Of course I'm a feminist

Warning: This whole post has no thesis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/jul/03/ellen-page-interview-the-east

I've liked seeing this article around the internet recently, and that both Feminist Frequency and MissRepresentation have brought it to light.

I like EP's youth, her willingness to say what's on her mind without a plan or agenda, and I like the fact that she's a feminist!

I find myself talking about feminism here more than I would think, not because I intend to, but because this stuff comes up all the time. Whether it's....are women allowed to play video games, or speak, or be ugly, or be mad, or walk down the street, or disagree with one another, or be here?, gender issues are some of the most alive issues on the planet. So I keep bringing this stuff up, because this is the place where I do that, and this stuff just keeps coming up.

While I boil my own ideas down, it comes to this for me - My connection to God and my ability to  know that my worthiness comes from God makes me a feminist. I am worthy, not because of my gender, or what society prescribes for me, but because of who I am in my Creator. It's as clear as that, and it's as rebellious and as counter-culture as that, I suppose.

So, when Ellen says, "...If I played those other kinds of roles I would just die a slow death," I am right there with her. I am not my true self when I don't love myself as a woman, love other women for being themselves,and want a world to be shaped by both sexes and by those who don't affiliate on a binary. I die to the God who created me as I am when I don't bring my womanliness to bear on situations, or when I accept less than respect for anyone out there based on sex or sexuality. It's so simple, but it gets pretty deep pretty quick, because being a feminist does mean maintaining self-identity and basic respect in a world ruled by other things.

One of the main problems I hear in Beyonce and others' responses to feminism, or the new feminism, is answered by Page - "People always attribute being a feminist to hating girls being sexual, and that's not it at all." I felt like I was reacting to this when I wrote about Miss America and Legally Blonde, Clueless and Pretty Woman (great movies) way back when. We all at times want to say we're feminists or we believe in equality, but...

But what? But I love my husband? But I love men? But I shop at Victoria's Secret? My personal insecurities would perhaps bring out the phrase, "But I love feeling womanly, feminine and protected by men." I do. That's true. It's just not mutually exclusive of my feminism, and it says nothing my ability or lack of ability to protect myself, express what masculine features I might have, or toggle back and forth at times.

I'd love to agree that this is all a U.S. problem, but we all know it's absolutely not. This is a people problem. This is an - experiencing issues with strangers, colleagues, friends, family, media, doctors, all human institutions and self-perception - problem. Ultimately, feminism is both alive and well, growing in ways it wasn't in the 60's-70's, and in a heap of trouble at the same time. My only recourse is to be authentic to the core about it. And to keep bringing it up.