STORK OR STORKESS?

Last week one of my students asked me if I was a feminist. The whole thing came into view as I was explaining why men do have one honorary title ‘Mr’ but for women we need to choose out of three: ‘Miss’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘Ms’.

I must admit I didn’t give a straight answer, just brought back the time, many years ago, when I had conducted workshops about feminism for students in Cracow. Yep, all I had known then was from books or magazines; in books I had read about this very wide variety of movements called ‘feministic’. Now I just have to type the F word in Google’s search box and voila, here it is:

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. In addition, feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist is a "person whose beliefs and behavior are based on feminism."

Yeah, according to this simply definition I am a feminist. I am definitely and totally for equal political (voting!), economic (earning!) and social (no more double standards!) rights for women. But when I go deeper into the topic, from catholic and conservative feminism on the right wing, through black and postcolonial, lipstick and third-wave, ecofeminism, socialist on the left wing, but also riot grrrl and anarchafeminism to radical, separatists or lesbian one – I find some issues I do agree on and some I disagree about.  

Generally speaking:

Division of labour within households – I’m completely for it;

Reproductive rights – mostly for, especially education and healthcare, but absolutely against abortion;

Gender-neutral language – nice idea, possible in English but not in Polish, no way...

Patriarchal concept of masculinity – entirely against!

Pornography or prostitution – honestly I can’t believe they may be mature and valid choices of any women, can I??

All in all I reminded myself of battle for ideals. Paul P. Mealing, Australian blogger, wrote that this kind of battle is the battle for the future. So, my students, are you feminists?