5 things that Feminism has done for me

October is Women's History Month! As you may know, the folks at ProgBlogs have started a "meme"-around to commemorate the festivities and to fight-back against the attacks on the Status of Women Canada. As such, I've been tagged by the brilliant Polly at Marginal Notes. Here goes...

1. I work and earn enough to take care of myself. Right now I am a postdoc in medical physics (alas, still mostly a "XY" type of profession, but we'll gripe about that another day).
2. I am 32 and my family consists of me, my husband and a middle-to-later aged cat: thanks to feminism, that's as big as my family's going to get (sorry, Mom)!
   
3. Eyes-wide-open: thanks to feminism, I am better equipped to identify the oppression of "the other" and I try my best to be as inclusive and sympathetic/empathetic as possible. I want the same equality-of-results for others that I have gained through feminism (through the hard work of the women and men before my time!)
4. I'm a surviving member of the "6%" that Polly mentioned. I won't elaborate here yet (way too painful).
5. My partner in life: my amazing husband is a proud feminist. He stuck by me through the agony of gradschool and even put his own dreams on 'pause' while I finished. He is now 36 and starting his own PhD.
   

Thank you for reading :) I will echo Polly and beg that you go over to Pamusement's site and read her op-ed. Then go visit the other wonderful entries at ProgBlogs.

Thanks so much to Scott Tribe, Jeff and Pamusement for really getting the ball rolling on this one. I've been kind of down-for-the-count lately and some of these entries have brought tears to my eyes. Honestly!