What kind of Feminist am I?

Feminism is a concept that I have been wrestling with for many years now, yet have still failed to grasp.

I began university with the idea that I was a feminist - after all I was emerging from a prestigious girls school where I was taught to value my femininity through independence, determination and the belief that I could be anything I wanted to be (so long as that "anything" included being a lawyer, doctor, accountant or business woman). With these strong headed ideals I headed east to university where I believed that I would find my authentic, feminine self and live that out.

My naive understanding of what it meant to be a young female in the world was quickly exposed when I moved into the campus residence, where I was introduced to the stereotypical 18 year old res boy. It quickly became apparent that my interactions with the male sex had been a heavily unrealistic exposure, as I had really only interacted with boys of a similar social stature, namely those to attend private boys school. In res, I was shocked by the level of disrespect I immediately experienced from my male floormates, but what shocked me even further was the fact that their rude comments against my own sex were made with a seemingly unintentional manner. They simply thought they were making funny jokes, and to make matters worse - the majority of the girls responded as if they found the jokes funny.

Well I certainly didn't, and I wasn't about to undo the idea of male-female relationships that I had grown to know, so I did what I knew best and called them out on it. At first my resistance to their "light-hearted" comments (can I even come up with a euphemism for sexist remarks?) was not taken well. I was ridiculed to the point that I sometimes just had to leave the room. There was no hope for turning these minds around - or at least so I thought so.

After a few months, the jokes started to dwindle when I entered the room and instead were replaced with comments that I was present in the room, so careful not to offend the sensitive women. Well these references to my emotional well being initially angered me, I began to see them more as a feat on my part. At least the boys were learning that the jokes they once saw harmless did have a not so humerous impact on at least part of the opposite sex's population.

Eight months after my first post-high school encounter with sexism, I was free of rez, but the effects of this experienced followed me through university, helping to carve a new understanding of my gender's identity in the non-sheltered world of co-ed existence. Throughout university I encountered several incidences of sexism, from remarks by fellow male students in classes who insisted that women have all the same rights as men and should quit their whining, to a personal argument with a male acquaintance who kept insisting the only reason I wanted to debate him was that I eventually wanted to sleep with him.

While these incidences all frustrated me immensely, they have also lent a useful hand in shaping my belief that feminism is still relevant today. The problem, however, is that I'm not quite sure exactly what kind of feminism is relevant.

Framing feminism as the belief that women are entitled to "equal rights of men" is almost irrelevant, considering this belief only works on the theoretical playing field where all players have an equal understanding of the game. Instead, I think it would be much more useful if we re-opened the debate to what exactly we mean by equal rights. Do we mean the theoretical right to be considered equally for the same jobs as men, with the same pay scale, or do we mean the right to be perceived as an equal human being with the same opportunities for self-exploration that men are offered? As a good friend pointed out to me recently, will there ever come the day that we question whether or not the man of the household risks losing his job when the new baby arrives and he needs to stay home? Will there ever be a question as to whether or not a man has to choose between his biology and his right to the pleasures of pursuing a fulfilling a career?

This sudden questioning of the relevance that feminism has in my life was spurred on by a talk I attended tonight about Women and Theatre, in relation to an up-coming performance of Little Women by the Calgary Opera. Through a critical examination of Little Women, this talk started me thinking about my own self from a critical perspective, as well as the type of woman that I want to be. Through my family and high school education I was raised to be an independent, free thinker who should have the opportunity to pursue a professional career. However, as I look back - specifically upon my same-sex education, I can't help but wonder what the motives of such an education was.

Was I truly raised to be what ever I want to be, or was I raised to be a woman in a man's world? Will I be forced to bear the fate that so many women before me have had, to choose between a family and a career, or will I be offered a world where these two pleasures become compatible for a woman?

If I choose to pursue the career which I have been raised to believe will give me utmost satisfaction, do I risk denying the true part of myself that brings true happiness, yet that society tells me will make me weak?

The problem here, which is appearing as I write, is that I am still measuring forecasted ideas of happiness, satisfaction and pleasure against the ideas that have been presented in a male context. I am using society's current measures of happiness to predict a future that exists in an undetermined world.

So, as I head along into the second decade of the 21st century, I can't help but feel that feminism still has an incredibly relevant place in the lives of women. However, rather than reflecting the rhetoric of past decades, perhaps what we need is a new feminism dialect - a vocabulary that provides new measures of happiness and success for new generations of independent and determined young women to make sense of their lives.