Before being included on a list of feminist mom blogs this week (on Ms. Magazine’s blog, natch) I found myself experience a moment of anxiety about whether my blog “counted” as a feminist mom blog. Yeah, I know, this seems a bit cuckoo as my last post was about participating in an upcoming bowlathon to support abortion access.
My self-doubt is really about this in terms of myself as a writer: I don’t have a singular topic or focus. Yesterday, for example, I worked on a piece about facilitating successful play and I emailed a cheesemonger to request an interview and I worked on a piece about respect for different family constellations. I also stepped away from work to brainstorm auction items for a preschool fundraiser and attended the Northampton High School’s most excellent production of Grease (locals, take note: shows on Friday evening, Saturday at two and seven).
Feminism has become, for some people, a radical word. I never thought of it that way and have probably spent the last decade remaining surprised by this but I realized yesterday as I tweeted greetings for International Women’s Day (and spread the pro-women, pro-voting hashtag #UseThe19th) that I was asking myself whether @ so-and-so would want to be called a feminist. Needless to say even with some questioning, I tweeted an awful lot of good wishes to an awful lot of feminists. I hope that the outrage over stealing health care from women—and access to contraception—makes more people reclaim the word. That, I’d file under silver linings.
Meantime, in the circular conversation I have with myself about whether it’s okay to be a writer interested in topics from children making art to fantastic artists, from mudrooms to month-long independent study projects in high school while chronicling my experience parenting and participating in the world—and also creating a secondary blog of interesting things read along the way, I keep returning to the idea that this is what this feminist writer is like. Back when I studied fiction I was interested in women’s voices (in my ongoing clearing out of stuff, I found notes to the class I taught on narrative and voice, featuring women writers). Oh, and I am writing a series on the blog about what feminist preschoolers wear. That feminist word again—I can’t escape it. I don’t even try.
