from the editor

The F-Word Issue

I was going to write about the varying degrees of feminism, but I changed my mind.  I don’t know that there are varying degrees of feminism.  Rather, I think there are varying definitions of it.  Who’s to say that the woman who founds a local Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance is more of a feminist than the one who teaches her daughters they can be whoever they want to be? This month, we profile four women – and one man – who consider themselves feminists.  A common thread I noticed between many of them was that they accredit their roles as women (or view of women) to an individual in their childhood.  My mom probably wouldn’t consider herself a feminist.  But she told me over and over again when I was young that the world was my oyster; that I could be whatever-the-heck I wanted to be.  I think that her belief in herself as a woman, and in me and my two sisters, is where the essence of feminism lies.  

~~faith