Go Bunting

I've just realized that if you just think of everyone as having been a "fringe candidate" in the recall election, the world is a little easier to take today.

So here's today's favorite fringe non-candidate: Sarah D. Bunting, curator of the estimable Tomato Nation website. Her recent essay Yes You Are (a feminist) is something that needs to be said and read.

Yes. You are. You are a feminist. If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist. Period.

I don't know how many times my jaw has dropped to the floor when some friend (always female) denies being a feminist. And they always mean that they are not the kind of angry womens-studies tofu-cooking proto-lesbian-feminist they were afraid of in college. Yes, I know you're not one of those, though there certainly isn't anything wrong with being like that, at least as a phase. But don't tell me you don't believe in equality before the law for men and women; don't tell me you don't have a vision of a just society.