Modern Feminism?

At work on Monday I was sitting and eating my lunch and reading Jessica Valenti’s The Purity Myth. It is both a very political look at the concepts of purity, virginity and sexuality as it corresponds to women in modern culture and a very depressing look at the same topics. Either way it is a very interesting book and I recommend everyone read at least chapter 8.

 As I was reading someone came into the break room and asked me what it was. I told him the title and when he replied that he hadn’t heard of it, I added that it was a ‘feminist’ book.

He asked me if I was a feminist and I told him, “of course!”

He then asked me why I thought the answer to that question was so obvious, I mean, I’m single, I work, I have an education, I have options and choices of what to do with my life…. Of course I am a feminist, what else would I be?

He then replied that he has friends who also have university degrees… etc. who would rabidly declare that they are not feminists. I didn’t know what to respond to that.

In my opinion feminism is nothing more than the deeply held conviction that men and women, despite their differences, are inherently equal. And that the differences between the sexes and genders are simply that- differences- without any judgments being made upon those differences.

How does one go about explaining things like this to other people? How do  you explain to privileged women that are benefiting from the advantages that feminists before us gave them? We can vote, we can get a loan without a husband co-signing, we can marry whomever we would like, we can get an education, we can work, we can have children, we can not, we can have kids and work at the same time…

And more importantly, how do other women not realize this?

The one reason this co-worker gave to me is “chivalry,” such as holding a door open for someone else. But, really? This is why you claim to not be a ‘feminist’? You would rather not be able to vote and instead have someone open the door for you?

I call bullshit.

Chivalry was traditionally an act that men did towards women- the act of being courteous. Am I so strange to think that chivalry need not ‘die’ with the advent of feminism. Rather we should all be acting courteously to one another- whatever our gender is.

This is the challenge- making feminism, despite its negative connotations, relevant to women everywhere and men too.