Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women is a collection of love stories. Most beautiful, some sad, they are in many ways like any love stories – except before the authors found love with women, they had lived with (and often loved) men.
In the inspired introduction, editors Candace Walsh and Laura Andre talk about what makes the women in this collection different from those in the few previous works by women who found female partners later in life. Unlike the women in From Wedded Wife to Lesbian Life: Stories of Transformation, and many of my clients at the time I read that book, women who love women are now less likely to lose their children in custody battles, lose their jobs and lose the support of their communities. But sadly some of this loss still occurs and it is in this book. Amanda V. Mead in her essay "This Love is Messy" did lose her public school teaching job in one of the many states that offers no protection from sexual orientation discrimination. A few others lost friends and family. But, more often than not, as Erin Mantz wrote in "Undoing Everything":
And then it happened: nothing. At least, not to my face. Not yet.
Falling in love with a woman at thirty-nine may have turned my life upside down, but the friends and family all around me are still standing.
There is another difference between Dear John, I Love Jane and other "coming out" stories: many of the women were truly happy in their relationships with men. While there is certainly a good bit of reflection about early attraction to women that the authors suppressed or ignored, few of the authors lived actively closeted lives. They may have taken some time to find what they wanted in their lives, but by and large, when they found it, they pursued it. And some, like Veronica Masen in "Watershed," stay with their male mates – not as sexual partners but as parenting partners making a happy family though mom is a lesbian.
This is not a collection only to be read by women who are questioning their sexuality or who have been in relationships with both men and women. These stories are about the journeys of women you know. They are about finding out who you really are in the face of culture and family telling you who you are supposed to be. They are about searching for happiness. They are about being honest with yourself and the people you love. These stories are universal. And they are well-written, filled with experiences that are familiar and positive.
"The Right Fit" by Kami Day is haunting. Raised in a strict and insular Mormon family, Day believed what she was taught about the spiritual necessity of marrying the man who was her destiny. When sex was painful and unpleasant, she and her husband ultimately went to a psychiatrist who taught them about sexuality. While this helped Day find sexual pleasure, her relationship with her husband did not improve. Year after year, child after child, Day endured years of obligatory unpleasant sex in a loveless marriage. One would think this was a very sad story, and to me it is. But in Day's extraordinary essay one sees that in her own assessment of her life, finding your great love when you are forty-four is as wonderful as life can be. She had left a long marriage and the church in which she and her family had lived for generations. But her essay resonates with joy and contentment.
In "Running From the Paper Eye,"Susan White lyrically presents scenes from her life: her mother's rift with her own lesbian sister blamed on the death of an Easter chick; White's toddler self-perception she was a boy as her mother jammed her little body into dresses; the perceptive aunt who questions her decision to marry. In introducing the demise of her marriage, she is lovely and stark:
Wes blamed our divorce on the poison oak. Sure, let the plant take the fall. A natural disaster.
Dear John, I Love Jane is fascinating, enlightening and, finally, hopeful. Not every love affair lasts but, in the end, these women are happy with their lives.
My 16 year old son just sent me this YouTube video (it's long so I am placing it at the end of the post). It is a serious plea from Lady Gaga to call your Senator and ask him or her to ask for repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. Specifically:
Working with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Lady Gaga has been bringing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and the hardship it causes, to the attention of young people a lot lately. She appeared at the Video Music Awards with a guard of servicemembers who have been discharged or resigned from the military because of DADT. One of them was a young woman who recently resigned from West Point and is interviewed here by Rachel Maddow.
I have never had to explain the injustice of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" or any other anti-gay policy to my son. I have had to explain that such bigotry exists because he couldn't understand it. Gay and lesbian people have always been a part of his life. He knows his mother is bisexual, though that didn't come up until he asked me for help when a friend of his was coming out to his parents. That conversation started with: "Mom, X is coming out to his parents this weekend and I told him he could stay here if his parents throw him out." My son makes me very very proud.
When my son was 12, a much larger kid in the neighborhood was making remarks my son found offensive. When my son called the kid homophobic, the kid threatened to hit him. There were a few lessons that came out of that incident – lessons I learned myself as a kid. First, you can get beaten up for having a larger vocabulary than bigger kids. The homophobic kid didn't know what "homophobic" meant and thought he was being called "homosexual." Second, pick your battles because sometimes you can get your ass kicked for standing up for what you believe in. My son told me it was something he was willing to get his ass kicked over – fighting homophobia is that important to him.
But should your kids be learning political activism from Lady Gaga? Well, my hope is that my kids learn lessons about political activism from a wide variety of sources, though it starts with me. If Lady Gaga were taking a political position with which my son disagreed, I would be hearing about that – though critically. My son sent me this video because he supports Lady Gaga's efforts. And so do I.
Do you talk to your kids about LGBT issues? What do you think they are learning from their friends? How do you feel about pop figures teaching your kids about politics?
Continuing the series in which I answer the questions posted at Blue Milk (sadly interrupted by my technical difficulties). Today is Part 2. You can see Part 1here.
5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?
I don't think so. I wish that my children had seen me out in the world earning more money and that "daddy goes out to work, mommy works at home" didn't seem to translate into "mommy has less power in the world." But I don't think that is me failing – I think that is the society failing me and I try to make sure my children know that.
I hope my kids see that part of being a feminist is engaging in the feminist struggle. They definitely see me struggling. The challenge often is showing my anger without letting my kids think that I am angry at them for being a force that holds me back. I often tell them that how society treats me because I am a mother holds me back and it isn't their fault- but I know there are times they blame themselves. How could they not? It may be in those moments when I can't hide my unhappiness from my children that I am failing as a feminist mother. Or maybe not. I visit this question a lot.
