Feminism, Schmeninism

So Chris and I were in the car last night, and he asks me what I think about "freezing my eggs." Keep in mind that this what not relevant in any way to any conversation we were already having. He had recently read an article where a woman said that freezing eggs is degrading to the cause of feminism. (If I find out which article, I'll post it.) That made me think of another issue I had read about recently, which is that in Turkish state goverments and universities, it is unlawful to wear a headscarf, even if a woman prefers to do so. A new generation of women in Turkey are now fighting to have that right again as a form of free speech and expression. Ironically, some women there think that only anti-feminists would ever want to "degrade" themselves in that way. This sparked a whole coversation about feminism.

To me, the whole purpose of feminism (historically and currently) is for women to have the same inherent rights as men (and therefore, as all humans). So why do people insist on labeling feminism as a task list in which doing or not doing certain tasks allows someone to be a feminist!? Who cares?

I think that by having the right to make that choice freely is what allows all women to be feminist. If a woman chooses to stay home and raise 20 children, then she has made a choice which shows her feminism in a very traditional way. If I woman chooses to not marry or have children, and becomes a major CEO for a bigshot company, that is her choice! She expresses feminism by stretching the parameters of how other people perceive the role and capacity of women to do tasks traditionally occupied by men.

Grr...It's just another thing that frustrates me about the world. Women and other minority groups will never entirely break out of their pre-conceived shells until they stop talking about the parameters of the label itself. It people want to be seen as "not women," then they need to stop talking about why they are such "forward-thinking women" and just go into the world the way they are. We'll never be equal until we forget that labels ever existed.