One “click” was seeing how they were shunted aside during the social revolution of the 60′s and 70′s–the very people who wanted a new social order were treating them as secretaries or sexataries.

The final click was reading Eve’s Seed: Biology, the sexes and the course of history by Robert McElvaine. The whole patriarchal picture unravelled before my eyes, and I decided to write my own book about women, which I did. Now I’m a full-fledged feminist.

As a teenager my mom got into a born-again Christian mood and made us go to Sunday school for a few months, where we got “sex education” about how “girls need to save their virginity for their husbands, and boys need to respect that virginity for the sake of girls’ future husbands.”

Around that time somebody from church had given my mom a book called “The Fulfilled Family.” Out of curiousity I read through it and remember Chapter One best of all: “The Submissive Wife.” It said that a family’s chances of fulfillment and hapiness are bound and determined by the wife’s willingness to submit to her husband’s leadership. This was in the early 90s.

I went to the library and checked out a bunch of books on feminism, with no guidance whatsoever. One of the books that caught my eye, because of the title, was Simone De Beauvior’s (sorry if I misspelled her name) “The Second Sex.” I re-read it in my early 20s and understood it better then (after college). I should find a copy and see how it digests now.

and i wanted to be Miz Littleton when i grew up.

But, for what it’s worth, I became pro-choice in a “click moment”. I think I was about 14, and someone asked me (either in conversation or through the written word) who I was (as someone who can’t become pregnant) to make that kind of a decision for someone who can become pregnant. I became firmly pro-choice in that moment. I’ve had other click moments about different aspects of solid feminist consciousness, but that was the clearest and starkest.

Everyone does it and it does more harm than good to try to ignore it, deny it, or put other people down for it.

The reason we all say/do sexist (and racist, ableist, etc.) things is because it is happening automatically and oftentimes without our knowledge or control. As I learned in my recent psych/women’s studies class, you have to actively make yourself realize what you’ve just done and why it’s wrong, and then try to fix it. With practice, the reaction time hopefully decreases and your awareness hopefully increases.

It’s hard (and takes a long time), but it’s possible.

P.S. Thanks for the link! You’re the bomb!

The sheer outrage, denial that women were oppressed, and misogyny that we experienced at every step from our male comrades made me see how much misogyny and oppression of women there was in the world, and I realised I was a feminist.

They were telling me about the Melkeznik priesthood, and what it meant. And I told the missionary that I wanted that. “nodding” to him. He looked at me like I grew a second head and said Oh, no only boys get that when they turn 16 or so. And even then they have to go on a mission for god.(Basically some kind of rite of passage where the “priesthood” is bestowed on worthy males to have a direct communication to God. but Females were unpure and not allowed this basic rite)

I said, oh no, I talk to God all the time he is with me where ever I go, Why would he leave me suddenly if I got Baptized? Course the elder whom was teaching the young missionary to bring more into the fold laughed. and said “She has you there.”

Interesting that I remember that, because it made me SO MAD that I was female. It made me want to scream and rant and rave and wonder why I had been given this particular body only to have God’s voice taken away. ((Thoroughly brainwashed))

I was a feminist from that day and while I have taken my fair share of beatings, and scathing talk I have never backed down from someone telling me I couldn’t because of my gender. I also heard later that the Elder had left the church too.

I am no longer a member of the church and I refuse to acknowledge organized religion has anything spiritual to do with God. Satan more like. but I digress.

I have more “click” moments with racism then I do with feminism. I have always known what hating me and others like me was, and it’s never been oki. I grew up in a very misogynist home. My mom was very independent though when it came to some things. She fought my dad on a number of battle grounds, the ones that count anyway.. She did love him and still does. But she showed me that she is very capable woman and she deserved that respect. My parents have been married for 38 yrs and I have seen the majority of them. ROCKY but with Love, and mutual respect. I wouldn’t want a marriage like theirs, however I do want to emulate their love, that is one thing they have always had.

That and my mom was and is a narcissist which gave her a very big opinion of herself, more then just a body image, but self confidence that I have never seen in anyone else. Which added more to her being seen as a feminist though she would never label her self as such. Nor do I think she actually IS a feminist, least not with her faults. There were just some things she demanded to be respected on and other things that she would rather be “told”. I was determined to have all of it. Not just parts.

I’ve always been a feminist, but only really became an out-and-proud one about a year ago. I started volunteering at a rape crisis centre and in the course of the training, unpicking the rape culture opened my eyes and turned half-formed notions into clear, political ideas. It was like the whole world shifted sideways and into focus. I see everything with feminist laser vision now, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it, even if it does get a bit overwhelmingly frustrating at times!