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topic: poverty, chastity, derision and freedom from unreal loyalties.

Poverty
I live on about $2000/mo., an amount significantly greater than most of my neighbors, most of whom are retired with some sort of benefits.

Of that I pay
$513 in mortgage & taxes
$60 water (delivered here by truck
$35 in electricity
$72 phone & Internet
$50 LP gas
$54 car insurance (my car, having 250K mi on it, is paid off)
$200 food & groceries (organic foods)
$80 gasoline -- 200 mi. RT required for serious grocery shopping here
$125 charities, causes & gifts
$60 Medicare
$60 supplemental health ins.

The balance currently goes to house repairs and modifications, both labor (generally at $15/hr locally) & materials preparatory to selling my house. This cost has been consistent thruout 2007.

I make my own bread & ice cream and all meals from scratch (no prepared foods, no eating out if at all possible to avoid -- it's not as good anyway). For entertainment it's email, hiking w/ my dogs, library books, and +/- monthly motorcycle excursions w/ a friend on his Harley.

When I sell the house I will put money (affter mortgage) into savings or liquid investment (medical care being so insecure an issue) and hope to enter either the Peace Corps ($6500 stipend for 27 mos.) or the National Parks Svc. as a permanent seasonal employee (6mos paid, 6 mos. on Unemployment). I may buy a used truck & a travel trailer to live in. I will then have money left over, except the increased cost of gasoline and the possibility of having to pay for parking space. I plan to finally send that big donation to BMC

I look forward to this change, despite what my family thinks of my living in a trailer, as I have previously owned a motor home and loved it. I now own the prettiest house for miles around which I love, too, but which is too much maintenance and too much space. I don't need it; further, I am determined to erase all debt.

Chastity
"By chastity is meant that when you have made enough to live on by your profession you must refuse to sell your brain for the sake of money.'

In the past few years I have created murals for a store, a motel, a school, and the Chamber of Commerce. They ranged in size from 3' diameter to 8' hi x 16' wide. I was paid $150-350 ea., tops. They are very good, much admired in my small town (pop. 850) and outside. I feel that I am learning (each of these has taken months, and if I'd known what I was doing it would have been but days or maybe weeks) as well as creating a track record/portfolio. I spent much too much time on each but I cannot quit until they meet my standard -- they must in fact be good.

I published a small newsletter for 3 yrs, lost money on it, and now use the archived articles to supplement new essays I write for my Web site, Nanny.com, which advertises only thru Google -- no flashy stuff. It is a resource library for nannies and their employers. I draw from it a flat monthly fee, included in the total above. I could perhaps get more but this would be enough if not for inflation -- not only gas but everything else as well, despite the official figures.

On principle, I don't buy trinkets or elaborate sets of tools or paints. I like living out here in seclusion as it has taught me real self-reliance: how to use power tools, plan flood control, landscape & garden, avoid TV & other junk pursuits.

Given all the above, I probably don't need to address "freedom from unreal loyalties"; in fact, with Ms. Woolf, I have developed this freedom through poverty and chastity, hers no more nor less relative than mine.

Derison
That I have surely encountered: family who feel that I squander my talents, am naive in the extreme, don't "dress for success" but keep a good shirt for 14 years if I still feel good in it, etc. Beyond family, for my love of ideas and lack of things, my feeling that I am as good as anyone else, which makes some feel that I think I'm better than I am, and maybe so. But I see no better standard than to square what I do with what I believe, rather than with what someone else believes.

I have learned tact, and learned also that tact is not enough. One must fight back, and I am working on that (hence my pugnacious, declarative style!). I have learned enormous independence and built my own self-confidence by work and independent thought and as much reading as I can do.

From this viewpoint my definition of feminism would probably be: the desire & striving to make the most of what I, as a person who happens to be a woman, possess, regardless of whatever anyone else has or thinks of what I have.

This does not seem like feminism, it seems more like honesty.

So I should add something about male vs. female. Yes, there is surely an enormous difference between what I value and what most of society values, and the values of society are largely masculine in origin. My experience with men-in-the-flesh suggests that they think more linearly than I, but I haven't seen anything else to say that there are other fundamental differences. Perhaps the array of differences -- fighting, conquering, physical prowess, drinking, debauchery, whatever comes up -- come from this one difference, but I have not tested 10,000, complete with controls so as to know from personal experience. Nor have I read enough, researched enough as did Ms. Woolf, to her credit.

But I do know that my way of life is a good one and that I as a woman both recommend it and see serious parallels -- do you not? -- with Ms. Woolf's ideals.

Finally, I have read almost thru the 3 Guineas, and I keep feeling that she is arguing not for feminism as such but for the ideals of individualism, self-sufficiency, poverty & chastity, etc., not for women as such but for the right of women to access all that men have access to, without of course succumbing to the same temptations.

So perhaps the question is, as she herself puts it, would women (having this slight difference in orientation) succeed where men fail?

It seems clear that if no one showed up for the draft, and penalties for launching war (not to mention acting uncooperatively or seeking world dominance, as the Bush Administration claims to do) were great enough, other solutions would have to be found. Then even men might come to believe in them, as this has not been their experience so far.

I believe in education for the poor, so that they need not be poor. I believe in discussion, in listening, in considering. I believe in openness/frankness without threat, I believe in an equal playing field. Much of this probably came with me from the start somehow, or from childhood; much also has come as a result of poverty, chastity, etc.

But if this is feminism, I am its strong advocate. This does not mean that I think women better than men. I just think we're all equal.

Mary Clurman '63