6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?
No. I think there are people who don't understand what I mean when I identify as a feminist mother. It is difficult that my political positions as a feminist mother are often dismissed. I am infuriated by the Bill Mahers of the world who deny that motherhood is a political identity as important as any other.
And there are people who think I can't be a feminist if I [fill in the blank]. "You can't be a feminist if you breastfeed on demand." "You can't be a feminist if you let having kids change or limit your career choices." "You can't be a feminist if you homeschool your kids." Well, I can and I am. And … well … fuck you for thinking you can decide whether I am a good enough feminist.
7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?
How are sacrifice and feminism difficult to reconcile? Sacrifice is part of life, part of living in society, part of being in human relationships. If my children thought motherhood involved sacrifice but fatherhood didn't, then I would have failed as a feminist mother.
Feminism is not just about women having more or women having as much as white men. It is about fairness and balance. It means that the oppressed have more and that the oppressors have less. There is nothing anti-feminist about sacrifice – feminism requires sacrifice. Feminism is not the right to become the oppressor – it is the elimination of oppression. Switching places with the oppressor, or replacing yourself in the social hierarchy with someone else, is not feminist.
It is anti-feminist if I am the only one sacrificing for my children. Our society needs to recognize that we all need to sacrifice for all children and redistribute obligation accordingly.
8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?
I don't know how he feels. I have always been a feminist and, as far as I know, so has he.
As for impact on him, he works harder on maintaining the household than he would (I guess) were I not a feminist. I believe maintaining the household (cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry) is not part of mothering and that he must do as much of that as I do even if I am home with the kids. If I were not a feminist, I might think I had some biological imperative to do dishes and then he wouldn't have to.
There is more but it is private.
The last two questions in Blue Milk's meme are biggies so I am saving them for a post of their own. Check back for Part 3 in which I will give my take on:
9. If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?
and
10. Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?
If you are interested in what you are reading, please comment and tell your friends about this blog. I'll try to keep my technological mishaps to a minimum and keep the posts coming.
Tooling around the world of feminist mother blogs, I came upon this post at Blue Milk asking feminist mothers to answer ten questions. I hope she will forgive my coming late to the response dance but I am a newbie playing catch-up. Some of the questions have several parts so there are actually way more than ten questions. I will give my answers to these questions in a series of blog entries. Today is Part 1.
1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence?
The belief that women are people (yeah, I stole that) and that I have a duty to protect everyone's right to be whoever they are as long as they aren't hurting anyone.
When did you become a feminist?
Birth.
Was it before or after you became a mother?
See above. I meant my birth.
2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?
How all-consuming "24/7″ really is.
3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?
Motherhood made me more acutely aware of the extent of sex discrimination against mothers. Motherhood pushed me to examine more closely, and finally reject, "equality" as a useful idea. Motherhood forced me to feel in my bones how much I had been able to "pass" as male, despite many many instances of sex discrimination in my schooling and employment.
"Equality" was, I thought, the right to be treated as if I were a white man. I didn't see that such a standard was not okay. As a student, I could envision being "equal" to a white man since I saw myself as behaving and performing like a white man. As a lawyer, I thought I could be "equal" to my male counterparts because my work was the same, if only people did not alter their behavior toward me because I was female. But there is no male pregnant person. There is no male breastfeeding person. Note I use "male" here to mean "a person who appears to be and is believed to be male" and am making no statement about what physical characteristics constitute gender.
What this made me understand, and forces me to constantly examine, is that feminism can not be about equality because there is no such thing as equality. It has to be about fairness, balance, real choices, and humanity. I don't want to be free to be "white man." I want to be free to be whoever I am.
4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?
My children know that each of them are different and that nothing about their gender alters the way I treat them. I teach (and show) my children that treating people differently based on gender is wrong. I also, in age appropriate ways, point out sexism to them.
I have to say that this has been much easier than I thought it would be. I was shocked to become the mother of sons (for some reason it never occurred to me that I would have boys). But my boys have never needed any prompting from me to reject the notion that there are boy things and girl things, boy colors and girl colors, boy clothes and girl clothes. They have always been upset when other parents have set limits based on gender. Other parents have rejected them as appropriate playmates for girl children. Other kids have teased them for liking pink. I hate pink but my boys are who they are. All I needed to do was let that happen and support them when other people got in the way.
As they get older, the issues get a bit stickier. I try and find ways to let them know that, while I love them and love being their mother, I made sacrifices I should not have had to make. I am starting to let them know this as they start to form ideas about themselves as fathers. I want them to think about choosing a career and lifestyle that will allow them to spend more time fathering than their own father does. I want them to be sure that the other parent of their children should have more choices than I did.
I don't want to indulge much in stereotypes of non-feminist mothers. I suppose they tell their children that their lives should be defined by gender. I suppose they tolerate harmful and unfair behavior in their kids. I was in a playgroup some years back in which play was divided by the kids into boy play and girl play. It was uncomfortable for me and for my boys, who sometimes wanted to play in mixed groups or with the girls. One day the boys played a "game" that consisted of throwing rocks at the girls. I and my sons were horrified. Two other mothers said, "Oh, boys will be boys. All boys hate girls." When I said that my boys didn't hate girls, they insisted it was because they had no sisters. "If your boys had sisters, they would hate girls too." And I think they are wrong. I told them so. Those were mothers who were not feminists. To my boys, girls are just other people. And my boys would never throw a rock at anyone.
In the inspired introduction, editors Candace Walsh and Laura Andre talk about what makes the women in this collection different from those in the few previous works by women who found female partners later in life. Unlike the women in From Wedded Wife to Lesbian Life: Stories of Transformation
I meant my birth.
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