Thanks to my great friend and an activist who has always put her convictions into action, Rita Dickinson for this guest post. She wrote this moving personal essay after attending a WomenGirlsLadies intergenerational panel.
After attending the Feldt-Barbanell Women of the World Lecture at Arizona State University recently, I have questioned if I can honestly call myself a feminist. I always thought of myself as one, but do I deserve to wear the badge? The remarkable women on the panel had defining moments that justified them considering themselves feminists. I don’t have one “aha” moment. My sense of feminism is more organic.
My childhood was glorious. I am a Boomer, but June Cleaver was only a fantasy character on television. Conversely, I didn’t have militant women in my life either. Women surrounding me were strong, independent, and smart. Although our family is small, I had eight significant female relatives within reach: my mother, my grandmothers, my great-grandmother, my aunt, two great aunts and a great-great aunt.
Most of the significant influences in my childhood were subtle, yet extremely fond memories. I remember attending graduate classes with my mother, taking colored pencils and newsprint (we weren’t allowed to have coloring books – they would stifle creativity). We spent a great deal of time outdoors; we went to the beach, and we camped every summer. None of this is remarkable, except that my mother had survived polio when pregnant with my older brother, resulting in paralysis from the waist-down.
One of my earliest memories is of serving cookies at Red Cross blood drives while my mother volunteered. And I remember when I was about nine years old, a man at church said something about my mother being a paraplegic. I assured him that she was a Christian. I guess I had never heard the word.
I never felt my family was different from others until a few years ago
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Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 10:09AM 
Gloria Feldt