It's sort of sad to see that feminists have been left behind for... well, whatever else has taken its place.

But only sort of sad. Feminism has dug its own hole by insisting on intellectual rigidity, refusing dialogue with dissenters, and neatly insultating itself from the political realities of racism and classism. To borrow a joke about Christianity, I've got no problem with feminism, it's feminism's adherents that get under my skin.

You don't have to be a "fashionista" or a girly-girl "post-feminist" type to shy away from the feminist label. There are thousands of us who have been let down by mainstream feminism. When we have dissenting thoughts, we're the recipients of rage (or worse, false pity) for our supposed inability to realize the insidiousness of the Paternity that so deeply penetrates (heh) our psyches and schemas. It's a game that thinking women can't win. So we're waiting patiently, voting pro-woman when the opportunity arises, meanwhile privately rolling our eyes at every preposterous, politically correct exercise in missing the point or obscuring the truth. We're doing our part and hoping that someone with a lot more political power than us can galvanize the movement, and that MAYBE feminism will start to make sense in our lives again.

According to Jerry Fallwell, 9/11 happened because of "feminists, abortionists and gays." Damn you, feminists!!!

Feminism is alive, says my 60 year old, Republican-voting, church-going housewife of a mother, who taught me and my sister and brother that girls and women can do whatever they want and who wears a big pin that says "Only she who dreams the absurd can achieve the impossible" on it everyday. It is because of my mom that I am a capable, successful, strongminded woman, and I think all the bickering about "feminism(s)" and all that means is just a total waste of time AND an insult to women like her and like me, who are feminists not in some sort of post-modern, academic way (though I do have a pretty absurd education on the subject), but are feminists because we believe in equality and have been jailed defending it!! Let's just get together, ladies!

And as far as Rush Limbaugh and his friends go, yeah, sure, I got called "feminazi" in high school. I even got pee dumped on my head once by a member of the young Republican set. Advocating the cutting off penises I guess I was with my riot grrrl uniform on at the Amnesty International table.