NOTES OF FEMINIST DAD

By Aaron Freeman

Like many men of my generation I learned feminism in the nineteen seventies because it was the only way I could get laid. My romantic world was, at that time dominated by women of Oberlin and NYU, whose feminist consciousness had been raised to Olympian heights. The basic rule of my 70's "wimmin" friends was that any man who didn't feel guilty about sex wasn't getting any from them.

These were women who spent the better part of the decade waving their speculums in the air and forcing their boyfriends to study their cervixes while declaring "See there are no teeth in there!" Thus I became a charter subscriber to MS, a charter member of NOW. I read The Feminine Mystique, "The Second Sex," "Fear of Flying," "The Rubyfruit Jungle" and Susan Brownmiler's shame-producing classic, "Against Our Will Men Women and Rape" which filled me with so much sexual guilt I couldn't masturbate for a month.

These days as the father of twin girls I am a feminist parent. I named my daughters Artemis and Diana. Artemis is the Greek name, Diana is the Roman name for the goddess of the hunt avenger of her mother, protector of women and children and killer of men who piss her off. No daughter of mine will ever file a sexual harassment lawsuit. A guy who messes my daughter will not pay for her lawyer but for his own doctor. I want my little girls to be bad bitches. I want them to terrorize all the little boys in the neighborhood. One reason for my desire for dangerously independent daughters is that I'm thirty-seven years old, by the time they are dating I may be too old to chase away boys who bother them, I want girls who can do their own killing.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against sweetness and light, I want them to wear dresses, be charming and coy and cute and deferential, when it suits their manipulative goals. But if I have to choose between Sherlie Temple and l'enfant savage I will take the latter. In the words of feminist songster Jenny Clemmins - "Wild women don't get the blues!"

 

© 2001 Aaron Freeman