The Birth and Revival

Recent happenings have awakened my desires to send my sentiments into the world. Perhaps it was the Forbes article that came out a few months ago warning men not to marry career women. Maybe it was a revisit to my senior thesis on women and competition in the workplace (the unexpected result of Netflixing the Devil Wears Prada). Perhaps it was the yearning for a daily blog while knowing that the angsty voice of my once cherished livejournal has become so passe. But the most direct catalyst for the birth of this blog and the revival of my creative voice is directly related to my new found obsession with Dawn Eden whom I met a few weeks ago when she presented her book The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On to my young adult group at St. Stephens.

In Eden's book, she frequently sites the "Sex and the City" mentality and it's destructive tendencies on our bodies and emotions (not to mention our souls).

Suddenly, I was reminded of those old diametric forces in my belief system that had screamed "hypocrite" at me in my women's studies classes. There it was. That "all or nothing" mentality. It's Bell Hooks' writing jumping off the page insisting that anyone who is against abortion is against women. It's the shame in feeling uncomfortable towards topics such as pornography and erotica, after all, to not embrace them is to not embrace the liberation of women! It's the assumption that conservatism (especially social) and feminism are enemies.

In my reading of the book Eden bravely confronts these conflicts. Granted, it's not the purpose of her book to explore the dangers of the pigeonholed feminism, but by confronting one aspect of it (that being sexuality) she actually, in my mind, makes a stand for the unlikely feminist.

Ok, perhaps its a spurious correlation, and I would NEVER want to put words into this wonderful author's mouth. But in MY head, Eden is a warrior for the idea that certain aspects of modern feminism and its militant "all or nothing attitude" actually hurt women.

So anyway, welcome to this new project. Hopefully, it will turn into something great. Because being pro-women isn't just politics and theory. It's part of every decision we make everyday.