Saturday, March 03, 2007

Feminism


On the day that I realized that I was a feminist, I had opened a church door for a man. I thought that I was just being polite, but he had no idea how to react. He could not, of course, walk through the door opened by a woman. Instead he stood there, looking at me, horrified. He looked at the handle, his hands itching to take it so that he would be in his rightful position, holding the door as I walked through it, but the handle was too firmly in my grasp. He looked at me, at the door, and back at me, pleading with me to solve this horrible paradox. I could not expect him to commit the sin of walking through a door held by a woman. I had effectively blocked the door by trying to open it for him. I put him out of his misery and walked through it.


This was the first time that I experienced open sexism. I cannot hold it against this man that he was religiously polite and respectful to women. However, it made me realize that my fundamentalist church is different from school. At school, I get kind of annoyed by feminists, trying to eradicate the discrimination that is not there, finding bias in the entomology of words and then refusing to use them, guilting everyone with a Y chromosome because of the sins of history and far-off countries. I never realized that sexism could actually affect me.

I started paying more attention. I had never realized that my mother, the first female doctor in my denomination, had faced anything but friendliness. I started hearing conversations and implications that she had stepped out of her place. They were rare, granted, but they were there, most of the time coming out of the mouths of other women. I actually listened during the mother's day sermon, and the minister's extravagant praise of the housewife. It reminded me of the praise given to a three-year-old's finger painting. I listened at the weddings, where they made the wife's vows include submission to her husband. I hated it. So many people at my church honestly believe that the "fairer sex" is the weaker sex.


I set out to prove them wrong. I did not have heated debates; I just provided myself as a counterexample to their over-generalized rules. I went to school and got A's. I succeeded in math and science. I argued philosophy and religion, refusing to sit back and watch. I played sports, and I scored goals. I smashed my own bugs. I searched for thrills. Nobody will call me weak. I have done everything I can to force people to put away their prejudices.

Although feminists annoy me, I am one. I am not going to "follow my destiny" as a housewife. I am not going to be defined by my breasts. Instead, I will break every stereotype that I can, and I will be free to do anything.

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