The Feminist Controvesy

Our local newspaper has been stirring things up in its readers' opinion section. I love small town newspapers. People get all fired up and step on each other's toes with their opinions. With the Mormon Factor at play in this region of the country, the role of women is bound to be controversial.

I certainly don't believe that deciding to stay home instead of working precludes one from wearing the feminist mantle. Feminism has evolved way beyond the old defining question of whether or not to enter the work force. I contend that a true feminist can, and in many cases does, stay home with her kids.

Thanks to the hard work of the founders of the movement, these days, a feminist lifestyle is a multi-faceted endeavor. An obvious way to fight the entrenched patriarchal system is from within. By raising my sons in a family system that has a strong matriarchal figure, I am nurturing their formative conceptions on the role of a strong woman.

I see the Battle of Equality as having two fronts: the professional front and the home front. Not all women have the desire to "do battle" in the work force and have the luxury to choose not to. Does this mean they abdicate their feminist duties? I think not.

It is not by chance that the feminist concept gained rapid ground among educated, college campus women. These are NOT the women who tend to be running our nation's daycares. And these ARE the daycares that are raising our nation's future men and feminist women. By putting our kids in these daycares we miss an important opportunity to mold them.

My stay-at-home lifestyle has allowed me to take my sons to peace rallies and political events, travel with them to third world countries, bike 6 miles round trip to school daily, teach them to grow their own food in a garden, play soccer and climb trees with them after school. These are things we surely would not have time for if both my husband and I worked.

Since current studies seem to show that both a working and stay-home woman's role in the family is essentially the same as it was before the Feminist Movement, in that she still does a majority of the housework and child rearing, I suggest that perhaps the woman's role in family life warrents closer scrutiny and is also a meritable indicator of feminism.