what brings you 'here'?

Hiya Bejeez, I don't think there is a time-limit on feminism. In fact I think that Mochan's story is quite common. I have certainly seen a lot of posters say that having children has really made them see society and its values in a different way.
I think I would have always identified as a feminist just because I never saw anything but lies in the explanations I was given growing up about "differences" between the sexes and never was conventionally "feminine". However I was not really very savvy about lots of feminist thinking nor theory. My lurking on this board has been an education. I think I have learnt more here than in any of the books I have read about feminism in the past.
So welcome. I don't post much, but read lots. I was reading the thread you mention yesterday and remember your posts. From them I suspect you are going to love this section.

I read a lot of popular feminist literature in my late teens, and I've always considered myself a feminist. I wasn't hugely 'active' as a feminist though. In my student days I was more concerned with animal rights activism and then moved on to human rights activism. Though I would still write letters/contact MPs/make complaints about things that were troubling from a feminist perspective.

I have, however, quite suddenly dropped almost everything other than my work in order to read a massive list of feminist literature and spend hours browsing feminist blogs and what have you on the internet, attempting to 'catch up' with the latest stuff and revise the older stuff.

The reason for this, I suspect, is because I have a daughter who is four years old; from the moment she was born, it struck me that she is growing up in a very different world to the one I grew up in. She has fewer choices, has more limitations placed on her, by institutions, by marketers, by manufacturers, by society, all because of her sex. I became incensed by it; I started to look around and realise how much, for women, is going backwards instead of forwards. I suspect, in my twenties, I thought, like many others did, that things were still moving forward for women, and it was just a question of keeping the momentum going. But actually, it's far more of a battle than that. Looking around me, at the media, at everything, I just see misogyny everywhere, and I find it heart-breaking and angry-making.

Been a feminist ever since I can remember. The internet is a great tool for feminism!

I went straight from a great, progressive girl's school-which really did instill in me a belief that I could be anything - to an engineering degree course at uni, one of only a handfull of girls. It was a real wake-up call. I was shocked at the casual misogyny.

In my yearbook entry the "most likely to become" section read "militant feminist". Over the years (I'm pushing 40 too) I've mellowed, and now feel its more important to ensure "feminine" traits, interests, careers, etc are just as valued as "male" ones, rather than scorned or derided. Whereas years ago I thought the way forward was to try to be more like a man, iyswim.

I grew up in a country where women are routinely heads of state. However, mysogney still existed but was a bit easier to see and name. Nobody laughed at me, for example when I was 12 and pointed out that the president of the student body at my school had always been a male.

I find the UK shockingly sexist and things that horrify me (page 3 etc) are just treated as routine.

I was also introduced to the concept of feminism at a very young age, grew up reading the likes of Cythia Heimel.
Now I'm older, my perceptions are changing and I think a lot of the stuff I read when I was younger was less about empowering women and more about the patriarchy trying to sell a concept of feminism that suited the norms.
So I am now ploughing my way through "The Essential Feminist Reader" and 'To Be Real' edited by Rebecca Walker.
The feminism board here has certainly been very eye-opening.

Mine began very early in life because I'm the DD of a very independent, 'can do' DM. So I've taken it as a given that I'm equal to anyone, dependent on no-one and have the same life-chances as anyone else. I find women that don't share my approach a little baffling but tolerable. However, I really worry about girls growing up today who define success as 'get a boob job' and 'marry a footballer' (my shorthand). Not sure I measure up to any official test of feminist credentials as there seems to be a wide range of views out there, not all of which I agree with. Don't like the cliched terms, for example... 'misandry', 'patriarchy', 'misogyny'... think human behaviour is more complex than one word allows.

It's never too late to see the light :)