Thank goodness its Friday. With my fighting off illness, its been a really long week. Last night, I boobed around and watched t.v. all night, and that was good.

Plans for this weekend: maybe, finally see X-Men 2; at least one trip to the driving range; a party for the Sightings Team; maybe going shoe shopping; read at least one book; mow the lawn; get a tan.

Yesterday, I was really disturbed because my weather pixie donned a swimsuit, instead of wearing normal clothes. I don't know why I'm disturbed, it is 90+ degrees out. And its only going to get hotter. And its all hazy because the Mexican farmers are clearing their fields by setting them on fire, and the haze comes all the way up here.

Feminist Rant

Well, its seems that Jen's entry yesterday caused lots of discussion. Today, Karen writes:

I just wanted to tell Jen that I also empathize in often feeling like an imposter. And the further I go the worse it gets. The only good news is that it is almost exclusively an internal feeling. Very few people have ever said anything like that to me. I just keep hoping that maybe one day it will subside. Hey Becca has anyone ever done a survey of successful women to find out if they all feel like this?

Actually, I don't know of a particular study on this subject, but if one of my more knowledgable relatives could let me know, I'd love to hear of it (I had expected to find something from the American Assoc. of University Women, but I didn't).

Anyway, this spawned a discussion between Sarah and I about feminism. I really need to avoid conversations like this, because, in most cases, I enjoy arguing, have fun with it, and don't usually take it personally. However, when it comes to a discussion with another professional, intelligent, and successful woman who says that she does not consider herself a feminist nor believe in feminism, it gets really personal for me. And that's not a good way to have a conversation.

I guess, its hard for me to imagine how someone who has managed to reep a great deal of the benefits of the modern feminist movement believes that she would be equally successful without it.

And I don't understand how someone can think to themselves "Well, things are getting better for women, and they'll continue to get better because that's what everyone wants and we don't need any sort of political support or feminists cause they just shove it down people's throats and make them want it less." Personally, I think that as many gains as women have made over the years, I think without feminism, they are likely to come to a complete standstill or go back all-together.

First of all, I can't believe how anyone would be against a movement that's only definition is "Political, economic and social equality for women." Not considering yourself a feminist would mean you are against those things.

So, it led me to think about all the reasons we need feminism:

- Title IX. Its constantly under threat. Without it college women would lose 50,000 participation opportunities and $122 million dollars in athletic scholarships. High School girls would lose 305,000 participation opportunities.

- Judicial Appointments. A lot of key women's reproductive rights legislation hangs on in the courts by a very narrow margin (along with other civil rights issues). A few retirements, and the appointment of a few ultra-conservative judges, and 20 years of freedoms gained could just as easily be revoked.

- Education. This is always the argument that always fries me. Some successful women I know say "well, there are opportunities to go into whatever field you want -- if I beat the odds and became and engineer, etc. any girl can, the schools aren't that biased". First of all, I don't think girls should have to "beat the odds" to succeed. I think girls are still forced to back-off in an environment that favors typically male traits, especially during the middle school years. There's no other way to explain why up until middle school, even today, girls succeed at math and science in equal or greater rates then the boys, and then suddenly all drop out of them when they hit middle school.

- Global Feminism. Women in many other countries are facing basic human rights violations. The U.S. has an enormous amount of resources that can be used to help improve the status of women worldwide, and I think has the moral obligation to do it.

-Health. I know a good number of medical studies are done on men, or many more men than women, and then the results are applied to women. Not only doesn't this make sense from a scientific perspective, it could have profound consequences on my health and the health of people I care about.