Who needs a box anyway?

As a girl, I loved helping my dad outside on the farm. I loved driving the tractors, feeding the animals and cleaning out the cows. But I also loved to cook with my mum. I liked very pretty pink clothes, and my wellies! I was a bit of a "tomboy", but I hated climbing trees, and anything dangerous. I have always been outspoken (... bossy some might say!!) and have always confronted issues head-on. These are a few of the characteristics that made me me. Most of them are still true now, and to add to my list, I am a very private person, yet here I am sharing personal things in a blog! I hate religion, but love Jesus. I don't fit in a box, and I doubt you do either. I recently listened to Emma Watson deliver a speech to the UN, concerning feminism.It was fantastic, and I would recommend a listen." I considered myself a feminist in my teens and twenties.I always felt like I needed to "fight for my rights". My right to speak, my right to be heard, my right to choose, my right to be treated equally. Unfortunately the 80's was a time when woman were fighting for their rights by becoming ....well, almost male! (Look at the clothes!) This is where I fell out with the word feminism! Feminism was becoming a byword for "butch, aggressive women". I regularly had men pointing out that if I wanted equality, I needed to be as strong physically as them. I didn't want to be like a man. I liked me. I wanted to be free to be me. We had somehow made equality in to a war, rather than a move forward into a new freedom for all. I may appear like I fit perfectly into the typical, traditional female gender role. I'm a florist. I stayed at home to bring up our children when they were small. I do the majority share of the house work and cooking. But this is my equality. This is the life I have CHOSEN, and that is what equality is. For a few years we had children from Belarus come stay with us for a month at a time. It was a fantastic experience, and great fun, especially as we speak no Russian and their English was limited. It was like a continual game of charades, and one that the second girl (Ana)who stayed with us reveled in. One evening, she entered the kitchen to see my husband washing the dishes. Not an unusual site, but Ana's reaction? She spat at him! She looked at him like he was a disgrace to mankind, shook her head and left the room in disgust. We laughed, and it still brings a smile to my face every time I remember the scene. But the sad reality is, the rigidity of the male/female roles in Ana's culture was so ingrained, that at 7 years old she had learnt that men washing up was not okay. I am so grateful for the distance we have traveled, but there is still a long way to go. So what is equality. An equal right for every person on the planet to have an opportunity for education, to pursue their chosen career, to choose their partner and marital status, to be a stop at home parent, full time career worker or lay about! This is not a male/female issue. This applies to all humanity. All races, all classes. Individually,we may have very little power to make a difference in a world wide scale, but we can all help make this world a little more "equal". We can stop trying to put people in boxes that they don't fit in, and give those around us the freedom to be .....them!