Hagar and Sarah

Biography

I am a feminist and have been since I was four and learned no. 1 the tradition of women taking husbands names at marriage, no.2 the fact my brothers could go to the corner store and I couldn't, and no. 3 the fact I had to wear dresses to church. Before kindergarten I understood that these arbitrary and apparantly societally accepted deprivations which were mine to deal with all pertained to the fact I was female. I could not accept this as a good reason. It drove me crazy. Later on in childhood when I heard about feminists and how anti-God they were, I knew for sure that I was one.
I am an anarchist and feminist of my own making, as I was raised separate from "the world" and it's ideologies. My feminist consciousness is deeply influenced by being raised in an anti-woman religious subculture. I always knew women were brilliant due to the hardworking women all around me and the brilliance of their artistic gardens, their giving birth and nourishing children endlessly and with the help of midwives, the simplicity and beauty of their hard-working and making-ends-do- lives, their willingness to go against societal beauty standards and thinkings (despite my disagreements with the particulars of their revolt), and from eavesdropping on their heady theological conversations, which simultaneously invigorated and enraged me. I knew that the women in my life were extremely smart, and I aspired to be as smart as they were. However I was conflicted as I didn't respect the way they made limiting themselves in relation to men some sort of a spiritual enlightenment. I didn't buy that God wanted womankind subordinate to mankind.
So, like most girls, I both loved and hated (but more loved), worshipped and denigrated (but more worshipped), my mom and the women in my life, the women who raised me. At 11 or 12 I became deeply influenced by the classic "Spiritual Midwifery" by Ina May Gaskins and the Farm Midwives. I also began reading my mom's "Mothering" magazine and found mind-blowing gems within its pages such as "The Technocratic Birth Rite" about male domination of the female art of birth. "Immaculate Deception" by Suzanne Arms was another big influence as was Sheila Kitzinger. The biggest teenage influence on my feminism was the bald and magnificent Sinead O'Connor who I immediately idolized. Then it was Christian feminists whose literature I hid under my mattress. A bit later in my teens I was influenced by Riot Grrl zines, and then in my 20s I discovered Andrea Dworkin, Sonia Johnson, and Inga Muscio. My feminism is mostly informed by my experiences and the instinctive admiration I have always had and continue to have for women in general, past, present and future, on my home continent and on all the other continents as well.