Merry Feminism and a Happy New Year

I don't know if this post is necessarily "holiday themed" however, the holidays are supposed to be filled with good cheer and well-wishes for those around us, so I'm going to attempt to bring some of that love into this post.

Yesterday I was doing my daily stroll through the internet (is it indicative of a serious issue if I call my addiction to media a "stroll"?) checking what new and ridiculous things people on the internet were saying. Now, while I am sure that somewhere on the internet, multiple people were posting absolutely absurd things, yesterday I was unable to find any of those things. Instead I stumbled upon a website dedicated to Mormon Feminism, possibly some of you have heard of it before; It's called The Exponent and its a very polite, discussion friendly place. While I didn't completely agree with everything that everyone says on The Exponent I was pleasantly surprised by the unique blend of men and women, mostly husband and wife teams, who posted together about feminism. Oddly enough, several of the men confessed that they struggled with their wife's feminism, not because they wanted to repress her, but mainly because they wondered whether it was something that they, as a man, should care about.

I absolutely believe it was something that they should care about and I'll be honest, I definitely didn't agree with a lot of what those men said, however the cool thing to me was that they had taken the time to write up posts, contribute to discussions and accepted criticism for their posts. These men were genuinely interested in understanding and supporting their wives. And in turn, many of the women contributed to the discussion, attempting to place themselves in their husbands shoes and achieve a balance between the sexes. This makes me really excited (I worry a lot about marrying someone who doesn't support my feminism). Men and women with different opinions can discuss and work out issues that one spouse member deems important.

Yet, this is again not the focus of my post. The thing that this shows to me is that a feminist discussion is happening. Yes, there are lots of places where repression and a blatant disregard for women and their ideas are happening, however, change is possible! There are viable discussions taking place between real people, so whether I agree isn't the point (at least not right now, we can talk about that later) the point is instead, that a dialogue about sensitive issues is blossoming on the internet.

And that's not all. The Rumpus recently created a funny women column dedicated exclusively to the comedic brilliance that many women posses (check out the interview with Amy Sedaris for the funniest 10 minutes of your life). Patheos, a forum based website has developed a very intellectual and intelligent place for the Mormon Feminist discussion as well. Magazines such as Bust and Bitch provide meaningful and interesting articles about the current state of feminism in the US. Bitch magazine especially published a very well-written article on the rising state of the patriarchy movement within the US (recommended to me by our own dear Emily), and even though the article dealt with some heavy material the article was objective and well-researched.

So today I just want to spread a little Christmas cheer towards feminism and all those who talk about and support it; so enjoy this while it lasts, because next month, I'll probably be mouthing off again about something I perceive as anti-feminist. But for right now, rock on Feminist World, I salute you.