talking to mom

as discussed in all men are evil... women are good and gentle and kind... which can be found just below, i hadn't ever gone to talk to my mom about the "answering for all men" and their crimes against women thing [later edit] that i have created for myself.[/edit]

[later edit]I had no idea of how to approach the discussion, so [/edit] I went to ask her if I am not "as useless as [my] father". I asked her if I was a male chauvinist. If i had "made the bar". If I was not like all those other men that i had vowed to not be like.

We talked. Maybe for an hour - I didn't get as much time to do the talk as I had wanted, but maybe it was just as well that it was time constrained.

My mother says that she cannot answer whether I made the bar. She doesn't know what I put in front of me [later edit] as the goal or "bar"[/edit].

She can say that she does not believe that I am a male chauvinist. She says that it is self-evident that i am not a man like those other men (and i named the ones i was talking about and the ladies that i listened to). Mom said that those men are for the most part not the men they used to be... mostly because they have been "beaten about the head" by their wives until they wised up.

And so it goes.

I explained much of what I have discussed with you here - not with any of the explicit sexual details, but with some reference to it because it is relevant to the overall discussion.

I discussed feminist theory and some of that - and had mom tell me that she does not call herself a feminist or pro-feminist because she thinks that lots of the angry feminist crowd are full of shit... (remember, this is someone who spent a lifetime surrounded by that crowd [and fighting with them])

We agreed that feminism as a definition of equality of opportunity was acceptable...

You know, like Smitten's definition "A feminist is someone who believes in equality of opportunity between genders socially, economically, and [something else - spiritually i think]."

I pointed out the sign on her fridge for over a decade "I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat" (Rebecca West)

She grudgingly had to agree that it was reasonable to call her a feminist.

According to mom ...I'm not a male chauvinist, I am an active and involved father, and I am aware enough of the everyday put-downs that women suffer. I have actively assisted female advancement in my life. I have defended women from gender bias and gender based abuse.

She has no issue with me on that front.




So,



i guess i made the bar