Feminism
Sunday March 8th is International Women's Day.
I've been asked to lead meditation and to also say a few words about "Why I am/How I became" feminist.
For the meditation. I think I will simply read the definition I found for feminism and ask us to be grateful for what equalities we do have and to remember thos who do not have them. I like silent meditation. What we do at our congregation is what i would describe more as creative visualization. We generally do speak to some 'topic' or thought throughout the meditation and there is usually always piano accompaniment (wow sp???).
Feminism: Wikipedia
Feminism is the belief that women have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men.
To this I suppose I should add that 'have' rights doesn't necessarily mean that this equality IS the present situation.
I suppose that this has always been my belief. Even in my early years when my mother somewhat bridled under the role of stay at home mother. She was young, finishing her university education and mothering two young children while my father was consumed by the beginning of his teaching career. I was raised to believe that I could do feel and think anything I could conceive of.
By far and away the biggest influence on my feminist views came from a man I met when I was in my early 20's.
By this time, I was working in the corporate world. The rules in my first corporate sales job were that we were not allowed to wear pants, had to wear nylons and were not allowed to sit at the bar. The sales team I was part of was pretty much groomed after Charlie's Angels - without any of the cool empowerments like fighting crime. I perhaps didn't like these rules, even had an inkling of the inequity of this but nonetheless was not all that politically savvy or even worldly.
Back to this worldly man. He was 9 years my senior and had travelled the world. He challenged my views.
Will write more on this later, it's just a draft of what I will discuss on Sunday...
I've been asked to lead meditation and to also say a few words about "Why I am/How I became" feminist.
For the meditation. I think I will simply read the definition I found for feminism and ask us to be grateful for what equalities we do have and to remember thos who do not have them. I like silent meditation. What we do at our congregation is what i would describe more as creative visualization. We generally do speak to some 'topic' or thought throughout the meditation and there is usually always piano accompaniment (wow sp???).
Feminism: Wikipedia
Feminism is the belief that women have equal political, social, sexual, intellectual and economic rights to men.
To this I suppose I should add that 'have' rights doesn't necessarily mean that this equality IS the present situation.
I suppose that this has always been my belief. Even in my early years when my mother somewhat bridled under the role of stay at home mother. She was young, finishing her university education and mothering two young children while my father was consumed by the beginning of his teaching career. I was raised to believe that I could do feel and think anything I could conceive of.
By far and away the biggest influence on my feminist views came from a man I met when I was in my early 20's.
By this time, I was working in the corporate world. The rules in my first corporate sales job were that we were not allowed to wear pants, had to wear nylons and were not allowed to sit at the bar. The sales team I was part of was pretty much groomed after Charlie's Angels - without any of the cool empowerments like fighting crime. I perhaps didn't like these rules, even had an inkling of the inequity of this but nonetheless was not all that politically savvy or even worldly.
Back to this worldly man. He was 9 years my senior and had travelled the world. He challenged my views.
Will write more on this later, it's just a draft of what I will discuss on Sunday...