Rick Santorum & Radical Feminism. . .

. . . are without a doubt mutually exclusive.

Of course, I don't know what Rick defines as radical feminism. 

 

Women who dare to think that they are an entire, whole human being?

Women who dare to think that they should have access to the same education, scholarships, participation, promotions, positions, compensation as a phallus bearer?

Women who dare to think that they can have a career & children & be as full a participant as their male counterparts?

Women who dare to insist on a justice system that will protect them & their children from brutal, senseless violence at the hands of anyone of any gender?

Women who grow weary of a boss who directs them to "dress to the nines" for a meeting, & want to scream:  I can give this presentation without dressing to a phallus bearer's taste?

Women who dare to claim responsibility & control of their bodies & their reproductive systems?

Women who just stand up & say:  I don't fucking think so, boys?

I grew up in a household where no one ever told me I had to do something because I was a girl.  Where no one ever told me I could not do something because I was a girl. 

I thought I could be a princess & a mother & a lawyer & a writer & president of the United States.

So I went through elementary school without a doubt that I could be a lawyer or a writer or an accountant or President of the United States & still be utterly female. 

I might have even been able to pull off princess or dancer or singer.  At least in my dreams.

Imagine my dismay, in college, when a friend advised me:  More boys would ask you out if you just did not appear so smart.

Imagine my dismay, when the man I married decided to discipline me.  Because, he said, my father had not done his job.

Imagine my dismay, when a supervisor locked me in a room & told me he was in control. 

And when I went to the men in charge to complain of sexual harassment (a new term at the time, without any laws to back it up), I was told it was just a misunderstanding.  A joke.

Misunderstanding, my ass.  I told them.  This man asked me to work late, locked me in a room, came at me & touched me & told me he was in control.  

My dismay at that time had nothing to do with feminism, radical or otherwise.  

My dismay had to do with my parents, with their kindness & love & belief in me.  With the disparity of what they taught me & what I found in the world.

Imagine my awakening, years after, when I returned to college as a single mother of two sons & chose a course called Women Writers.   

In that course, I learned a different way of reading, I learned about feminist literary theory, about Luce Irigaray's rewriting of Jacques Lacan's rewriting of Freud's rewriting of the Cartesian Ego. 

I began to question the whole, I think, therefore I am.

I began to believe that I am, because I question.  I am, and I am able to think. 

Radical feminism?

No.   

During that course, no one questioned a woman taking on the traditional role of a stay at home mother.  No one questioned the role of a working mother. 

Mothers, thinking & caring & gifted mothers, are to be found at home & in the workplace.

In all sorts of places.

As I said, we talked about a different way of reading, about looking in spaces & words left out or gaps – about how women write differently than men.  How women write about women  differently than  men write about women.  As if men get it.

Radical feminism?

Rick Santorum claims that his wife wrote the now much quoted passage in his book.  Blaming radical feminists for making her feel inferior,

Mrs. Santorum made a choice.  She stayed & home & home schooled her children (for which, I have read, her husband billed the state).  

No one coerced her, no one forbid her that choice.   

And I suspect, no one disparaged her for that choice.  Certainly no one in Rick Santorum's world. 

And no one in my world.

All I am saying, Rick, is give women the same choices over their bodies that you gave your wife over your children & their education.  

Give women the voice & respect you claim your wife did not have (she did publish a book).

Because of all those radical feminists.

Choice.

Not radical.

Not feminist.

Choice.