June 1: When I was asked this question my response seemed innocent enough, but apparently, it was worse than I expected!
"Are you a feminist?" I was in Grade 7 when I was asked that question. The inquisitor was a girl who happened to be one of my fellow junior high students and she had a number of her girlfriends congregating around her shoulders, smiling craftily at me as I pondered my response. I was 12 years old and had only the vaguest notion of what feminism was. I knew about Gloria Steinem through Mad Magazine and I'd remembered seeing a panel of feminists complaining about something (probably men) on the Phil Donahue show but other than that, I had no idea what feminism was all about. I knew that feminists supposedly didn't have a sense of humour, which isn't true by the way. Everyone is humourless when you make jokes about what is sacred to them. When they asked me if I was a feminist, I thought they were asking if I played with dolls or wore girls' underpants, so I said no. The girls were shocked at my bigotry and I was labelled a "male chauvinist pig.&qu