Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

Feminism or Humanism?Women’s Studies Meets Spirit StudiesbyGertrude Reif HughesTalk about feminism is sometimes perceived as trivial, unspiritual,too focused on sex, interested in what divides instead of what unites. Particularlyamong people who incline towards a spiritual outlook, feminismcan seem limiting instead of liberating. After a talk I gave recently aboutfeminism and anthroposophy, a woman in the audience came up and confidedthat she was not a feminist. The idea made her uncomfortable. She feltthat calling herself a feminist would negate her more important allegiances.It would make her less humane. “I’m not a feminist,” she declared. “I’m ahumanist.”The woman’s remark made me think. I knew that I believed in abasic unity among many beings, yet here I was, advocating a feminist consciousness.Was I unwittingly provoking contention in an already embattledsociety? Does a feminist perspective prevent a fully human one?Perhaps, I speculated, it is unwise to highlight the differences betweenmen and women when more than enough anxiety already burdenshuman relations, inside the house and out. Where lives are paralyzed byuncertainty over what to eat, how to conduct children’s schooling, how tosecure self-esteem for all individuals, and how to decide the baffling questionsraised by technological opportunities and temptations, talk aboutfeminism may seem provocative at best and divisive at worst. Maybe, Ithought to myself, it is wrong to emphasize gender in a world where sex ismore readily associated with violence than with love and where differencesbetween people seem to provoke discord instead of making for an enrichingvariety. Certainly, harmony is needed, not more strife. As human beings, we300