On the whole, I have never been much of a feminist. Or, more explicitly, I haven’t been all that impressed with those who call themselves feminists.

In the world I was raised in, woman are responsible for their own choices in life. And its up to you to decide what life you want and go make it happen. Don’t wait for the white knight to come find you and give you a life. (Although there are days…)

I”m told this is the basic idea behind feminism. However, what we get in many cases is a very narrow idea of what it means to be a woman. In the last twenty-five years of my life I’ve seen the woman of the mid-eighties who looked down at my mother like some bug under her shoe, because she stayed home and had seven children and didn’t go have a career to watching these same woman turning 40 and realizing that they really did want children and running to the fertility clinic and sinking millions to “be all that a woman can be” by having kids and in many cases, quiting their careers to be stay at home moms. The hypocrisy made me want to puke.

So for me, for a girl to know what she wants and to go after it is the height of taking control of your life. No matter what it is, whether your dreams are to be a stay at home mom, or to have that amazing career or to blend the two. But the contempt is still in our literature and media if you don’t follow the classic norm of “school, college, career, family..etc”. Then your apparently a Victorian masochist who really dreams of the days when women were subject to the silly whims of men. As if this has changed much.

What brought on this rant was the reaction I’ve read over and over again about the heroin Bella in the Twilight series. Apparently she is a bad role model for kids because she got depressed for six months when her boyfriend broke up with her and she dared to get married and have a baby instead of go to college in the book. Ignore the fact that they talk about going to college frequently. I also read one review who was upset that Bella was even deeply in love at her age, as if its impossible to be in love when your a kid.

Lets look at these themes as they relate to the story. Bella falling in love. I have a hard time remembering that Bella is only 17 when this story starts. Mainly because I’ve wanted to fall in love that hard since I was about 12 and here at 35, I would still like that level of magic in my life. Not much has changed in the last 23 years. I like to keep in mind that I’m reading a story that Stephanie Meyer wrote to entertain herself. These are her themes and her desires showing up in the books. For all we know, she and her husband have this type of deep, eternal love for each other. I should hope so since as active LDS, they are probably sealed in the temple for time and all eternity and so it probably goes without saying that she is familiar with this level of commitment to another. And since millions of woman identify with this level of commitment Bella and Edward have for each other, clearly we all want it too. And wanting that level of attachment, wild, overwhelming, dedicated, can’t-live-without doesn’t automatically make you incapable of being your own woman. These are not mutually exclusive concepts. It doesn’t make you co dependent and useless to love someone that much.

I can understand how for some, it would seem so. With all the abuse in the world, we have so few examples of honest, deep relationships to use as examples. People, hurt themselves, are often not as interested in a relationship that would open themselves up to being hurt and so view such things as suspect. Which brings us to the depression of Bella in New Moon.

I didn’t have a problem with these chapters. Mind you, I’ve been there and knew exactly how Bella felt. And I don’t have a problem with my daughter reading these chapters. Its good to have examples of loving someone deeply, dealing with whatever happens and then learning to recover and deal with life. And its okay if you never stop loving that person, doesn’t mean there aren’t other people to love. And each love can be cherished. Bella was dealing with the loss of the life she had chosen for herself in these chapters. Whatever dreams we have as kids, plans made for our lives, rarely do those plans work perfectly. Most of us are not where we thought we’d be when we were young men and women. But we find new dreams and reasons to cherish what we have. New Moon allows for young people to feel the emotions and recovery of those ragged moments and feel in a safe environment how to get through it. I found that emotional journey very real and my daughter and I have talked about the insanity I went through during my first year of divorce and how I could end up pregnant. These chapters allowed us to have a common ground of understanding in dealing with pain and sorrow of that period of time in our lives. We went through a time where so many of our dreams died and had to be reshaped and rewritten.

Now to my irritation with the fact that Bella doesn’t actually go to college in the book. Those who find this insulting to women seem to feel that since Bella doesn’t go to college during the book because of an unexpected and complicated pregnancy, it must mean that she never goes to college EVER!! Because apparently you can’t go to college later, and having children or getting married means that your not living up to your potential. Bella made a choice to love Edward forever, and to keep their relationship in balance, she didn’t want to be too much older then Edward in appearance so they didn’t look awkward in whatever “story” they would concoct to hide being vampires. Even though the Cullens all appear to have gone to college several times over through their lives, its taken for granted, I suppose, that Bella will never go to college EVER!! All because she dared get married and then got accidentally pregnant. How utterly absurd. Its a story. It was not written to comment on modern pop culture or to push an agenda. It was one woman’s love story. Her fantasy. Its this humble bloggers opinion that Bella does a pretty good job of dealing with the situation she finds herself in, mistakes and all.

Now don’t get me wrong. My kids know that if they marry before 25 I’m grounding them for life. And both know I want them to go to college. But I don’t consider that if they get married their lives are over. That somehow they have cheapened themselves and are living beneath themselves. College and higher learning are very important, and necessary for most good jobs. But this idea that somehow a woman is less of a “real woman” if she hasn’t gone to college first bugs me. Perhaps its because I didn’t get a chance to go to school as a young woman. I spent the first two years of my marriage pregnant. And life was rough because both my ex and I were young and struggling. Not the ideal in any way to start a family, but in no way do I consider my family to be the lessor of my choices. Tadpole’s dad once called me lazy and stupid for not getting myself to college when my kids were babies. I just rolled my eyes. His lack of ability to understand, appreciate or exercise any compassion at the situation I found myself in and how I chose to deal with it, is his problem. Not mine.

This idea that somehow families are not as important or should be pushed aside in the order of ‘real priorities’ bothers me. There is something very wrong when having a family is considered less important then having a career. But one thing is very clear, many of those who are often contemptuous of the choices of having families, will be changing their minds fast enough when their own clocks start ticking and they suddenly find themselves considering medical help to get the kids they had no time for earlier in life. All the while still snearing at the rest of us woman who had children earlier.

This story is a fantasy written for one woman, Stephanie. Written by her, for her. That we all love this delicious love story and find many things that we identify with is just a bonus. That Steph has four of her five books in the top 12 books being sold on the best seller list says that the feelings she evokes are very much the feelings we also want to be feeling.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.