The topic is inevitable in a literary history class. We read an excerpt from Margaret Fuller's
The Great Lawsuit. I thought that it was an extremely mild form of feminism which conformed to some LDS views, but for the most part was too laid back on important issues.
When I got in class, I wasn't expecting what happened. My teacher started out saying something close to this. "A lot of times I have men in my class that, when they've read this, come to class and ask why they had to read it. Shouldn't we just get rid of it altogether? The issues that brought forth feminism aren't prominent anymore. Aren't women equal to men now? I'm going to say no, women aren't equal to men now, and that I have you read this because the problems brought forth in this work are just as prominent today as they were then."
The room was silent, and I know there was at least one perturbed, uncomfortable man in the room writhing in his chair because our teacher's words pricked him intolerably. My teacher went on with his (did you think my teacher was a woman up until this point?) speech. He said, "You may think that this issue ended in the seventies, but it still exists here and now, in the 21st century, especially in, as much as I hate to say it, the Mormon culture. A few years ago, my younger sister got engaged to a guy she was dating. They sent out texts to friends and family to share the happy news. A few days later, my sister was in an english class, and the discussion of feminism came up. The teacher challenged his students to discuss with their significant other (if they had one) the subject of feminism. My sister decided to take the challenge.
"She sat down with her fiance and asked him what he thought about women's rights and the feminist movement, particularly the right to vote. It turned out that his views were extremely conservative on the matter. He, quite seriously, said that he believed there should only be one vote per household and that it should be the man's. The woman was subject to the man and his views because that was the only way to have harmony in the household. The man was superior because he held the priesthood, and that meant he was the most knowledgeable. The woman's place was in the home, not in politics and the work force.
"Further, he said he held those views because it is what his mother had taught him. Needless to say my sister did not marry this man. And this isn't a singular case. Lots of men, and some women, hold this view. It all comes down to the question, is a female really less intelligent than her male counterpart, or are those boundaries set on women by the culture in which she lives?"
There was only one man willing to speak up and say that he didn't really care for feminism because of how radical all the works he had read in the past had been. He did admit, though, that Fuller's work was particularly mild, that he found it refreshing, and agreed with a lot of the points she made.
I really appreciated my teacher's speech, because for a long time I've been trying to get that point across to people I come in contact with. I've said before, quite under my breath, when people are excited about marriage and want me to join in the revelry, that "I'm not quite ready to be considered a piece of property again yet."
Although I realize that most men don't look at a woman as their property anymore, I do realize that my ex-husband thought of me that way, and that there are other men that think that way, especially in my culture (not the doctrine of the LDS Church, but the culture. There tends to be large differences in culture vs. doctrine).
My teacher's class discussion on feminism was one of the few that I have participated in that I haven't been infuriated by. I attribute this to that speech he gave at the beginning of class. I appreciate his openness and honesty about the subject. Even when the topic of radical feminism came up, he said, "Yes, some of it is pretty off the wall, but I wonder if there was a point behind their overstatements. Many of them were serious about what they were saying, but if you look at it as if they were doing it for shock value, didn't what these feminists wrote wake you up? Didn't you walk away from the work thinking, yeah, there's a problem with the way women are being treated, and we need to do something to change it? The literary tactic is actually a very effective one."
So here's kudos to a great teacher who chose to view feminism in a positive light, and admit that there are still necessary steps to be taken for true gender equality today.
Margaret Fuller
