Dear Kimberly,
In this letter and my next one, I’d like to comment on two topics you brought up in your Sept. 24 letter. One topic is the parent-child relationship — especially your questions about the stereotypical image of feminists as being uninterested and uninvolved in motherhood. That’s what I want to talk about today.
The other [...]
Continue reading about Being a Feminist, Being a Mom (or Not!)
Dear Letha,
When I go back and read our letters these past few weeks about parenting and gender roles, I realize again how difficult these topics are. This afternoon, I was researching well-known feminist Alice Walker and reading up on her complete estrangement from her daughter, Rebecca. When Rebecca Walker talks about how neglected she was [...]
Continue reading about Developing Wholeness in Both Men and Women
Dear Kimberly,
It was great reading your personal “observational study” of fathers and children delighting in their time together! And thank you for sharing your honest inner struggles as you’ve been noticing how these warm, happy scenes contradict the more rigid gender-based trait assignments that you’ve heard about in sermons (namely that women are emotionally equipped [...]
Continue reading about More about Gender-Based Division of Labor in the home
Dear Letha,
It is a very curious thing for me to sit back and try to look with a “beginner’s mind” at all these notions our society has about division of labor based on gender. Thank you for offering such a good overview of the historical context. It is so important to see oneself in a [...]
Continue reading about Who Can Nurture? More Thoughts on Parenting
Dear Kimberly,
In my post last week, I promised to tell more of my own story and continue where I left off on July 30 when we began the discussion of our reading Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique from our different generational vantage points. But now, in view of the struggles you voiced in your last [...]
Letha,
I know this is a new direction from our letters this past week, but I need to talk to you about the election! Specifically, about sexism. My good friend Stacy came storming into my kitchen last night ready to explode after listening to CNN all day, and hearing the comments about whether a woman can [...]
Dear Kimberly,
It’s hard to know where to begin in responding to your last letter — and especially the link to the video in which the pastor labeled sensitive, gentle, kind, caring, men as “chickified.”
What is it about these male supremacist guys and their preoccupation with chickens? When I lived in Indiana, I was listening to [...]