Figuring Out Feminism

I did not want to be a feminist. I was pro-life, after all. Feminists are not pro-life. I had picked up many images over the years that told me feminists hate men and love abortion. An episode of Roseanne told me that feminists burn bras. So I sat there, still green in my new role as an advocate for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and tried not to let myself like the suffragette movie that my coworker had popped in the VCR for our group session that week.
Of course women are equal, and deserved to vote, but feminism didn’t really have much of a place in our world anymore right?
When I began to seriously consider this question, I started a blogging project. I learned more about The Guiding Star Project and other pro life feminist groups. I had several, legitimate girl-crush moments as I was Facebook friended by women that I had read about and whose words helped me to reconcile what my heart had known: feminism is pro life.
I identify in many ways with the new face of the new feminism movement. I speak out against domestic and sexual violence. I speak out against abortion. I own the new feminism label, if for no other reason to “rebrand” what mainstream feminism has become. Pro life feminism (or New Feminism) addresses so much more than pregnancy or abortion. The movement seeks support for women and families beyond merely the right to life. It was the holistic approach I had been searching for to reconcile my advocacy work and my moral pro life convictions.
Still, the label isn’t as simple for me as it may seem.
There are a few questions that keep me seeking more information:

1. In discussions about feminism, it is inevitable that a “What about men?” or “I support all of humanity, not just women.” or “Why be a feminist where you can be a HUMANist?” will pop up. So, why feminism?
2. Just as the whole pro life thing sort of disqualifies me as a mainstream feminist, I sort of feel discounted within new feminism because my body was not naturally equipped to push out four large children, I don’t enjoy breast feeding in the least, and there is no way a single person that knows me would choose the word “nurturing” as one of the three words that best describes me. What is a girl that is caught in between to do?

Just like any other movement that supports equality for a particular group of human beings, supporting a society that values women for all that they are does not mean that we elevate the cause above other human beings. New feminism simply seeks to shape society around the inherent dignity of both men and women as opposed to redefining womanhood to fit a society that only values the dignity of men.
This is no easy task, even for someone that identifies as a feminist. Like me. I struggle with understanding what my inherent dignity and womanhood means.
I can recite complementarian logic: Men and women are different and equal. (Men complement women and women compliment men.) Women have natural gifts that are different than the natural gifts of men. I’ve been writing about femininity and all the awesome and great things that women can do for years, but I still feel lost sometimes.
The struggle for me centers on this totally made up but not really made up conversation.
 

Friend: Yeah! Feminine Genius rocks! Women are awesome.
Another Friend: What is ‘feminine genius’?
Friend: It encompasses all the things women are great at: their natural abilities.
Another Friend: Cool. Like what?
Friend: Oh, you know. Like child birth, breast feeding, NURTURING.

Then I pull my hair out. Four c-sections right here, and while I can probably squirt a bowling pin down from across the room with my incredible milk supply, I stink at nurturing. To hear ad nauseam that women are good and womanly things like NURTURING, and emotions, and feelings, and NURTURING is really sort of depressing (wait. That’s a feeling, right?) when you just aren’t nurturing.
Before I get a com box filled with fake no, that’s not trues, it is. My child comes to me hurting, screaming, and crying and my first instinct is not to kiss and make it better: it is to address the snapping issue in my brain and try my best not to cringe and back away saying “Dude, why are you coming at me I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING PLEASE LEAVE.”
So, Pope Francis using fresh terms was a relief. This in particular:

We have not yet understood in depth what things the feminine genius can give us, that woman can give to society and also to us. Perhaps to see things with different eyes that complements the thoughts of men. It is a path that must be crossed with more creativity and more boldness.
 

Just as there is not one type of man, women are different. We all have different strengths, different weaknesses, different fashion senses. I am comfortable in my own skin. I have things that I need to work on (it probably wouldn’t kill me to be more emotive, empathetic, sensitive…) but I don’t need to change in order to show how my feminine genius is not broken. I’m a woman. Boom. Creativity and boldness – you heard the pope.
I don’t have it all figured out yet. I don’t think that you have to have all the answers to be on board with new feminism. It’s a diverse movement, and there is much to learn. I’m going to keep asking myself:
Where do you stand?