Over the summer, when I was putting together publicity material for my cookbook, my publicist told me to add "Can a casserole be a feminist object?" to my author Q&A. I thought it was kind-of a silly question. I'd always considered myself a feminist, just as I'd considered myself not a racist or not a homophobe. I listened to Ani DiFranco in the nineties. I carried a sign in the March for Womens' Lives, I subscribe to "BUST" and I'm sexually liberated. I also grew up with parents who told me I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I put my mind to it. And I believed them. At five, I wanted to be a "fireman." At 13, I wanted to be president. No one ever told me I couldn't do either and I never doubted that if I wanted to, I could do both (though one would require a title or sex change). How could I not be a feminist?
But when it came time to answer the question, I realized I didn't even really know what feminism meant to me, a single woman in my twenties, in 2008.
I actually had to look it up. And all I learned was what I already knew: feminism has meant many things to many women over the years—which didn't help me figure out how I could convince anyone else that me bending over an oven while wearing a push-up bra, hand-stitched apron and red lipstick made me a feminist.
I wondered if I was really even a feminist. I'm quick to post pictures of Sarah Palin in an American flag bikini and often use my ability to flirt to get in and out of just about anything, but I'm ready to call bullshit from the rooftops when a man makes more money than his female counterpart and I want to claw the eyeballs out of any guy who tells me to smile when I'm walking down the street.
I didn't want anyone to think I was shilling eyeball casseroles, nor did I want to come off as Suzy Homemaker. So to appease my publicist, I wrote: "[Casseroles are feminist objects] in as much as anything else I make or own is a 'feminist object.' I am a feminist who wears make-up and bakes. I can also fix my own toilet and re-wire an electrical outlet (while I have a casserole baking in the oven)."
I didn't feel like I'd really answered the question. Gloria Steinem probably wouldn't have let me get away with that answer, but I knew my publicist would. I clicked send and hoped no one would want to revisit the topic, given my half-assed attempt at an answer.
Months later, during a live radio interview, someone asked me how casseroles could be feminist foods. Usually very articulate in radio interviews, I stammered through my explanation, eventually admitting that it's a really hard question to answer in 2008 but that I wasn't making casseroles to please men or because there were no other opportunities presented to me, but because I wanted to. When I got off of the phone, I realized that while that answer might have been appropriate in 1968, it sure wasn't forty years later. 
I thought about what I should have said and couldn't. So I tried to forget about it. But a few days later, a recreation of the iconic protest poster of Joan Baez and her sisters taken by Larry Gates in the 1960’s hit the web. It featured four girls sitting on a couch with a caption that read "Girls say yes to boys who say Obama." I thought the poster was cute. And I said so online. But other female bloggers didn't agree. Some were outraged and one found the image disgusting, interpreting the poster as a promise of sex in return for political action.
At this point, I was forced to again confront my feminism—or lack there of.
So here I am. Wondering out loud if, in fact, I'm a feminist.
Even after hearing why I should think the poster is sexist, I don't.
Am I wrong for thinking it was cute political satire? Or am I part of the problem? Is it even okay for feminists to have a sense of humor about things, that if truly vetted, are probably not best for the advancement of women?
To be continued...
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