my daughter used to call me a feminazi

My daughter used to call me a feminazi. Usually when she called me a feminazi she followed up by telling me that feminism was over, women had equality and my, as she put it, obsession with feminism was passé.  Sometimes I would spout some feminist response, decrying her suggestion that women had equal rights and feminism was over. Sometimes I just sucked up her negative characterization.  It did not really charge me that she called me a feminazi. I actually liked it, liked being seen as a feminist.

Once, on the penultimate day of a ten-day Vipassana retreat, when they let everyone talk, I was talking to a bunch of twenty-something women and mentioned my daughter used to call me a feminazi. One shrewd young woman looked at me closely, took a long, pregnant pause and said "I think you are proud that she called you a feminazi." She was right. I was. So I admitted as much to the young women.

My daughter is very different from me. She is gorgeous, very attractive to men (and women, for she had her female flings). She's very thin, curvaceous, stylish and very beautiful.  I am not ugly but I don't have her flair, her thinness or any concern about style. I am, as a guy once put it, in a compliment for him (and it struck me as a compliment), a plain chick. This guy wrote that he always preferred plain chicks, women who did not wear make up or obsess with clothing. Be still my heart!

Hell yeah I liked being called a feminazi by my kid, even when she meant it as a slam.

I wonder how she views feminism and women's equality with men after ten years or so in the business world. I wonder if she received equal pay. I wonder if she is respected first and foremost for what she knows and does. I am sure she is valued for being beautiful and I imagine she likes that but I wonder if she has a bit more insight into the fact that prioritizing women's appearance for their value undermines women.  I have no idea what she thinks, what her experience has been since 2001, the last time she talked to me.

I hope she is happy. I hope she is a feminazi but, somehow, I doubt it.