… and one of my remedies is to look long and deep into old e-mail archives. Tonight I was resurrecting an email conversation I had two years ago with a long-lost girlfriend, the oft-thought, seldom-spoke-of J, who currently lives in Indiana. After not seeing each other for well over a decade we re-connected virtually in ’99 and of course had a lot to discuss. There were some odd coincidences (for example, we had both in the interim married geologists–although mine eventually bailed).
One of the things that stood out in our exchange was a quote I had sent her, in the context of questioning the definition of “feminism.” This would have come in handy last week when I and a few others were doing battle with a self-proclaimed “patriarchist” in another online venue that shall remain nameless… The Ani DiFranco quote (from the LA Times in 1998) is, (with my emphasis added):
One of the great lies of conservatism is that feminism and femininity are somehow in opposition to each other. Feminism is simply the belief that a woman has the right to become herself, just as a man has the right to become himself. All decent people, male and female, are feminists. The only people who are not feminists are those who believe that women are inherently inferior or undeserving of the respect and opportunity afforded men. Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked ‘other.’
Although I generally run away from any sort of absolutism, this is one opinion that I accept and adopt absolutely.
The photo above, by the way, is what you would see most of the time if I had a web cam. The beast on my shoulder is the famous Spiff. That’s his favorite place to be. And yes, I look like crap, but (a) it’s a wide-angle lens so it distorts my face, and (b) I’ve been sick all weekend!