A Memoir: Feminism Is My Story

First used in 1841, the word feminism means "(1) the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes" or "(2) organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests," according to Merriam-Webster.

A dear friend asked me at lunch yesterday how I had become "such a feminist." Right away, I wondered once again how people could not believe in political and economic and social equality for both women and men. Later this same friend said that she has other friends who were teens in the 60s with much more moderate views on the subject.

It was then that I was reminded of one of my male students calling me a "feminazi," which means, of course, a radical feminist. His calling me that word upset me; I think that it was the "nazi" part and its association with Hitler. I've always been proud to be called a feminist, even when it was not meant as a compliment (or when its meaning was misunderstood, which it most often has been.) I do not think of myself as a radical feminist--just a plain ordinary feminist--but in a small southern town, where it seemed apparent to me that feminism had not yet arrived, if it ever would.

I also remember returning a call to a parent when my classes were studying Kate Chopin's book The Awakening. The mother of a young man in my class wanted to know why we were studying this book. "One of the themes of the book concerns the idea that men and women deserve equal treatment," I said. To which she responded, "I don't believe that men and women are equal." I was dumbfounded by her remark, and for once, left speechless. Perhaps she and I were talking about different things.

"Equal" does not mean the "same." Anyone knows that women and men are different. But from an early age, I resented males being treated better by virtue of their gender, which was happening in my family of origin and in my schooling and in my being a teacher in Cheatham County. 

Most of the time, male chauvinism in our schools was "somewhat" subtle. Early in my teaching career, all of my principals and vice-principals were males (as if only males were capable of leadership positions). My first principal was male, of course, and definitely a male chauvinist. I intuitively knew that I was treated differently (less respected) because I was a young female teacher--differently (and not in a good way) from how the young male teachers were treated. What we now call "white privilege" was then "male privilege."

(Sometimes this "less than" treatment of women appeared to me to connect to religion--especially to right-winged, fundamentlist religions that taught that women were to be subordinate to men.)   

Research shows that teachers (male and female) call on male students more often than female students and praise male students more often and just generally give them more attention. Male favoritism was obvious in our school system--for example, one of my male principals was overheard saying in reference to me when I was disciplining some students for cheating, "What she needs is a husband." And still later I overheard this same principal saying to a male teacher, "Wouldn't it be better/easier if all teachers were men." 

Perhaps I can trace the root of my becoming a feminist back to my childhood. It was the 1950s, and I had a male cousin nicknamed Butch, and he was about the same age as I. He  was definitely favored by my Grandmother Drawdy (my father's mother) and her only sibling and sister, my Great Aunt Pansy. I couldn't have put this preferential treatment that my male couisin received back then into words; it was just a feeeling of being made to feel inferior to him, as if he were better than I simply because he was a boy. (It also seemed to be common knowledge that my grandmother favored her sons.) 

Here's an except from the blog that I wrote about our Great Aunt Pansy and for which I interviewed my cousin Butch:

http://lauramallernee.blogspot.com/2015/01/memoir-my-great-aunt-pansy.html

"My cousin Butch would visit Pansy for a fun-filled week during the summers, and she would buy him spiffy back-to-school clothes from the downtown J. C. Penney's. With Aunt Pansy's attention, Butch almost felt as if  he had two loving grandmothers on his father's side of the family. Butch remembers, 'We (he and Aunt Pansie) always went to church on Sunday morning and then went to Clemson House in Clemson for a lunch of she-crab soup, roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy and real strawberry shortcake for dessert. We would joke around about how could they tell if it was a she-crab or a he-crab. We would laugh and talk; there was never a dull moment around Aunt Pansy.' Butch also recalls his family going to lots of Clemson football games with Pansy through the years."

In my memory, Aunt Pansy had never taken me or my family out to eat lunch or gone to a football game nor had she ever bought me school clothes or anything else. 

My cousin Butch had been born to my father's (Ken's) older brother CF, and as a child, I got the distinct impression that my father was somewhat jealous of CF and that part of that reason was that CF had received favorable treatment from Aunt Pansy and another part was that he had a son whereas my father did not. (My father had two daughters; I was the younger one.)

From that same blog, now I can discern that it wasn't only Butch that Pansy favored but also his father CF, my father's older brother--"Once [Grandmother Drawdy's] first born graduated high school, CF (Charles Fulton) went to live with and work for Aunt Pansy, delivering Western Union telegrams. Later she sent him to Clemson College, then procured him a summer job at Carolina Beach." 

So I can now see that it was as if I absorbed my father's envy of his older brother and transferred it to his brother's son Butch--but I can also perceive how CF's and Butch's being favored by Aunt Pansy and by Grandmother Drawdy most certainly set the stage for my becoming a feminist.  I was a little girl child, and like all children, I was trying to make sense of this world into which I had been born. It didn't seem fair or make sense to me that Butch got the lion's share of attention and affection. Simply because he was a boy.

Now this is over 60 years later that I write about this experience--that I put all of this into words--back then it was just vague, and not so vague, feelings. I have to wonder how all of this affected  Butch--he had to feel so special and so loved. I would like to go back in time and tell little Laura that she was special and oh so loved too!  

Thus the stage was set to fast forward to the 1960s and to today!