Judgey Feminism

There's been quite the hubbub lately about feminism in the media. The Feminine Mystique turned 50,  Sheryl Sandberg wrote a book called Lean In about the lack of women in leadership roles and her opinion on how to better attain them, and the CEO of Yahoo came back from maternity leave after 2 weeks, although she does have a nursery in her office. The media and blogosphere opened it's gaping mouth, on cue, and spewed forth opinion after opinion about what feminism is and isn't and who is doing it right and who is wrong.

As a Women's Studies minor (my school didn't even offer it as a major, it was so long ago), a feminist, mother, full time worker and female I feel I needed to add one more opinion to the mix.
Here's what I think - Women in the work place? For god's sake, yes! (Are we seriously still talking about this?) Women in leadership roles, yes, please! Ladies, by all means "Lean In," if that style works for you. Your opinions are valid, you have things to say, make yourselves heard and get paid for it. Successful women at work who raise children at the same time? Of course. Stay at home moms? Yes! We would be nowhere without you. This is not a competition. Let's support each other in our wants, needs and goals. There is no right way to be a feminist, all it requires is a sense of fairness, equality and a sense of sisterhood. Stop the bickering.

Let's just help each other get to where we want to be as women and mothers and humans. High level exec, mid-level manager, small business owner, home-schooling-cloth-diapering-garden-growing-nuturer, it doesn't matter. Our goal should be making sure that all roles are accessible and respected. Because guess what? None of them is easy and we're all going to need help.