Where it all began

Let's go back in time to the nineties...where it all began! This is the story of how Alex became a feminist! I have been a feminist since the age of six. I know you're probably thinking "Are you kidding me?," but it is true. When I was in first grade, one of my classmates brought in a Susan Anthony coin for Show And Tell. I didn't even know who she was! When my dad came to pick me up in his blue Ford Escort, I was really excited to tell him that my schoolmate had showed us "a coin with a girl on it!" On the drive home (remember, we lived around twenty-thirty minutes north of the school), he told me all about who Susan Anthony was and about the fight for the right for women to vote. I didn't know what surprised me more--that there was once a time when they couldn't vote or that she got jailed for trying to! Whenever it was Election day, my parents would always tell me how important it was that everyone should vote, and they'd give me their little "I Voted Today" stickers. I was really surprised but completely intrigued by the story.

So I found out all that I could about the feminism. My tiny school library had those illustrated biographies of historical figures and I remember having as a kid this collection of biographies called the ValueTales (which told the story of a historical figure and a certain aspect of their life, often through the eyes of a historically-inaccurate anthropomorphic animal sidekick). I read and read. I was a total anomaly. In my hyperconservative WASPy grade school, I was one of the only liberals (not to mention non-WASPs). In fourth grade, I read more stuff about first-wave feminism and the suffrage movement. In sixth and seventh, I learned all about the ERA and second wave. I kept going. You couldn't stop me. Not that anyone tried.

...And here I am now....
See what a little lesson on a car ride home fifteen years ago can do?

My tale is a great story and one worth telling. And I have no problem with telling it. What's amusing to me is that it always really surprises or impresses people to know that it was a man who taught me about feminism. And actually, the dad is the one to identify himself with it--much more than any of my relatives. I'm serious!