Am I a feminist?

Sitting in the enormous gym at TCC waiting for Shekinah to have her turn on the uneven bars, I feel my phone buzz and check it.   It's a friend and he asks me if I am a feminist and how I would define that personally.

Well I have a few things to draw from as I come up with my answer.

1. The other women I know that call themselves feminists.  Some of them man haters, some of them who spell woman "womyn" so that there is no "man" in the word.  A few of them believe in decency and respect for both sexes equally.
2. My Christianity which tells me that no I can't be a feminist!!
3. My own thoughts on women and men.

I beat around the bush with my answer for a good length of time giving the definitions I think my friends would give and then explaining some biblical texts that..... we won't bother opening right now.

Then finally he asks again and I'm left with just my own thoughts.  I quickly go to wikipedia to look up the definition properly but when I open the page, I am challenged to consider my own definition so I close it.

I believe that women are 100% equal to men and deserve every opportunity that a man would get. I believe women should be valued for every aspect of who they are and not just their looks. I believe women are intelligent capable strong beautiful people.  So my definition didn't come from wikipedia or the dictionary but from what I see around me.  So am I a feminist?

I think my problem might be how "feminists" view men.  Cause frankly I don't have a problem with men either.  Sometimes I think feminism is just a good excuse to man hate and people call themselves feminists after being severely hurt by a man.  I don't want to judge because each person has their own experience and who am I to know.  Weeelllllll.  But I've been hurt too right along with every other woman on the planet. Still, I think men are so valuable too. (really heather, did you just write that? "so valuable too"?  Excuse me while I powder my nose!)

So if feminism is an opportunity to disregard men in any sense, then no I am not.  But if it's an opportunity to allow women to be all that they can be and to celebrate them, then sure I am.  Isn't every woman?

So then, yesterday morning I woke up to a text that was a link to a podcast.  Someone asking a known Calvinist minister, John Piper, if it was ok if men read books written by women since that could potentially go against the scripture that says a woman should not be permitted to teach a man.

I listened to it on the stepper at the gym after a 45 min teaching on the philosophy of Berkeley and quite frankly I thought the lunacy of Berkeley was easier to swallow than the podcast.

Ok, hold on a second here.  My first problem is this - someone ASKED that question?  Like someone crawled out of their cave for more firewood long enough to ask that question?  Forget the answer which was equally appalling, but I am wondering why we are even occupying time and space with such an absurd question.

I'm wondering at what age a woman is no longer allowed to teach a man.  That's sincere for those who hold to such opinions.  My son let's say - I'm allowed to teach my 6 year old boy right?  How about my 11 year old?  At what age is he suddenly sinning to be taught by me?  If anyone has some light on that I would love to waste some more time and space.

The young boys that we spend our lives teaching and molding to be men will one day reach a certain age that it will be wrong for them to be taught by us?  I'm not sure I know how to understand that.

So am I going to stand on a picket line with a sign to fight for the rights of women?  No, I'm not.  Do I think it's great that someone else does?  Yes.  Do I think women have the right to do anything and everything that a man does?  Absolutely.  Do I look down on men?  No.  Am I going to hand my boys books written by both men and women and tell them that the treasure inside of the book has nothing to do with what "private parts" they have, but has everything to do with the intelligence and creativity of the individual regardless of their sex?  Absolutely!!

Does that make me a feminist?