Signs of Intelligence — Str8 Talk on Changing Your Mind

Jill Soloway changed my mind. I wasn’t seeking enlightenment when I watched the Transparent writer/director’s interview with Ari Melber, but it arrived anyway, literally over the airwaves. Briefly, Ms. Soloway, who self-identifies as non-binary in that they prefer the pronouns they/their/them to she, was discussing families and programs that portray family dynamics. Jill mentioned that she was “obsessed with the Kardashians.”

That’s what I did. My brain stopped. Had she actually said, “I’m obsessed with the Kardashians.”? I rewound and watched it again. Yup. She said it. Under a gentle prompt, Soloway went on, “In the world of feminism, they call this fem phobia (Is that phem phobia?) or fem shaming…Do all women stand for each other or are there some women we don’t stand for?”

As a mom who tried to convince her 10-year-old daughter that being a heavy-equipment operator was a possible career choice, I consider myself a card-carrying feminist, but without the card. My daughter, by the way, just looked at me and said, “Mooooooom!” Feminism, in my mind, occurs in a world where no woman is prevented, discouraged, or impeded in her life choices on the basis of gender. These disjointed thoughts raced through my mind in a nanosecond as I tied the current inquiry to a family of round-tushed, perfect-boobed, always-coifed beauties…