand, mind you, but Feminists (and I mean the capital F type) are a lot like Christians: most of them aren't bad, comprehend the often hypocritical nature of that to which they so desperately cleave, and seem otherwise quite normal; it's the crackpots and the diehards that one must categorically avoid, however. I'm sick to death of Feminists - and this category covers some women I know who are now in their late fifties and sixties - who internalize the issue to the point of hating all men. Who see any opposition to them on any level as a sincere threat to their hard-earned female "equality," by which they mean massive-insecurity-complex-manifested-as-selfish-political-power. Who see - ironically - younger women with any degree of intelligence as a threat and will stop at nothing to degrade and/or debase them. Certainly such irony is not lost on you.

Furthermore, I cannot fathom why we - and I mean the royal we - insist upon imposing the tenets of feminist thought on periods of literature which do not include such modern perspective. Is it really fair to call Chaucer a misogynist when the culture from which he arrived held women in a certain light? When he belonged to a political system where church and state are one in the same? I might actually make the same argument for Hemingway, but I don't wish to engage that battle. After all, we do not fault Mark Twain for referring to all black people as the N-word, do we? We accept that it was cultural norm for him to use this word, and even if he meant it derogatorily, there is also something of a cultural norm there too.

I know that much of my current status in the world is in large part due to the feminist movement and I do necesarily believe in equality - for ALL, not just women. However, that does not prevent me from recognizing certain principles of reality: men and women ARE different, and because of that lovely fact, it makes certain things true about the nature of relationships and home life and I'm okay with that. Chivalry should not die. Men should hold doors open for women, should offer a hand to stand up or get out of a car, offer to take a coat. I have a hard time getting angry about a man asking "are you PMS-ing?" when I'm being a bitch, because at least 98% of the time, it's true. Why is that offensive? At least where Jamison is concerned, I know that he's asking the question not to dismiss my anger, but to try to understand it.

Part of me will always have some feeling of pity for men when it comes to comprehending female behavior. It really is a large-scale mystery to most of them, and I've yet to meet a straight man who has the slightest clue what to do with a crying woman, be it friend, lover, spouse, sibling, or parent. When I ask Jamison what's wrong and he says "nothing," what he actually means is: nothing. When he asks me the same, and I reply with the same, he knows full well that it's not nothing, but has no idea what to do about this fact.

When people worry about a woman being president and that she might break down and cry when things get tough, this is an actual concern. Women cry, but not for the reason that most men think. I cry out of frustration, anger, sadness, happiness, and sometimes just because it feels good. I'm all Irish in this regard and my emotions are always at the surface of who I am at any given moment. If you anger me, I might verbally crush you or kick you out of my class, but that does not prevent me from getting choked up while reading Tennyson's Ulysses to students.

So, I am ~not~ a Feminist I suppose. I would like to think, in fact, that I am not anything that results in an -ist. I'm sure I am, but I'll always fight to avoid it.