Donald D’Haene is a capital-F Feminist because of his mother’s life.
“Do you think I’m something?”
That line halted my channel flipping one afternoon.
In the old episode of All in The Family, each time Edith Bunker asked Archie that question her words were met with either silence or avoidance. Her daughter, Gloria, was so upset with her for not standing up to Archie that she told her mother, “Daddy is right. You are one hundred times nothing.” In the end, Archie would only offer, “You are something else.”
If only life would mimic such great sitcom lines. Maybe it does.
That same evening, as I was mentally preparing myself to attend an event sponsored by a women’s support group for abused women, my mother kept asking, “Where are you going tonight?” and after, “So, how was it?”
I just didn’t want to describe the moving event in quick, superficial terms so I avoided replying until I found an article covering the event in the paper the following morning.
“This is where I was—when you read it, you’ll understand.”
How do you tell your mother, “The real reason I was there was because of you?”
You see, my mother was Edith Bunker—but she couldn’t have even asked her husband, “Do you think I am something?” She wouldn’t have dared.
Her life is why I am the feminist I am.
From the moment I saw her crying, holding her just-hit face, looking into my four-year-old eyes in helplessness, I knew she was something and I would dedicate my life to making her believe it.
At four years old that’s a tall order for any child, but it is what it is. Nothwithstanding the amount of current psychobabble on the subject, that’s what children often do—rescue a parent in need.
Nevertheless, I could totally relate to sitcom Gloria’s anger at her mother. How many times do you have to tell victims of domestic violence they do mean something?
I remember a few years ago I asked my mother if she would have married again and her husband hit her, what would she do?
“Well, I’d hope it wouldn’t happen again.”
I don’t think my work will be done anytime soon.
Soon after the Edith Bunker incident, I spoke at an event in which I touched on my mother’s story. The host of the evening read the following in part of my bio: “He’s also a card-carrying, poster-boy, proselytizing, you-name-it, Feminist with a capital F—if feminism is defined as he says, as ‘a condition of men who become hypersensitive, too imaginative, and lacking in the traits that are supposed to be masculine.’”
I recall waiting in the wings listening to those words I had supplied and thinking I wish I had been more serious in my declaration instead of making it light to make the statement more palatable.
Even so, during my speech I boldly stated, “I recently found out a rapist/murderer, who I also knew as a kid, served his 20 years, remarried and is living happily ever after under a new name. His former wife? She raised their four children alone and a few years ago suffered a debilitating stroke. I can’t help comparing that to my mother’s lot in life. She’s only had one man in her life. He married 4 more times and is living happily ever after. My mother? She’s had chronic fatigue syndrome for 20 years. I don’t wonder why, but who said life had anything to do with being fair?”
Imagine my surprise when I was later informed, by a woman no less, that one man in the audience didn’t like my saying that I was a feminist and said that those he was with felt the same way. She hoped it would be food for thought for me.
Oh, it is. Sometimes the most well-meaning people just don’t get it. Giving voice to those women and children who have been silenced by violence means just that. They have one. Unique, original, individual, but it’s one thing they can call their own.
Every time I’ve given a speech since then, I make the declaration, “I am a Feminist!” myself and I make sure I add, “By the way, if I don’t upset someone here tonight, I don’t think I’ve done my job.”
I will be more bold, not less, for the rest of my life.
My mother will never understand, and probably deny her role in my journey towards Feminism, but nowadays you just might hear her admit, “I am something.”
And that, Archie Bunker, is something else.
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Image courtesy of the author
“Ancient one side view of DV” is not a comment about your age…..But a comment about how outdated that view point of DV is. Women commit DV just as often as men do….it’s a Human failing. Jumping from one extreme viewpoint to the opposite extreme viewpoint doesn’t show much growth in critical thinking. Going from men are the lord and master to men are bad/evil/cruel, while jumping over the middle ground that both women and men are equally human,ie: people that have failings they need to work to overcome.
I know you were commenting on my age. I was kidding. I know that women commit DV. No argument here. But I stand by my column as a comment on what I AM talking about: my mother’s life with my father. Where do you read that I think men are bad/evil/cruel? I love men…I’d better as I’ve been with my partner for 15 years! I have a lot more to say on this subject (much is covered in my memoir: http://www.fatherstouch.com/). Being a Feminist in my life has nothing to do with bashing men – it has to do with… Read more »
Yet looking at women as being fully equal to men necessitates accepting they have the same/equvalent moral failings and lapes as men do, No better and no worse.
Donald1961 here…I love your comment. I am old ’cause I don’t know what DV stands for? (Oh, just asked my editor, he says Domestic Violence) Nevertheless, just because I wrote the story above doesn’t mean I am not an advocate for men’s rights. I for one have heard all my life a male point of view. Grew up in a very conservative religion, never heard a gay or a feminist speak until I was in my middle 20s. So after a lifetime of brainwashing that men are lord and masters over women and children, I take it as a compliment… Read more »
Why on a website for and about men, do we still get this ancient one sided view of DV?