2nd and 3rd wave feminism

[stevenleser]

30. A couple of things

First, I've bought her a number of feminist leaning books to read, most recently, on becoming Fearless by Arianna Huffington--> http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Fearless-Love-Work-Life/dp/B001Q3M79C . I was actually at an event where Arianna was speaking and got my daughter an autographed copy of the book.

Second, I made sure she learned public speaking, science, how to play sports, all of those things usually parents do for and encourage young boys to be involved in. She actually came in second in a county wide teen public speaking contest not long ago. She recently found out she has both an academic and sports scholarship to the college she will be attending in Fall of 2012.

I've had lots of conversations with her about sex and romantic relationships. I've told her things like women have as much right to want to have and enjoy sex as men and that also works in the reverse, women have as much right to not want to have sex with someone as men. Sex is a positive and good thing, one just needs to be emotionally ready and be able to deal with the consequences and protect onesself as much as possible from the adverse ones. My preference from her as a father would be that she waits until she is in a position to realize her career goals (she wants to be a Doctor) and that stems from the risks of pregnancy and the distraction. I also told her that the main idea here is that her first point of decision about having sex should be whether she is fully sure it is something she wants to do at that moment with that person. I also told her I never had sex with one of my classmates in high school and that is something I highly discourage as, for me, I could not have imagined the aftereffects of a broken up relationship and that person then going on and dating someone else with the knowledge that the new couple (and my former partner) was sexually active. I was not emotionally ready to deal with that in high school. I am not sure many adults ever become emotionally ready to deal with that in an office environment for instance. I also let her know that if she became pregnant, I would support any decision she made and if she was a lesbian, I would support that too.