As Jessica’s tale of Fining Feminism unfolded in our first guest post, echoes of familiarity clamored in my mind. I have heard this story before. Not from Jessica, but her story is so familiar I feel like it is a part of me, apart of my history. It took a couple of weeks of mulling before I realized that I have indeed heard this story before. I’ve read it hundreds of times in different books and blog articles and heard the tale spoke aloud by various feminists friends. I had even lived it, perhaps not the precise version she told, but one so similar it was uncanny. And it made me realize–the new generation of feminists shares a collective history.

There is an entire generation of women and men who were raised under the notion that feminism is a nasty, vile term. This being so, the new generation of would-be feminists existed for many years in the world of the unlabeled, floating in an abstract space of pro-women, anti-patriarchy sentiment.  In this collective history each unlabeled feminist experiences a similar situation that revolutionizes their feminist life. In a women’s studies class or in discussion with a mentor or some sort of learning environment, a definition of feminism is produced that triggers an epiphany in the unlabeled feminist–’I am feminist.’   The derogatory haze that surrounded the term in our minds is suddenly whipped away and we can see clearly for the first time in our lives–the definition of the word feminist. There is nothing derogatory about it. Our mothers were feminists. There are women and men around us that we respect and admire that classify themselves as feminists.
Read the rest of this entry »

Feminist Lab is happy to present our first guest post by blogger Jessica Broughton. Jessica is a writer and editor and runs GrrlWriter.com.

I have always been a staunch supporter of women’s rights, but somewhere, somehow the idea nestled into my brain that being a feminist was a bad thing.  During my freshman year of college an English professor redefined feminism in such a way that I was able to reclaim and reaffirm myself as a feminist.  Her simple question: “Do you support women’s rights?” defined everyone in the room as a feminist.  Being a feminist means you support the rights of a woman to live and be how she chooses.  I liked that idea – I am a woman, I support my rights to be and live how I choose – and from then on I counted myself amongst the feminist number in the best sense of the word.  I never thought that being a feminist meant that I was better than a man or somehow superior – but that I knew I wanted to be seen as an equal in all areas of my life and it became a guiding principle of who I am.

I would be remiss if I told the tale of my own experience without telling the story of my mother.  My mother grew up in the sixties, attended Woodstock (ssh – my grandparents still don’t know she was there!), burned her bra and protested with other women and men against segregation, racism and sexism.  It wasn’t until I was a teenager and specifically had to interview her about the sixties that I began to understand her reasons for not wanting to talk about that time in her life. I will never forget the sadness on her face when she said that “I don’t like to talk about that time because we thought we could change the world – that by protesting, by doing something, that we could honestly change the world.  And we didn’t.”
Read the rest of this entry »

"Sacrifice" by Sean O' Dwyer

My mother-in-law once told me that my nieces and nephews (her grandchildren) are more important than their parents as well as my husband and I and when (if) we have children, our children too will be more important than us.  I was so astounded by her comment that for a moment I thought she must be kidding, but she readily assured me that this is no joking matter. Now my mother-in-law is a very kind and loving woman and I am very thankful for her, but I can’t quite understand how she comes to this conclusion.
Read the rest of this entry »