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Here's to picking it back up again! I don't know if you or anyone else has realized this in class (maybe Anne...i've taken two classes with her) but I'm a little bit obsessed with Finland. Maybe it's because it's a socialist democratic, maybe it's because everyone over there is just so ridiculously honest that it's refreshing...maybe it's just that they have access to a free education and are thus, very intelligent...maybe it's everything. In any case, my visit there last year changed my life and really opened my eyes to the injustice of American policy.

Over fall break, my mother and I hosted two Finnish feminist scholars who were invited to attend a conference at Rutgers University. To get back to the point, they began to discuss the "homemaker" as a feminist. In Finland, as I mentioned earlier, they have implemented laws which deem the homemaker worthy of a full-time salary. Additionally, if a woman has a child she will be paid the salary of the highest wage-earning member in the family for the first year of her maternity leave. After the first year, the salary decreases, but free childcare and other opportunities for stay-at-home mothers (or fathers) become available.

I feel that if the feminists of this country were to work together to make their voices heard on a more urgent level, such things would be possible in this country. After all, jobs stimulate the economy! However, it continues to be my belief that the feminist forefront has deteriorated over time. The image of the angry feminist lives on, but where have they gone? I accept that women are busy at home and at work, both with children and without. But how can we accomplish both adgendas: maintain our roles in family life and work towards more progressive methods of "living feminism."

An analogy, if I may: Somewhere in the world, there is a giant cube of concrete. Underneath this giant cube is a giant room. The feminist cause will have been achieved when women (and feminist men) work together to uncover the room by pushing the concrete block away. If we successfully push the concrete block a few yards and some women jump into the room below, we will have lost some of the "woman power" needed to continue to move the block completely. Feminist activism in today's world seems to take this shape. We have achieved some of our feminist goals to the extent that some women are satisfied with the way things are ("sure, I don't make enough money as a man. But at least I can hold a job as a woman"), however, we have not truly pushed the boundaries of our opression as women. Again, we will never do so until the forefront of the feminist cause is re-established. How do you propose we reconvene on a national or global scale? I mean, playgrounds for the children of BMC's employees are nice...but that's small scale in my opinion (though still very important, don't get me wrong). I guess I just want to see drastic changes that apply to all working women?