You know there’s a history test that individuals applying for naturalization have to take, right?

And, yes, I’m recycling a (very slightly modified) post from before anybody read my blog.  You got a problem with that?  I figure that people with real jobs (ha, ha) get six weeks maternity leave.  As of Wednesday, I will only be at week four, so expect a few more recycled posts.  This one is about feminism… as the title indicates.  I apologize for the length, but, I was not the succinct and polished blogger that I am today when I wrote the following post (ha ha, again).

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I was sitting in the ninth circle of hell yesterday, or what some people call a “training session.”

Just as I was going to try to muster up my long forgotten high school talent of sleeping with my eyes open, our moderator, an unnaturally chipper young woman in her 20s, said, “So, we have such and such speaker coming next month who will be discussing the evolution of the feminist movement over the past few decades in this and that room.”  Then she rolled her eyes and said, “I mean, I’m not a feminist or anything, but, if that’s your thing, you should come.”

After much deliberation I have decided that this young woman simply does not know what feminism really is and that is the only logical explanation why such a bright person would be so negative about feminism.

So, I asked around to find out how other people define feminists. Apparently, people think that feminists are almost always lesbians with an aversion to depilatory procedures who hate men and think the world would be a better place without them.

This is not only untrue, it is just stupid.  I know that’s harsh, but facing up to our stupidity is perhaps the ugliest of all human burdens.

Believing that a feminist is always the above described person (who by the way is a perfectly acceptable sample of a human being) is as stupid as believing that one particular race of people are inferior due to the color of their skin or believing that Lindsay Lohan is never going to rehab again.

So, let’s discuss the American feminist movement as painlessly and quickly as possible.  (Dear College Freshman, do not base your paper on modern feminism on this post, you will get a “C.”)

Feminist movements of the 19th and 20th century centered upon suffrage, or the right to vote.

The feminist movements of the 60s centered upon social issues, such as women’s right to equal access to education, equality in the workplace and reproductive choices (this includes but is not limited to the issue of abortion).  A few feminists in this era burned some bras, but the majority of them, contrary to popular belief, did not.

These days, feminism builds upon these past concepts, but also recognizes that Western women should not be dictating feminist agendas to the world’s diverse populations (or even the diverse populations within their own countries.)

The Oxford American Dictionary defines feminism as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men.”  If you live in the United States of America, you really should not have a problem with that.

In fact, you should be for that.

If you live outside of the United States, well, according to most new generation feminists, also called “post feminists,” we might not agree with how women are treated in your country, but we believe that they should be the ones who set the agenda for those changes, not us.  (This is a particularly complicated issue, so I’m not going to delve too deeply here.)

I find it ironic that many Americans will roll their eyes at the mention of feminism, but quickly jump on the “Saudi’s need to let their women drive” bandwagon.  Interestingly, we decry feminism at home, but champion its cause as we attempt to denigrate cultures and value systems outside our own with the intent of, at least culturally, subjugating them.

Let me wrap this up by telling you what I believe American feminism is not.

American feminism is not an excuse to point out the flaws of men.  As a matter of fact, many men are feminists, too.  Not because they are afraid their “butch” wives are going to beat them up, but because they believe women are their social, political and economic equals.

Feminism is not a platform aimed at disintegrating motherhood, staying at home or family values.

Feminism is not the reason kids in our society seem to be from another planet (I personally believe this one can be attributed to Nicole Ritchie and Paris Hilton who are, in fact, from another planet).

When someone brings up the movement for racial equality in the United States, do you go out of your way to distance yourself from it?

Do you roll your eyes or get a stupid grin on your face like someone has just said something very funny?

No, you don’t.

Unless of course your white hood and robe are drying on a gentle setting and you’re running a few minutes late for your weekly cross burning.

So, why do Americans do this when the feminist movement is brought up?

I’ll end with the following correspondence, which I have no intention of sending:

Dear Ms. 20-something,

American feminism has a long history, over 130 years in its making.

You don’t have to be feminist if you don’t want to, I don’t mind if it’s not your thing.
However, since you are a woman living in America, I respectfully ask that you appreciate what these women did for you and treat them with more respect by refraining from acting like they are crazy PETA members who throw red paint on celebrities wearing fur.

