When I was attending my liberal university (lo, back in the days of yore - mid-nineties), the political science classes were frequently the places we also looked at postmodern feminist views.

Yes, we looked at them. But don’t ask me if we made a higher sense out of them. By and large they were stuffy, pretentious, white tower missives composed in such obscure and unreachable language that would’ve had Susan B. Anthony assuming it written by a furriner (in many cases it was. French postmodern feminism was at it’s apex, if I can indeed call it that). This is especially funny, since this was the heart and soul (if in fact, it had a soul) of the postmodern feminist view - that language was the barrier, and if language changed, the cause of equality would be advanced.

Anyway, I’m going to forego writing my thoughts about this idea, because I don’t like to nap and write.

After university, I lost touch with what was considered the cutting edge of feminism for a while. Life got in the way of academia. I had other things on my mind. I may have missed something in amongst all that living, but my sense was that feminism kinda fell about during the late nineties and the turn of the century. It, like many tracts of once whole land, sold in chunks. Eco-feminists, feminists of colour, liberal feminists, radical feminists. . . more and more subdivisions of the movement, until it became an exercise in species classification.

Yeah, we were divided. Which, in case anyone hasn’t studied waves, or momentum, or even mobs, generally means that there isn’t a whole lot of actual movement. Feminism, it seemed to me, wasn’t going much of anywhere.

I think this alone is enough of a reason for us womenfolk to have a bit of a natter about this. We need to ask ourselves the question - “Just where the hell are we going, exactly?”
I’m deliberately not keeping this proposed “where is this relationship going?” coffee klatch to self-identifying feminists. Whether you wrinkle your nose at the title or you’re a card carrying member of a feminist organization, the movement has an impact on you. Yes, you. Saying feminism doesn’t impact you as a woman is like saying a grain shortage doesn’t affect you if you’re not a farmer.

In the last round eight or so years I’ve been active in online communities, I’ve encountered women who claim to be proponents of the feminist movement, but really seem more intent on separating the Woman-wheat from the girl-chaff (again with the agrarian comparisons). I’ve witnessed a lot of women standing on each other’s necks, deriding, or attempting in some other way to coerce their sisters into rejoining the herd, or relocating to their herd.
It bothered me. So much so that I’ve more than once claimed that women are the reason why women aren’t further along in equality. This may well be true.

Despite this, it seems to me that while the feminist academics are flailing, and the feminist activists are busy coming up with interesting latin names for the little subdivisions, feminism has been quietly growing grass at the roots.

More specifically, internet grass and intarweb roots. What’s more amazing is that this growth appears to be centred around things that put women at their most vulnerable - feelings, fears and insecurities, motherhood, wifehood, singlehood - about growing older or losing things. . . and yannow - feelings. Have I mentioned feelings? That’s a big one. We generally apply a great load of self-censorship or at least sanitization to our emotions before we present them to a forum of women. Not here and not now.

What’s really interesting about all this honesty is that it’s being met with other’s honesty. And support. And respect.

Blogging. Yeah, that’s right. Blogging.

Take a good long look around you on this here World Wide Web. The blogs you read, the blogs you write. The things you say to the world in your forum, the things you say to the female writers of the other blogs.

While there will always be sideswipes and judgement and disagreement and even just a lack of common ground, we are, by and large, being there for our sisters. We’re listening, we’re understanding and we’re banding together. We’re learning from each other’s honesty that it’s okay and even empowering to admit that we not only cannot do it all, but more - that we don’t all like doing it all. That we stumble and fall. That we are endlessly and gloriously human.
You know what I like best about it? From my armchair, it looks like this is a growing trend, not a failing one.

So feminism, it’s about time you unfurled your golden braid, climbed out from the white tower and came to the garden to see what’s growing. Surrounding all the neat and tidy plots and rows of That’s Mine, This Is Yours, you’ll see some healthy and thriving grass (and maybe a few wildflowers), making a contribution to the cause and maybe (just maybe), changing its face for the better.