When A Feminist Isn't A Feminist

I've been thinking a lot lately about women and power dynamics. Really, it's been on my mind since I first started seminary three years ago--and started meeting women who had some power.

In short, I realized there's a difference between women who are feminists, and women who are simply after power. A woman who wants power is in it for herself. She will feel no qualms about stepping on, or even crushing any woman under her on her way to the top, in her quest to attain or maintain power.

That's not the kind of woman I can admire. Even though many of these women would call themselves feminists.

A feminist, on the other hand, knows that the liberation of one does not come without the liberation of all, and will extend a hand to help the women who are under her--whether by being younger, or by being students, or laywomen, or of a different color or ethnicity or orientation or economic status. They may break through the glass ceiling, but they're not going to turn around and start nailing down boards, and concrete, trying to prevent other women from coming through after them.

Wish I didn't see it all the time. Hope I never get like that.
Wonder if you see it coming when you do get like that, or if it just sneaks up on you?