They gave you choices and opportunities that women in other parts of the world are literally dying to have.

They fought for your right to vote, your right to be educated in any field of your choosing, your right to work in any field of your choice, your right to make decisions regarding your reproductive system, your right to have legal recourse if someone says or does sexually inappropriate things to you in your workplace and many other rights that you now take for granted.

No, feminism may not be your thing, but, Ms. 20-something, feminism is your blessing.

P.S. Please stop calling other women your age “girls.”  Girls play with Barbies and Little Ponies.  You are a woman, as are other women your age.

P.P.S. And stop saying “like” every two minutes.

P.P.P.S.  And don’t bounce when you talk.  It’s distracting.

A short Frenchmen decides to invade Egypt around 1800.  OK, 1799, if you want to get technical.

He charges a few men called “archaeologists” with the task of poking around for items of historical significance.

Soon, they stumble across a big rock.  It’s a little less than four feet tall and little over two feet wide.  It weighs almost two thousand pounds.  This rock has three different languages written on it: hieroglyphic, demotic and classical Greek.

Because it has the same phrase written in all three of these languages, these men are able to finally decipher hieroglyphs, thereby ushering in a whole new realm of knowledge about the development of human civilization.

And, because this rock is found in a place called Rosetta and also because “Rosetta Rock” would never sell as a foreign language software, this artifact becomes known as the Rosetta Stone.

About a hundred years later, another French guy stumbles across some tablets in the Middle East.  The text on this rock is seriously bossy.  It says stuff like, “If you build a house for someone and it falls on their head, you shall be put to death,” and “if you kidnap someone’s son, you shall be put to death,” and “if you read someone’s blog but never leave comments, you will be put to death.”

I might have embellished on the last one a bit.

So, anyway, it turns out that this rock is bossy because the person who had it written happened to be a Mesopotamian king and was in charge of… well, Mesopotamia or something like that.

If you’re ever in Paris, you can visit this artifact at the Louvre.  It happens to be the oldest recorded set of human laws in existence, yet it sits relatively alone and unacknowledged while two floors up people climb over each other for an hour with the hopes of getting a rushed  glance at what turns out the be a rather disappointing and highly mediocre painting known as the Mona Lisa.

I live for stuff like this.

Archaeology seems to hold the  potential of a spiritual discovery that promises to transcend discrete personal experiences.  As an archaeologist, it seems that a person has the opportunity to discover the spirit of entire civilizations. Even of all humankind.

This fascination of mine will hit me at odd times during the day.  Like today, it happened when I was standing in line at the grocery store.

I don’t know why, but the first thing that popped into my head were the Rosetta Stone and Hammurabi’s code.

I pictured a dusty 28th century futurewoman in her space suit (you know, because we won’t have a breathable atmosphere by then), wading through the remnants of a 21st century Winn Dixie.  Plastic bottles and shredded rubber abound.  Wasted down cash registers litter a cracked tile floor while a soft wind blows a few wayward plastic bags past her feet.

This is what they drank from, she thinks as she turns the bottle upside down.  Sturdy.  For a primitive civilization, they displayed a great deal of ingenuity.

She examines a candy bar wrapper, and plugs the symbols into her handheld device.  S-n-i-c-k-e-r-s.  She doesn’t recognize the word.  Obviously this paper wrapped around this thing called a Snickers.  Perhaps an electronic device? Or, she squints at the word “Ingredients”… Ahh, it was some sort of a processed food.

Her perusal of the place will lead her to more than one conclusion.  This is either where these people purchased their food or where they stored it.

The structure is rather grand.  She closes her eyes and imagines what is now wasted and forgotten as it might have been nearly eight hundred years ago… clean, airy, full of light, and rather glorious.

She’ll be fascinated.  She’ll know that for all the development of the subsequent centuries, our civilizations are not that different… we hoped, we dreamed, we loved… we ate.

She’ll realize that though we are dead and gone, we were a noble civilization and, hence, her pursuit of uncovering who we were proves just as noble.

With these thoughts swimming through my head, I absorbed my surroundings with a renewed perspective.

Then, I saw these.

…

I then surmised that it’s very fortunate for us and futurewoman that we don’t write on two thousand pound rocks, anymore.