Dear Kimberly,
I apologize for taking so long to respond to your November 22 letter; but as you know, I had some health issues come up and then was swamped with the editing and layout for the latest issue of Christian Feminism Today, which has just come off the press.
I want to pick up right where [...]
Letha,
I really appreciated what you touched on in your last letter, especially your explanation of the typology Yates uses to understand second-wave feminism. The “women over against men” category—which describes the more extremist segment of the movement—struck a chord with me. As you know, the perception that feminism is about angry women wanting to dominate men [...]
Dear Kimberly,
I appreciated your honest sharing in your last letter. Your struggles during your teenage and college years are struggles that many of us have experienced. But I wonder how many other bright young women have not chosen the path you followed and instead have abandoned their faith rather than give up their feminism. They [...]
Continue reading about Some Thoughts on Fundamentalism and Feminism
Hi Letha,
Thank you for such a rich letter filled with both fascinating insight and personal stories of your growing up. I appreciated your words on current events (the complexities of gender in the election) and I also thoroughly enjoyed the pictures you shared with us from your childhood and teenage years. Your photos give me [...]
Dear Kimberly,
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my October 11 letter about how gender roles become straitjackets. I’m glad you watched the trailers of the films I mentioned. And I was delighted to hear that you are also familiar with the Dar Williams song, “When I Was a Boy” and even used it as a [...]
Continue reading about Why Should Difference Make Any Difference?
Hi Letha,
I know this is sort of unusual for our exchange of letters, but I realized that I wanted to let you and our readers know about a “day of remembering” happening the weekend before the election throughout cities in America. A few friends and I up here in Seattle have been planning and promoting [...]
Continue reading about P.S. Women, Politics, and a Day of Remembering
Hi Letha,
I just finished watching the trailers of the movies you mentioned in your last letter, and I look forward to watching the actual films. Just the short excerpts were haunting. The image of that little girl on the baseball field, and the ensuing scenes with her distraught mom, speak perhaps more than any explanation [...]
Continue reading about Remembering, Grieving, and the Pursuit of Wholeness
Dear Kimberly,
I’ve been concerned that some of our recent conversations might strike our readers as irrelevant during this current economic crisis. It’s one thing for us to talk theoretically about whether or not women should make a career of caring for the home and children while men earn income in the workforce; it’s quite another [...]
Continue reading about When Gender Roles Become Straitjackets
Dear Letha,
Two things strike me after listening to the NPR segment you mentioned between Alice and Nina Rossi, as well as the humorous song you referenced (“Daughters of Feminists”), and the grievous story of Rebecca and Alice Walker’s estrangement.
The first is that the process of differentiating from one’s mother is complicated for anyone, as you [...]
Continue reading about More on Mothers…But Where are the Dads?
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!)