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The summer before I started 5th grade, my dad taught my sister and me how to play poker. Almost every evening, my sister and I would spill the poker chips onto the dining room table, excited to “ante up” as my dad shuffled the cards. We caught on pretty quickly to the game and all it entailed: the hierarchy of hands with a Royal Flush on the top, “One-eyed Jacks are wild”, etc. I felt so cool those nights like my dad was giving me the password to enter some secret dad’s club, into which most kids are not allowed.
My dad and mom taught my sister and me countless valuable lessons growing up, and only recently did I realize one lesson they have been teaching me since the moment I was born. A lesson that has been woven through every word and action of my parents, which some dads do not teach their daughters. Along with my mom, my dad taught me how to be a feminist before I was even interested in what “being a feminist” means.
Here are a few examples of how my dad instilled feminist values in me and my sister growing up:
1. Investing In Me:
I have a piggy bank in my room, into which my dad has been putting his spare change for years. Countless times have I been in my room, reading or getting ready for school, when my dad would walk in and – with no questions asked – head straight to the piggy bank. It was a simple act: putting a few coins into a piggy bank, but consistently seeing my dad financially invest in me throughout the years has made me aspire to do something good with the money I have been given and earn. My dad trusted me to one day use my finances and talents to serve the world; he believed in the kind of woman I would become, and I am grateful to have the gift of that unconquerable mindset.
In my career, I will make 78 cents to every white man’s dollar (women of color make even less; as low as 54 cents to every white man’s dollar). This gender wage gap shows how our society views women as literally being worth less than men. But my dad, a few coins, and a piggy bank remind me that I am not worth less.
2. Never Policing My Outfit Choices:
I bought my first bikini when I was twelve. It was not an invitation for boys to take advantage of me. It was not something I should have been ashamed of wearing. To me, it was just a swim suit; and that was how it remained. Not once in my life has my dad criticized my outfit choices or told me to go “cover up” before allowing me out with my friends. Not once have I had been made to feel ashamed of my body by my dad.
In a society where my sister and I were bombarded with ads and magazines of beautiful, happy women with clear skin, perfect hair, and skinny bodies along with stories condemning rape victims by asking, “Well, what were they wearing?”, we could have easily been weighed down with the double standard placed on women: Be desirable, yet not so much to gain too much male attention. But that weight was lifted at home where those toxic messages never touched us.
My dad taught me it is not my responsibility to “protect myself” from the eyes and hands of men who “just can’t help it”. The responsibility in preventing the harassment of women lies in the hands of those doing the assaulting – it is never the responsibility of the victim.
3. Not Conforming to Gender Roles:
Every Valentine’s Day morning while my sister and I lived at home, we would wake up to a hallway decorated with pink and red balloons, paper hearts, and streamers. My dad would have the first clue of his annual “Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt” waiting for us in the living room. The clues were always a rhyme or some sort of limerick; and by the end of the scavenger hunt my sister and I would be loaded down with all the candy hearts, teddy bears, and trinkets we found, along with the bliss of feeling absolutely loved.
My dad shows his love and emotions without restraint.
He was the one who cried for a week when I left for college, the one who wrote me letters saying how proud he was of me after my graduations, the one who gives speeches filled of love at family reunions or at my sister’s wedding. My dad showed me and my sister that men can have emotions; that men can make a smaller salary than their wives and have no problem with it; that men can cook and clean; and that women do not “belong” in any place other than where they choose. Men do not have to conform to societal gender roles, and neither do I. I have a critical eye for gender roles after being raised by parents who do not conform to them. I am not limited to the expectations society holds for women.
4. Letting Us Make Our Own Decisions:
I write this while sitting in the backseat of my car, as my parents are driving me to Mississippi to begin my year with the AmeriCorps. I know they are going to miss me more than I can imagine – I have not yet come close to knowing the kind of love parents have for their children. But they have not reserved one ounce of support for me throughout the process of my planning to move away. They supported my sister with the same kind of brave love when she decided to move to North Carolina last year. There is no resentment; no wishing for us to feel guilty for leaving.
This kind of letting go and letting us make our own decisions also applies to when my sister and I do not want to do something.
We learned that our “no” can and should be respected, without question. When I was in 2nd grade, I remember sitting at a stoplight with my dad, waiting to turn left to head to my soccer practice. I hated soccer. I had played just one game and had fallen into the mud as my intense coach yelled from the sidelines (it was not the Olympics, we were a bunch of 8-year-olds – simmer down, dude). So, I meekly said to my dad, “I don’t want to go to soccer anymore…”, waiting for him to respond with a, “you just started, why don’t you stick it out a little longer?” or “I just drove all the way to pick you up for soccer practice, so we’re going”; but I was not that surprised at what my dad actually did: He said “okay”, and flipped the blinker to the right, taking me home.
Along with all women and girls, my judgment, consent, and feelings should be respected and valued. And my dad taught me that.
Teaching me how to be a feminist taught me how to love myself, which can be one of the most difficult lessons to learn, especially for a young woman.
So, thank you, dad. And thank you to all the dads who teach their daughters to be feminists.
Those girls will shake the world.
This article originally appeared on Picking Up Pens