"Use Your Head For More Than A Hat Rack"

I am a raging feminist. By "raging" I don't mean I'm out for blood, or that I hate men (most of my best friends happen to be male, as a matter of fact). I mean raging in a way that highlights the need for feminism. The sad necessity of the idea. Feminism is such a necessary movement because women in the United States still make 75% of what men take home, because women around the world are subject to abuses and violence at the hands of men and their governments, and because until all humans have equal rights, human and civil, we all suffer. Sometimes, I do rage, and I am angry. I'm angry because it has been so ingrained in so many women worldwide that they are less - powerless, meaningless, useless - that they never discover what amazing people they are as individuals and as a whole. What would happen if all those women subjected to these lessenings (yeah, I made that word up) finally said "enough"? I can tell you one thing, reproductive rights issues would no longer be up for debate. But I digress.

The real point of this post is about one of the places where my feminism comes from: my father, Greg. Not to minimize the impact of my mother by any means, she is the kindest most generous woman I know, but I think my father helped mold me into the feminist I am more than anyone else in my life. And he summed it up in a simple cliche to me just this afternoon, "use your head for more than a hat rack."

My father had simple, direct expectations for my older brother and me growing up. That we are polite, that we are kind, and that we think for ourselves. Never once did my father tell me I couldn't do something, or wasn't allowed to participate in an activity because of my sex. In fact, he was inclined to let me try anything that piqued my interest. Since our early childhoods, if my father was tinkering with the hot water heater, changing the oil in the car, or building some contraption for the family cat to climb, my brother and I were invariably by his side. We have held flashlights, learned the difference between socket sizes, and kept steady grips on wrenches for as long as I can remember. I knew the difference between a Philips head and flathead screwdriver easily before I could read, and I never hesitate to pick up a hammer or power tool if the occasion calls for it. These anecdotes only serve to show that my father never differentiated between my brother and me. Sure, Colin was bigger than I, so sometimes he was just plain stronger and needed to do certain things, but my help was always required as well. Though to be fair, my father always said we helped best when we did what he said... (and we did).

When my dad gave my nine-year old brother a compound bow for his birthday, I was allowed to share it (my brother was less than thrilled). When my father (inexplicably) bought a pellet gun, I was expected to learn how to shoot it, and damned if I didn't love it, even at the age of eight. I was allowed and expected to do anything my older brother did. But my life as a budding feminist wasn't about just violating gender stereotypes and expectations. My father, simply put, just expected me to be my own person.

Neither of my parents fostered little-girl dreams of marriage (though I'm sure they would have if I hadn't been intent on following my big brother to the ends of the earth at the time). My dress-up clothes for pretending were far less Pretty Princess than wild animals. My father never said, "you're beautiful" more than "you're smart." My room was equal parts Barbies and He-Man figurines. I was given books before baby dolls, and allowed to color with the entire 64 different crayons (not just the pink and purple ones). It wasn't ever really about feminism; it was about personhood and autonomy. If I wanted to spit, I spat. 

I was expected to flex my brains as much as I could, not because I am necessarily innately intelligent, but because my parents both knew that a strong mind provides an individual with the necessary tools to succeed and become and better person. To succeed in whatever field I chose (or am yet to choose), and be happy doing so, is my parents' only wish for me, and likewise for my brother.

I've never cultivated a "typically" female love for shopping (I do love quirky shoes, though). In fact, there is no experience I like less than shopping - for anything. This is undoubtedly my father's doing. Shopping with him is like trying to reign in a bull in a china shop. It's an unpleasant, furious flurry of activity that usually ends with him staring at his receipt angrily, trying to figure out if he 1) forgot to buy something, 2) left a purchase at the register, or 3) somehow got hosed. It's entertaining as long as you don't have to experience it first hand.

But more than my fathers' quirks, or his insistence that we all try whatever tickled our fancy, whether looking at my split ends under a microscope when I was 12 or breaking open geodes in the backyard, it was his devotion to my brother and me that made us who we are, even if we could not be two more different people. He took and interest in us as people from the first moment (or thereabouts).

My father was never good with children (he still isn't. I'm waiting with bated breath for the first grandkid! heh). Certainly, he loved us, but wasn't exactly a cuddly individual. He doesn't coddle children. He's not hug-inclined. If you are bleeding, get a Band-Aid and move along. Scrapes heal, cuts mend. I was watching Monty Python and The Marx Brothers by the age of two. I had memorized "The Lumberjack Song" by six, and "Sit On My Face" by nine, though it was several years later that I realized what I had been singing about (in class no less) for lo these many years. Looking back now, I have a mixed sense of amusement and embarrassment when I think of that, and my naiveté. I suppose my father wasn't willing to explain everything to me.

But because he looked at us like our own little people from the moment we were mobile, he shared with us what made him who he is (Monty Python inappropriateness aside). He taught me how to draw and paint. He shared his sense of humor, his unyielding curiosity, and his not-inconsiderable thirst for knowledge with me. And because of those things, because of his tacit openness, I knew that regardless of who I was or who I became, I was worthwhile, and I was smart, and I could do anything I put my mind to.

My father helped me become a feminist not because he told me that women should be treated as men's equals, but because he lived it. He taught me these things by example. And while I watch other young women my age recoil at the word "feminist," I embrace it. It is part of who I am, but it does not define me. Only I can do that. My father made that clear years ago. Thanks, Dad.