Feminist SAHMs

I know some homeschoolers who do not identify as feminists, and some who even abhor the idea of feminism for one reason or another. Many of them, however, are strongly feminist, including yours truly, even though we are stay-at-home moms. Some of us work and some don’t, and like the author of this piece at Blue Milk, I think that feminists everywhere need to make peace with the fact that some moms WANT to stay at home and raise their families.

We say feminism is about having choices, but for some reason when women choose to stay home it rubs some feminists the wrong way. I think if either parent can remain at home—or if both can work from home for a truly flexible environment, even—it’s ideal (at least, for my family). But every family is different and we need to acknowledge and respect that.

In other feminist parenting news, Disney is making over Merida, the awesome heroine of Brave, from her fresh-faced, grinning familiar form into a makeup-caked, cleavage-bearing princess akin to the other Disney princesses. Moms (and dads) are furious, calling for Disney to keep Merida as she is (and as we already love her)—even the creator of Merida is angry. You can sign a petition to keep Merida the way she is here.

Have you noticed that there’s a paucity of female characters on cereal boxes these days? I’m all about equal representation in the media—not just of gender, but of color, sexual orientation and all walks of people. The thing is, our population is half female—but you’d never know it by watching a children’s movie, or buying a cereal box. Why do Shrek, Puss and Donkey of the Shrek franchise, for example, all get Cheerios roles when Fiona is left out? I don’t want to even just see one female character for every group of male characters; I want to see HALF of them as females. And I don’t think I’m asking for a tall order at all.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia