Mumsnet Talk

and if not, why not?

e.g. there are often threads about women choosing to wax/strip/sell sex/wear makeup/other i am not equating or conflating these btw and where objections are raised, or where it is suggested that the choice is harmful to women as a group, many posters say that it is the woman's choice, and that feminism is about women being allowed to choose for themselves, and that no one should tell them what to choose

how does this sit with other people? are all choices exercised by women de facto feminist? I chose to wear a hat when i went running this am, usually i don't - was this striking a blow for feminism? What makes my choice of headgear notfeminist, but choosing to trim/remove my pubic hair is a feminist issue?

personally i think the whole choosy choosy is a smokescreen, jumped up capitalism dressed up as liberation, and not a whole lot to do with feminism at all. I also think you can't divorce these choices from the culture and context they exist in. i also think that a woman might choose to do something which while harmless to her personally or even liberating contributes in some way to the oppression of other women.

i don't know to what extent we should feel beholden to consider the effects of our choices on others, or to care

what do others think?

All choices are not de facto feminist. Feminism is a political struggle with specific aims of equality or opportunity and status (amongst other things). We all have free will but, for an action to be regarded as feminist, it has to contribute to those aims rather simply be 'anything done by a woman'. In that context pubic hairstyle or hat choices are largely irrelevant and a diversion. A woman choosing to run a brothel OTOH may be personally liberated but, by contributing to female oppression, sets up a moral paradox. Individual choices can always be divorced from culture but those choices may be harder ones than those that conform to the culture.

What is choice? A LEvel question of the day.

Choice is a load of bollocks created by neoliberals to depoliticise.

what is a level question?

well i was hoping this would attract the choosy chooslesons who could explain their thinking, but i suppose they have chosen to abstain <arf>

I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that people are going to be told that their choices about details of their lives aren't valid. Especially if it's women being given that message in the name of feminism. I just read somewhere that it's a case of people having "internalized their own oppression" but that seems to be too close to an attitude of "if you don't agree with me, you can't possibly be in control of your own mind". Funny how it's always someone else and not me that's in such a sad state!

I say people do have choices, but if we want to persuade people to do what we think is right, we have to present our side as more attractive then the other.

The thing is with choice as an explanation is that it fails utterly to take into account what motivates people to choose what they do.
Liberal theory (in which choice as an argument emerges) imagines an individual as an autonomous being who makes his (and this is a very masculine theory) choice based on a rational weighing up of all the possible alternatives. It discounts any effect that his social position, gender, education or any such variable may actually have on his thought processes. An extreme example is the idea that poor people are poor because they are lazy. If they choose to work hard, goes the reasoning, they would soon be rich.
Feminism is very interested in the motivations of people's choices because they think that the variables I mentioned above are fundamental to understanding them. Why does someone choose to shave their legs for example or trim their pubes or have a Brazilian wax or whatever? Because they think it looks better like that? But why do they think it looks better? Why don't men also do these things too? Why just women? Why is hair on a man's legs, genitals or face or shoulders not disliked as much as hair in a woman? Is "what looks good" always the same in every time and place? If not, what motivates these changes in perceptions?
No one makes a choice in a vacuum. When feminists suggest that this or that choice is a result of education or culture etc etc, they are not suggesting that the person is incapable of knowing their own mind. They are simply questioning how this mind has been made up and what influences have played a part in making them.
I can see why someone's choice being challenged feels patronizing or even insulting, but I think that the challenge in no way implies that the person making this choice is not capable to thinking for themselves.

I am ok with some people being told their choices aren't valid

the alternative is that any choice is great as long as the person has chosen it

What is the relationship between choice and agency in these scenario's?

I'm always baffled why people think that feminists suggesting that there might just be some kind of structure that shapes choices rather than them being entirely free becomes suggesting they aren't valid. Every single person that lives in every single society makes choices within the constraints of that society. I do, you do, everyone does. It's not some judgement of those that make free choices and those that don't. A free choice is a logical impossibility as soon as you interact with any other human beings.

I also don't understand how anyone can think feminism works if everyone is just an individual making entirely free choices. If that were the case what would the point of feminism be? There would be nothing that needs challenging. You lose yourself down a black hole where no action has any meaning outside of the action itself. Which means all political action is dead.

People seem to mistake the broadening of choice for women, which is of course s good thing, with some fictional world of people who all drift round in bubbles making choices that were purely dreamt up in the minds that were presumably formed by magic.

Pippi I always wonder in these discussions whether the whole structure/agency thing has passed people by, as it's entirely tied up with that discussion.

Great post cogito.

So the conclusion, then, is that the statement: "But it's her choice to [strip/have a Brazilian/insert controversial act here]" is not a valid argument.

Can we refer to it in future as the "Choice fallacy"?

Surely a personal choice that challenges the patriarchal status quo is a feminist choice.

A choice that either takes advantage of the status quo (eg making money from pole dancing), or complies with it (eg spending time and money on pubic topiary) is not.

interesting thread - I have wondered this.

I suppose the question is, in a vacuum, would the same choice have been made. I'd imagine the answer is almost certainly no.
(i'm sure I make plenty of non-feminist "choices" myself)

I like the concept of a "choice fallacy," and heck, I'm certainly going to use the term ClareWilson, so thanks!

You can apply a feminist analysis to why women do or don't do things, you know to provide the context for why a particular "decision" might be taken, but that's not at all the same as stating that any action a woman takes is by definition, a feminist act - no way.