It was a different kind of chauvinism than most people think of though. My parents made it clear that we could work as hard and do all the same work that the boys did - but they also made it clear that we were expected to the “women’s work” as well - while the boys were exempted from that. So on the farm we girls worked with animals and machinery and drove tractors and everything else the boys did - and then were expected to go in and cook dinner, clean the house, and look after the younger kids, while dad and the boys got to lounge around in the living room. If I complained or disagreed - which I did frequently and strenuously as I got older - I got smacked around. And as I was told, when one such event was witnessed by a neighbour lady, “It’s your own fault for embarrassing your father.”

I’m 36 years old. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s. That’s not so long ago. And while the chauvinism I experience today is not as blatant as what I grew up with, it still happens. I’m not whining, Hailey - I know what I’ve dealt with my whole life. I don’t spit in the face of my sisters in law when they choose to be stay at home moms. Nor do I spit at my sisters who have chosen to remain childless, although I do find it amusing that it’s my brothers who have traditional marriages and children, while my sisters run the gamut from permanently single to “living in sin” to married-but-adamently-childless.

By the way, Hailey, I don’t have a victim mentality and I find it insulting of you to say so. If I were a victim, I wouldn’t have fought so hard to be where I am today. I would have accepted my father’s belief that I was a lesser being than his sons and followed the life plan he expected of his daughters. Instead, I moved away from home at 16, worked my way through university, landed some good jobs - and still watch my career get stalled while male co-workers with less experience get promoted over me. Or I find out that new hires make as much as me or more, even though I’ve been at the company for over 7 years. Sure, I take steps, I fight back, and eventually bosses apologise, situations and salaries improve. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s not enough to do just do a good job, to be as good as or better than your co-workers. I wish that the results of my efforts were enough - but it’s not. Instead, it’s choice between fighting a never-ending battle for recognition or being a faceless cog in the machine while other people get the credit.

In my view feminists have a victim mentality and they do not embrace the fullness of choices available for women. They symbolically spit on women who are wives and mothers first rather than focusing on their careers.

I would never say I was a feminist. I’m not.

No, they’re not, at all. They’re less blatant than formerly, and they’re not enshrined in law anymore; it’s no longer legal to grant pensions to widows while denying them to widowers, for example.

She was just like the woman in the Apple store you met. She certainly didn’t like me pointing out that her actions were those of a “feminist” (broadly speaking, of course): She was in school, she lived on her own with no males dictating her actions, owned her own car, etc, etc. Today, she owns and runs her own business. She has benefited from 40 years of feminist actions and denies all of it.

Feminism has done much to bring the country a long ways towards equality, but we’re still far from it. I liken the incomplete successes of feminism to those of the labor union movement. And just like with labor, the right is doing a fine job of framing the discussion to efface the efforts of feminists and unionists alike, even while twisting the original meanings of those labels.

On the latter count, you have to admit that the effects of sexism in modern America are somewhat subtle. Women are not barred from any rights, options, careers, characteristics, etc., that men have. That this progress is the product of feminism doesn’t say anything about whether feminism is still needed today. There are many blogs (including this one) and articles that provide good arguments about why feminism really is still needed, so I won’t try to do that in this comment, but it’s understandable why some women - even liberal ones - don’t see sex discrimination (especially given that the general discriminatory view of women is so ingrained that it is easily missed).

The majority of my friends were always women, so I don’t fit that mold. But I did have, from early childhood, an aversion to femininity. In a sense I was a proto-feminist, rankling when my grandmother would tell me to “act like a little lady.” But what took me until adulthood to realize is that, while a dislike of femininity is perfectly congruent (IMO) with feminist aims - femininity being a tool of the patriarchy and all - it can also be just a convenient way of being misogynistic while supporting basic gender equality.

These days I’m a politically moderate, pro-capitalist, pro-immigration, pro-globalization, pro-choice feminist of the type who would like to see sex differences completely disregarded. Is a society that doesn’t recognize any difference between male and female possible? Maybe not, but let’s keep trying to find out, while of course working hard to address the more concrete injustices perpetrated against women globally.