1. [F]eminism is pretty much a nice girl who really, really wants so badly to be liked by everybody — ladies who lunch, men who hate women, all the morons who demand choice and don’t understand responsibility — that it has become the easy lay of social movements. Who can possibly take feminism seriously when it allows everything, as long as women choose it? http://bit.ly/KHkUuX
2. Feminism is not about choice – at least not insofar as it’s about saying “Any choice women make is a feminist one and so we can’t criticize or judge it.” Feminism isn’t about creating non-judgmental happy-rainbow enclaves where women can do whatever they want without criticism. Feminism is about achieving social, economic and political equality for all people, regardless of gender. It’s not about making every woman feel good about whatever she does, or treating women like delicate hot-house flowers who can’t be criticized … it’s silly and counterproductive to say that feminists shouldn’t push women toward egalitarianism because men, as the more privileged class, should be doing all the work.
If staying home is your “feminist choice” and you actually have a full range of choices, what does that say to your sons and daughters about gender roles? Is it in any way challenging an already deeply-held cultural assumption that women exist to serve others? That women are care-givers and need-meeters and housekeepers and emotional-work-doers, whereas men are breadwinners and influencers and public-sphere-operators who are served by women? What is your son going to expect of himself and in a partner? What is your daughter going to internalize? http://bit.ly/KzlFcV
¡Ay, Amarucita! 