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I have so many barely connectable thoughts on the current thread... might try to go there after my spring break has begun. For now, how about a quote from the "Camelot" reel to reel my mom used to play doing housework, when I was but a slip of a girl. Emily Mc and Rebecca and I were singing bits of the Lerner & Loewe song Sunday after Vespers:
"Where are the simple joys of maidenhood?
Where are all those adoring, daring boys?
Where's the knight pining so for me
He leaps to death in woe for me?
Oh, where are a maiden's simple joys?"
Is my femininity, are the value and joys of my "maidenhood" somehow defined by what a guy is willing (or not willing) to offer me?
I guess not...hold on, did I type I *guess* not? That's the heart answer. The head answer, the truth answer I've spent the last 15+ years walking into is definitely not. When I started saying, "My femininity is certainly not controlled by how others react to me," is when I started thinking of myself as a feminist. But the pull, the desire to be affirmed by others is there. We can sing jokingly about it, we can try to blow it off with hyperbole like Gloria Steinhem did with her infamous "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" quote (which by the way, I do not agree with, in case it's not already obvious) but the desire for loving affirmation is still there. (Obviously not necessarily, literally "leaping to death in woe"--a stalker of mine almost did that in '87 and it actually *sucked* and made me question my femininity even more. But that's another topic, one not likely to get blogged in detail.)
P.S. I got curious about the origins of that infamous Steinhem quote (which Bono even quotes, ironically, in one of his lyrics on the "Achtung Baby" album). Turns out Steinhem didn't actually come up with it herself; the phrase was coined by Irina Dunn, an Australian who'd been "inspired" by a phrase in one of her philosophy textbooks: "A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle". Hmmm. Consider the source?
So... femininity is defined by myself in relationship to God, but somehow relates to how I relate to others, including men... but not controlled by others. Very, very complicated.
Derek, here's MY word choice for my own situation: "complex." Or maybe I'll go with "multifaceted" because it has more positive connotations. "Complex" is not so much an emotional word, is it? ;-)
Also, Derek, if you go back to the singleness threads of last year that you alluded to, and you read Singleness Version VI, you'll see a metaphor that connects to your poem of last week. Hmmm again....(a better hmmm this time).
Now--off to my 2nd meeting of the day (sigh). I'm already tired w/much work to do, that's why I'm so easily distracted by this thread. |
