rivervision's attempt to figure it all out...

July 15, 2002
feminist sisterhoods

gina answers the question: is feminism a sisterhood?

i've not posted in a long time, and funny, the other day my mother and i were just talking about our differences and our similiarities.

over a year ago i wrote this piece about my mother and i and our feminism (it includes her response).

there are all types of feminists, as gina points out. there are the separatists-- those who want absolutely nothing to do with men, those who's utopia is to live on wimmin land using only products produced by wimmin-- these women tend to identify as radical lesbian separatists. then there are women like my mother who don't take on the identification of feminist, in fact my mother brushes it aside everytime i use it to describe her. and then then there are women in between.

but is there a sisterhood? what is a sisterhood? do i believe that all women who identify as feminists are my sisters? no, because i take the term sisterhood strongly. do i believe that all women who identify as radical feminists, as i do, as sisters? no, again, because its not a term i use lightly.

my mother and i, in our own brands of feminism, are we sisters? my mother who has never made a big deal of it, who has simply done what she's wanted to do because she is dianne, her gender making no difference. me, who when i'm in the mood can give lectures on patriarchy, who will stand on a corner yelling about the evils of it, who wears a button on her backpack that says "this is what a radical feminist looks like." but are we sisters?

yes, i *think* my mother and i are sisters in our feminism, because if you boil it down to the very core of our being we both know that our gender has nothing to do with what we can and can't accomplish, and neither of us are certianly not going to let a man stand in our way of doing what we want to do. she will get around the man in her quiet dignified way, *i* will yell and scream. or something to that degree. but again, are we sisters in feminism?

what i believe is that all of us who are doing what we can to fight patriarchy, all of us who are doing what we can not to let our gender stop us, no, we aren't sisters, we are all, in our own quiet or loud ways, warriors in this system of patriarchy.

but back to my mother. yes, my mother taught me the essence of feminism. and she didn't use the term. she showed me by example. and everyday i feel my mother inside me, guiding me, me tapping into that inner strength that she instilled in me to face the challenges of my life. that knowledge that my gender makes no difference, and if it appears that it does, me then using my ways to get around it.

so, i guess my point, beyond yet another tribute to my mother, is for me a sister feminist would be someone that i have a personal connection with. in particular a personal connection with over feminism. maybe. i'm not sure.

do i feel that other dykes are my sisters? no. i don't. i have a connection with them, but sisters? no.

as you can tell, i have a problem with sisterhood. sisterhood implies a connection beyond something.

*sigh* i don't know. what i know is that, as i said before, in our own ways we are warriors (i can bet my mom won't like that term). and my mother and i, we are mother and daughter, who at the very core of our being, when it comes to our gender and how we see it, are exactly alike. and i'm lucky. and yes, if there was anyone that i would call a sister femnist it would be her. even though we are completly different in how we express feminism, how we label ourselves, but in the end we are so similiar. and our reasons for being feminists are so similiar. but she is the only one in my life that i would consider a sister in feminism, but again, that is only because of my intensely close relationship with her, my admiration of her, my love that at the core we are exactly the same, my greatfulness for raising me with feminist values even though she didn't identify them as those, my continual gratefulness that at the core of my feminist identity i am her (with my own spin, of course).

Posted by brooke at 11.33.08 PM