I woke up around 3 a.m. with my mind active. Since I doubt I'll get back to sleep anytime soon, I got up to read e-mail and start another blog entry. How lucky for me my that schedule allows me to nap later in the day, if necessary!

I experience sleep disruption often, sometimes in association with other symptoms of depression. It worries me. As with all symptoms, I can imagine all sorts of causes. Perhaps I don't need the usual amount of sleep due to aging, inactivity, or the extra bed rest I got while I was sick. Perhaps something physical keeps me awake: the broccoli I ate for dinner, the air in the room, thirst, or a need to urinate. But given that I lay in bed thinking for over an hour, my mind is the most likely cause: depression or obsession. Perhaps I'm obsessed with this blog.

I hope to write about Heinlein's treatment of Feminism in his fiction, but before I do I'd better get clear what I mean by Feminism.

It's a scary topic for me. As a kid, I sensed an air of hostility around the subject, primarily between men and women. As a grown man, I'm reluctant to talk about it in a woman's presence for fear I'll say something "wrong," get criticized, and/or hurt her feelings. It's like discussing the Torah with a Jew or Communism with a Russian; I imagine the subject to be so sensitive that any statement I make will be misheard and taken personally. Plus it's so easy for me, knowing only a little, to make bad assumptions about the subject--or other people's opinions.

I hope I get past this fear soon, since I am going to WisCon 30 in May, a (self-proclaimed) Feminist science fiction convention. I'm going mainly to see friends who are going, but I'm interested in the conference itself because gender issues come up often in my writing. From what I've seen of the program, I imagine that every serious discussion there will impinge on the subject of gender, so I'd better prepare myself to participate.

I recently came up with a definition for Feminism: a political movement whose aim is to improve the status of women (as a group) and the opportunities available to them. Based on this definition, I consider myself a feminist. Later, I compared my definition to The Free Dictionary Online (at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp) and found a significant difference: the dictionary definition expresses the goal as "equality" (with men) not "improvement." If the "equality" captures the doctrine accurately, a pure feminist might seek to curtail women's rights in areas where they are superior to men's--or cease her or his efforts if equality were ever achieved. Such hypothetical results seem to contradict the spirit of the movement as I understand it.

I see difficulties with the notion of equal rights. How does one compare rights in the area of reproduction, where men and women are so different? If abortion is (as feminists often argue) a woman's right, what is the corresponding man's right with which it should be compared? Since men don't harbor fetuses, I doubt there is one. And what about areas where men and women are statistically different? Should a feminist oppose hiring criteria around lifting ability that do not reference male/female (or exclude all women) yet do exclude more men than women?

I prefer my definition because it avoids the need to compare women and men and avoids the reliance on "equality." My definition also looks beyond "rights"--which are a problematic way of dealing with interpersonal conflict (more on that later)--to the larger issue of women's status. Given the USA's lack of progress on ERA the past 20 years, I hope most feminists are open to broader goals, such as freedom, prosperity, opportunity, health, respect, recognition, authority, and so on. (These are among the goals I've tried to sum up in the word "status.") Legislating human rights is one approach to achieving such goals, but not the only one.

Having rationalized my personal definition of Feminism, it's hazardous to proceed without tackling my biggest bugaboo around improving the lives of women: I wonder how doing so will impact my own status. Are men and women in a zero-sum game, or can women gain freedom, opportunities, and respect without reducing the freedom, opportunities, and respect enjoyed by men? Not just comparatively, but in absolute terms? If it's a zero-sum game, then Feminism can only expect support from men who are altruistic, confused, apathetic, or ineffective. I'm sure there's a risk that Feminism will harm men, but still plenty of opportunities to improve the status of women in ways that will benefit men as well.

Have I, as a man, benefitted from sexual discrimination in education and employment? Almost certainly. But I've also suffered because my grandmothers, my mother, my ex, my girlfriend, my female neighbors, and the women I've worked with have missed out on opportunities due to sex discrimination. I believe self-interest is the most reliable motivator of human beings, and I see improving the status of women (as a group) as in my self-interest.

Feminism's benefits to me are likely to be indirect, so I'm more cautious about supporting changes than I would be if I were a woman. Plus, I look for ways to benefit men along the way. When I found out that high school shop classes were open to girls, I wanted to make sure that the home ec classes were open to boys--not because I'm committed to equality, but because I believe the unfairness is hurtful when it cuts the other way.

I think I've now laid groundwork for looking at Heinlein's treatment of feminism, but I'm happy to leave that for tomorrow.