I was recently speaking to a friend of mine about many and sundry things; I said something about how one of my sisters claims to be a “feminist for life” and that seems to me to be not much of a feminist at all…to which my friend replied that certainly there should be no litmus test for feminism, which I agree with. Unfortunately, this particular sister also thinks that a woman’s place is at home with her husband’s children fixing dinner just before her husband walks through the door and never discussing her day-to-day weariness or troubles because her husband has enough to worry about without worrying about her. She has attempted on numerous occasions to induct me into Feminists for Life, and I do agree that birth control, natal care, and options (in terms of insurance and paid leave) for parents should all be improved, but there seem to be covert religious undertones to this particular group’s beliefs.

The question (for me) remains, however: what does it take to be a feminist? A grown woman, living in the United States, who has availed herself of the rights so many feminists fought for: education (through graduate school), voting, et al. could very well be considered a feminist, simply by virtue of the feminist-fallout she has been the recipient of. But when she preaches to me against what, to me, seem like life-saving changes (I truly think I would go insane if I were forced to live her life), I question her commitment to “the cause”.

Case 2: a former friend of mine considers himself to be a feminist. He also, however, believes that feminism means that both genders should be equal, neither above the other. He further believes that all the gains in the past century or so have brought us to a point where men and women are equal and thus, any feminism that chooses a woman over a man of equal credentials simply because she is a woman, amounts to discrimination. For a long time, I agreed with him (since before I met him, in fact, this is the line I’d been fed since birth): I had never (or rarely) suffered the sting of discrimination. In my dealings with men, for the most part, my intellect (or, I suppose, my breasts) caused me to rise naturally to the positions I found myself in: above those with lesser ability, below those with greater. Surely this is what our foremothers fought for and dreamed of. Over time, i realized that my experience was unique and not the norm. I started realizing that other women, people I generally considered to be my peers, were not treated in the manner I felt they should be. This, not any personal injury, caused me to change my mind about this.

And for dessert: I occasionally find myself on feminist fora where I am reminded that, however far we have come in the United States (and we have much further to go), women here are among the most privileged in the world.

Feminism, it seems to me, is an almost useless lable, since it changes meaning with each person and situation. Feminists in China, Afghanistan, and Europe have very little in common with one another. However, the perspective of each person who self-identifies as “feminist” is incredibly valuable to each other person. Our personal struggles, definitions, and paths inform the whole. And maybe someday we’ll be as gender neutral as some of the worlds I remember fondly from Star Trek…