The feminist revolution can be daunting sometimes. The sexism seems too systemic, the misogyny too frightening, and the infighting too viscous. We start feeling like our contributions couldn't possibly make a difference. To beat back this gloom, I'd like to highlight a few ladies who rock their feminism simply by finding their thing and being fantastic at it, social conventions be damned.
I start my series with Caitlin Doughty, author, educator, advocate, and professional.
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| Source: Order of the Good Death |
Her Things
- Reintroducing healthy death awareness into our culture.
- Promoting family participation in the death-care process.
Being Damned Good At It
- She authored a great book about her experience in the death care industry: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory. Part memoir, part history, and part social commentary, this is one of the best books I've read in a long time.
- She produces an entertaining educational YouTube series, Ask a Mortician, answering our questions about death and the death-care industry.
- She founded an organization focused on transforming how our society handles death: The Order of the Good Death. (Follow on social media!)
- She is a licensed mortician (in a traditionally male-dominated field) who just opened her own funeral home in Los Angeles (Undertaking LA) offering home funerals and other services supporting family participation in the death-care process.
Why I Love Her
While I was thinking about writing this post a few months back, Ms. Doughty came out with a Death & Feminism video as part of her Ask a Mortician series. In short, she eloquently argues that women in the death-care industry deserve to be paid fairly for providing a challenging professional service. Female funeral professionals aren't "the naturally caring sex" or "maternal vessels for your grief." Well said madame, well said.
