Response to HBM, again

I keep reading Her Bad Mother's blog and starting to post a response, only to have so much to say that it turns into an entire post.

Sigh. Why can't I just be self-inspired? But, anyhow, here's what I had to say about HBM's recent post about Rachel Cooke's recent article/post/thingy:

I thought the whole point of feminism was to be able to choose what the heck you want to do with your life, be it working in a factory, breaking the glass ceiling, becoming liberated sexually... OR being a teacher, a secretary, a mother.

But, this is not the case. To be a REAL feminist, you must embrace only "cool" things, meaning you may not embrace anything that was ever socially cool before the 1960s.

To be a truly EMPOWERED woman, there are some choices that are off-limits to you.

I'm sorry, but I would be as miserable being a so-called feminist as they would be if they were time warped into the early 1950s, never to return.

I am a secretary. I am a damn good secretary. I type my boss's dictation at 80+ wpm. I am a queen of organization, juggling things into a format that will add credence to my boss's expert testimony in important legal trials, saving our client (the defendant) from frivolous or falsified lawsuits worth millions of dollars. I don't get credit for that from the client or the jury, and I couldn't care less. I make my boss look good, and I know it, and he knows it, and I'm proud of it. I get paid decent money, but I'm never going to be able to solely fund my household expenses.

This (part time) secretarial job gives me the freedom to do other things I enjoy, like go to school. Why do I want to go to school, get a degree? Is it so I can break out of the secretarial drudgery and become AN EMPOWERED WOMAN!?

Nah! I love being a secretary, but I would also love to teach. I'm excited about the prospect of molding young minds to love reading (my personal favorites are the fluff stuff - fantasy and "cozy" mysteries) and to be understanding of other cultures, other perspectives.

Horrors! shout the feminists! You want to go from one miserably low-paying, under-credited, feeeeeemale pigeonholed job to another? You want to have to spend your life serving others and never really getting credit for it? ZOMG!!!11!!one!!

And to them I reply - HECK yeah. But before I am able to finish my degree, I'm going to be doing that for my kids. Yes, kids, with an S, because I have more love to give than just one kid worth. I actually LIKE breastfeeding (although yep, it does steal away some of the time I could be READING ya know...)

I actually WANT to give away part of my life to my kids, I am actually OKAY with putting off my other ambitions to focus solely on them.

So all you by-the-book feminists out there who think I'm an idiot, you can just go suck it. You're the one that doesn't understand the concept of being able to make whatever choice you want in life. You're just as bad as the emo kids, as the punk kids of the 90s, as the hippies, as the greasers... "freeing yourself" by the completely unimaginative method of pigeonholing yourself into whatever choices are the opposite of standard. Where is the freedom in that? Where is the empowerment? You are empowered to make whatever choices you want and do anything in life, as long as you don't do anything on this list [insert social norms/habits here].

How is it that I am setting myself back by making the choice that I actually want to make? Just because it would have been expected of me 50-60 years ago, I am not allowed to actually find enjoyment in my freely-decided choice?

We aren't able to grow babies in jars quite yet. So, although every person who has ever come into being has come from a mother, choosing to BE a mother is unacceptable, not preferred, not important enought to vie with any other profession or calling?

Rachel Cooke shockingly said in her post: Once upon a time, educated women fought to separate their identities from the ideal of mother, knowing that until the two came to be seen as wholly distinct they would never be taken seriously; and, in any case, who wants to be defined by only one aspect of their life?

Say what? You're saying, as an educated woman, I should be defined as solely that? You're saying that I cannot be taken seriously if I also consider myself a mother, even if my body has physically gone through the process of becoming a parent? Although it has been a life-altering experience (and continues to impact my life daily), I should not acknowledge that motherhood has altered my identity and added new facets to it?

But wait!.... who wants to be defined by only one aspect of their life?!

And so that I don't accidentally bore someone, or worse, allow them a chance to compare us and feel that they are somehow inadequate (and then blame me for their own feelings of inadequacy)?

Also annoying to me: Rachel went to a site that was ABOUT babies, and then complained that they were encouraging to share anecdotes about their babies. WTH?
Finally, her statement that For men, it just confirms what many of them secretly think, which is that women, bottom line, are only really interested in one thing, and that is making babies, and why should they be promoted or taken seriously or paid well? ... if Rachel is capable of telling the difference between so-called Dummy Mummies and mothers-she-doesn't-disdain, is she assuming that men are incapable of telling the difference between child-obsessed Dummy Mummies and sneering, intolerant feminists who are in no uncertain terms NOT interested in making babies? So now she is both intolerant AND misanthropic?

Right on, Jill, with your comment on HBMs site. You said all I said, but more concisely. Especially, Feminism took the wrong course when it decided that in order for women to be just as good as men, they had to do all the same things that men do. WRONG! They just had to stop thinking that what they were ALREADY doing was stupid, boring, a waste of time, ad nauseum a la Cooke.

So I ask you... is feminism about being as close to the standard manly ideal as possible, or about being free to define womanly in whatever way you want to define it?