No, but feminists have allowed you to do so.

HelloKitty22, I completely agree with your post. That is exactly why I am proud to say I am a feminist. It has nothing to do with hating men and it is too bad that a vocal minority is making it seem like feminism = man-hating, not equality and choices. And I believe that you can be a feminist and a stay-at-home mom...after all, feminism allowed you to make the CHOICE to stay at home, rather than being FORCED to because "that's what women do."

Please excuse me for my comment. I realize that I can not lump a whole group of people together just because of a few things that bother me about SOME of them. I just recently had a discussion with a friend of mine who would consider herself a feminist and it really bothered me that she would consider my life a waste because I want to someday give up my career to be a stay at home mom.
That's it.
Continue.....

As a feminist, I think that's super lame. If you want to CHOOSE to be a stay at home mom, good for you. Feminism, to me, means that women should have the ability to do whatever they want, whether it's stay at home with the kids or be a lawyer or whatever.

AMEN.

Way to go LXAALUM, what a fire storm you started!:p

But, arent women different than Men?

Plumbing being one major item.;)

Bone structure, Muscle Structure. Notice, I did not asy anything about Gray Matter of Brain!:p

The US Military is along with The Congress is looking again of ways to keep women out of harms way. Ye right, the back units are in harms way in the current war situation.

Hell, I could cook as good as My Ex Wife, but, she did clean better than I did!:D EIEIO!

I understand what you are saying. My point is, I don't like being told I am wasting my life because I choose to do that. Do what you like, believe what you want, if we disagree, don't tell me I'm stupid or wasting my life. (you as people in general, not you specifically) To me, that is "super lame." The attitude that I'm a waste of an education.

I understand your reaction AEPiZX, but I just think your response is weird. I think the VAST majority of modern women are feminists, whether career or stay at home or somewhere in the middle. Rather than reject the feminist movement, why not embrace it? The reason feminism comes off seeming so extreme is that moderate feminist women have shrugged off the label. If you treat being a feminist as a bad thing or a sign that a woman is a hairy legged, militant, man-hater then how can we expect to attract manstream support and get things that women really need?
I think the next big fight for feminism is actually more centered on family issues. I as a feminist want to see women and even men fight for more ways to combine childrearing and careers and give families more options. Whether it is allowing women to take time off without loosing their footing in the work world, allowing mothers to go to part time or to work from home, or even just giving them breaks to breastfeed while at work, these are all things that someone like you would probably stand behind and they are also all feminist issues.
Women have many fights ahead of them. We still make less then men for the same work. We still shoulder most of the childrearing and housework duties. We are more likely to be poor. And we are still facing many challenges with the glass ceiling and with sexism at work. It really doesn't matter if you stay at home or go to work. These issues effect us all. I really don't think you should remove yourself from the whole idea of feminism just because of one closeminded friend or a few loudmouth extremists. ;)

And the reason moderate women HAVE shrugged off the label is they don't appreciate people like ADPiZXalum's friend who tell her she's NOT a feminist because she chooses to stay home with her kids. And those are the women proclaiming most loudly that they are feminists.

I don't think her response is "weird" at all. If the only women I knew personally who called themselves feminists acted in that manner and insisted they were what feminism was all about, I wouldn't want to call myself one either.

That's a function of one person's experience with a very small minority of people. My whole point was, why are women so scarred off by this small minority? Whenever there is a political, religious, or philosophical movement there are extremists, people who take it too far, but you don't see massive groups of people abandoning their religions or their political party or their principles just because of those people. I am politically on the left but when I watch kids on the news throwing rocks at the police at a WTO conference I don't go out and change my voter registration to independent. I don't abandon my political beliefs or stop calling myself a democrat because there are people out there in my party who are more extreme then me who I disagree with.
If every woman in america, freaks out because of feminist extremists and abandons the feminist agenda because they don't agree with some of the ideas or people there won't be a feminist agenda in this country and feminist issues will become the providence of a bunch of hairy legged man-haters. You're creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. It's particularly disturbing to me because there are so many things that women still need to accomplish.
If you are disturbed by feminist extremists the best thing you can do is take up the feminist banner and show that it IS something relevant and important to mainstream women. Then it will get the recognition and the power it needs to help the lives of everyday women.

Yay for this post. I agree one hundred percent. If women would rather make 70 cents to every dollar a man makes simply because they're afraid of being lumped in with militant lesbians who don't shave . . . well, I guess that shows where our priorities lie. For those of us who aren't so very scared of militant lesbians who don't shave (most of them are really good people, you guys ;)), then the best thing to do is to say, "I'm a lipstick-wearing sorority girl with a handbag collection that necessitates an entire closet of its own . . . and I'm a feminist." Orrrr "I'm a gun-toting Republican stay-at-home mom . . . and I'm a feminist."

For every one feminist who tells you that you can't be a stay-at-home mom without betraying the movement, there are 20 more that disagree. So why are we letting that one define what the movement is about?

HelloKitty - I admire many of your points here, but I think you may be a bit narrow in your understanding of where some people are coming from.

This was part of my point, as well - this understanding escapes most of us, and for good reason: it's a function of complex experiential dynamics. But it appears that this phenomenon exists.

It is most certainly my contention that the 'very small minority' you've described has a voice that is far larger than its numbers, and that this voice does much to dissuade many people (not just women; remember, this is a cause for both men and women) from the feminist ideology.

I can't address this directly, because it's in essence a false analogy, but I think you're grasping for degrees here. When combined with the above, it seems you're missing the trees for the forest (so to speak).

Anecdotal/experiential - compare this to your very first sentence.

I'm a man, and I view this as the ultimate worst-case scenario for gender equality in this nation.

I think you may be switching the cause and the effect, however, or at least misrepresenting the degree to which the average (read: uninformed and not politically-motivated) individual understands the root ideals of the modern feminist movement.

The goal should be to create a voice that can place the vocal minority firmly where it belongs - along the sidelines of a movement that needs to be far larger than the radical segments that raise the most rabble.

You're assigning blame to the wrong side here - I think that this, in essence, creates the self-fulfilling prophecy by pushing away the very kind of person you need to recruit to your cause.

This is a very valid point. and I couldn't agree more with your drive.

However, the way to influence others to take up the banner is not to insult their understanding or to marginalize their individual experiences. Allowing validation for individual experience is one of the roots of freedom and equality. You simply must understand the pernicious influence of those who abuse the label of 'feminist' to push agendas that are, at best, tangentially related to the cause, and at worst completely antithetical to the goals of equality and an egalitarian culture (which can NOT be a uniquely female culture).

It's women like these that are the reason why I refuse to call myself a feminist.

I do not like to be lumped into a group with these types of women.

There are many OTHER reasons why I do not consider myself a feminist. I OBVIOUSLY agree that women should have equal rights. But like my friend who believes I am being stupid, equal rights is just one issue. There are many other issues that organizations like NOW fight for that I find hiddeous. I will not go into detail because I have already argued many of those points on GC. I, OVERALL, do not buy into the feminist agenda. I consider myself a Republican, pretty hard core right wing conservative wacko, but you know what, Bush is really p***ing me off right now and there are things about the Republican party that i do not agree with. But, AS A WHOLE, I agree with most of the party's agendas and ideals. Therefore I consider myself a Republican. AS A WHOLE, I disagree with many of the feminist issues and therefore do not consider myself one.