My Particular Brand of Feminism

I'm a whole series of contradictions. I shoot guns, but I don't hunt. We're building a log home, but I'd decorate it in chintz if it wouldn't make my husband gag. I'm a feminist, but I love such "womanly arts" as cooking and knitting.

I learned the basics of needlework from my mother and grandmother while trying to keep from scratching my chicken pox, or around sips of hot tea to soothe the symptoms of strep throat. I made miniature horse blankets for my favorite Pretty Ponies and worked up my own stuffed animals and puppets. I made a few aborted attempts at creating afghans, but I never seemed to get around to making anything a human being could wear.

Then, when I hit high school, I wasn't home sick quite as often and had little time for crafty types of things anymore. I was busy with school work, debate team, the school newspaper, and so on. Eventually it came time to choose the courses I would take to fulfill my "practical arts" graduation requirement. My mother wanted me to take home economics -- particularly sewing and cooking. But I had other plans. I was going to be a Career Girl. So I signed up for typing and printing technology.

You see, I grew up in the '70s and '80s with my parents telling me I could be anything I wanted to be as long as I worked hard enough. Women were busy tearing down the glass ceilings of America, and I was determined that I was going to be part of it. What did I need with sewing, other than to know how to reattach a button here and there? That's what tailors were for. And I already knew how to cook. How hard was it to follow a recipe?

I still believe I made the right decisions in taking typing and printing tech. Now that I work in publishing, I use what I learned in those classes each and every day. But I've also had to go back and learn on my own what my mother wanted me to learn in high school. While planning my wedding, I picked up the knitting needles again in an attempt to keep myself calm -- except that I made so many "new knitter" mistakes that my new hobby wasn't always as relaxing as I'd hoped it would be. And cooking? Well, it's one thing to follow a recipe to survive. It's quite another to devise healthy meals that still appeal to a husband's picky palette while not breaking the bank.

I guess my point is that my view of feminism has changed a lot since I was a teenager. I used to think that feminism was all about fitting myself into a man's world and negating all the old expectations people used to have of women. Now I know that feminism simply eradicates stereotypes altogether, and allows people of both genders, of every race and creed, to do what they want to do without judgment.

So the next time I go to the shooting range, I think I'll bring my knitting bag with me.