April 2, 1992

I talked on the phone with a neighbour. I told her about what happened in class last night with the nurse, and the young men abusing single women. I was getting more inflamed as I talked and aware that I didn't want to appear too - whatever. Somehow the word feminist came up and I said how I never thought of myself as one until someone else started calling me that. I was quite surprised when my neighbour said she's never thought of me as a feminist. So then we talked about our understanding of the word. We found we have a lot of the same views about women and agreed that we are treated in unfair ways just because we are women.

We talked a bit about how some women appear to be strong supporters of women in the work they do, but in their own marriages they appear to be dominated and subservient. I hadn't been able to put it together before, but I realized how many women I know who work very hard to empower other women, but they are controlled by men in their personal lives. It's as if these publicly strong women are too afraid to change their own lives so they work on others' lives. I didn't tell her sometimes I feel like one of those women.

In amongst all this talk I talked about the research and how it's looking at the women who work with women learners - not necessarily the learners themselves. I could have hugged her when she said, "Oh, that sounds interesting." We had to cut our talk short because it was almost lunch time - the story of our lives. But I was just at the point of realizing how befuddled I was by how differently people understand feminism and how that shapes their reactions and actions to people. There's something here just eluding my grasp. I can't even get the question right.

Here's me just being me.

On one side Ellen is gently chiding me for being feminist and I feel almost obligated not to let her down, while carefully avoiding whatever degree of strident fervour might offend her. On the other side is Val, whom I'm also trying not to alienate or carry against her will into foreign waters.

And, I'm trying to stay within these imaginary lines without even knowing "how the lines are defined in their minds and, sometimes, in my own mind. When Val finally reveals her hand, I realized I assumed a lot of things that weren't even true. If this is happening amongst only three women, the complexities amongst all women are too overwhelming to consider! Has the word feminist created half the battle?