How I Became a Feminist

Okay.  First things first.  If you believe your mother, sister, daughter, wife, female partner, or female friend should get paid the same amount of money for the same amount of work for the same job as a man, than guess what.  You're a feminist, too.

So now that we have that out of the way, let me continue.

I've been following the journeys of a number of young women I know who have come to their feminism out of a place of anger--sometimes, I think, because their experiences with the patriarchy at home, at work, and at church have left them feeling both diminished and furious.

I was lucky.  I had grandfathers, a father, brothers, uncles, and neighbors like Stan Collins and Tom Brown who assumed (and behaved like) women were their equals--and possibly their superiors.  It wasn't until I was older that I realized not every young woman has this experience growing up.

Dudes.  Give your daughters a reason to celebrate you and the rest of your sex, yo.

TRQ and the stolen cigarettes

One of the things I love best about TRQ is that she will laugh until the tears are running down her cheeks--even if (and especially when) she's laughing about herself.

Take the story we told each other yesterday at her birthday luncheon.  We remembered the day one of my brothers (WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) stole some cigarettes when he was twelve.

OK.  I love that sentence.  It's so quaint, right?  You'd think that he'd stolen cigarettes in Mayberry.

OPIE'S FRIEND:  Hey, Opie! Let's go steal us some cigarettes!

OPIE:  Yessir!  Let's just make sure my dad or Barney don't catch us.

If you wanted to steal some cigarettes by contrast today, however, you'd have to take a golf club and break the cigarette case first instead of just sneaking a pack off the shelf like you could have back in America's reckless days when nobody wore seatbelts.

Anyway.  My brother did just that and Barney Fife arrested him.  So the Coach had to leave the football field during practice to go pick up my brother at the police station where Otis the town drunk was taking a nap in a jail cell.

Needless to say, TRQ was not best pleased with my brother.  So I said to him, "Why don't you come to work with me tonight."  I was busy working at Albertson's bakery in those days, busting up whenever I had to do some "suggestive selling" over the PA system and also busy losing wedding cakes.  But those are stories for another day.

My brother was thrilled to leave the house.  But as we crawled into the car, TRQ came out and said, "Don't steal any doughnuts at your sister's work tonight, you little thief!"

So he didn't.  And to this day (thanks to TRQ) he doesn't steal doughnuts now.

Or cigarettes either.

When TRQ and I were driving around SLC this afternoon . . .

. . . I made an impromptu left turn from a right hand turn lane. I'm not proud of this but it needed to be done if I wanted to expedite our trip to Ruby Snap for a cookie haul.  Which I did.

Meanwhile, TRQ, gripping the door handle, noted, "That's something your father would have done." It wasn't meant as a compliment.

I couldn't help but marvel at the synchronicity of all this.  I just picked up a copy of Healing After Loss by Martha W Hickman to read today's meditation. Here's what she says:

In the weeks, months, and years that lie ahead, we may find qualities and actions in our lives which surprise us until we smile and think, "I wonder.  Yes.  Maybe that's a part of _______ living in me.