A different viewpoint on Choice Feminism

Also there is a really distastefful conflation of sexual abuse (no choice) and sexual freedom (with choice.

I'm sure many of the same people who expect their women to be virgins when they marry, also abuse their daughters/relatives. Why would anyone think differently? Child abuse is incredibly widespread. So contrasting "expected to be virgins" with "sexually assaulted from an early age" is false IMO. I'm sure many girls of all races grow up with societal pressure to remain "pure", while also suffering "harrassment, abuse and assault".

The idea that feminists would ignore the prevalence of sexual assault against girls and women is a new one on me.

That makes more sense, thanks elephants

"Ask a little black or brown girl in some poor neighborhoods about being expected to be virginal (a concept that depends on whiteness from the very beginning) until her wedding day. She?ll probably laugh at you. She?s been continually harassed, abused and assaulted since age six."

I think ISNT, what she means is:

• some feminists claim that women being able to have sex outside of marriage etc and reject the (conservative) virginal ideal is a "feminist choice"

• but many women [apparently only black women in her view but ho hum] have never been expected to be virgins, on the contrary they have been forced into early sexual contact against their will

• so for these women, the "choice" of whether to be a virgin bride or a rebel naughty feminist having sex outside of marriage is a false one. They have no choice. Being able to remain a virgin (in preference to being assaulted) would be a powerful "feminist choice" for these women.

I think that's what she's getting at with that - does that seem right? Obviously there are a vast swathe of problems with that. To name a few:

• girls (and boys) of all races are assaulted
• the virginal ideal is not reserved for

• feminists don't actually tell people that staying a virgin until married/forever is a bad or unfeminist choice.
• as you have said, feminism does engage with women from all races/walks of life/professions/countries

She's tilting at windmills here, IMO.

I don't think you understand the article because it's a bit incoherent, ISNT. There's not a lot to understand IMO. She's accusing feminists about not engaging with the experience of black women, disabled women, working class women etc. But they have been.

And yes GothAnne, I'm sure that feminists either individually or a group, can make mistakes regarding racism, ableism etc. But the gist of this article and similar ones, is that feminism doesn't enage with these issues at all. When in fact, it's been engaging with them for... ooh, ages. Feminism was one of the first movements to engage with the experience of marginalised women outside the white, western, able-bodied, privileged elite. And plenty of those women self-identify as feminists.

I just don't have much patience with the propaganda that feminism doesn't speak to anyone outside the privileged group. It's just not true, but that myth has been a very effective means of ensuring that the majority of women disengage with feminism.

I am really upset about this for some reason. I don't understand the article but it seems to be highly critical and levelling some really unpleasant accusations and I don't know what to do with them.

Should poeple on MN have to list all of their personal circumstances so that others can check off whether their viewpoint is valid?

Like on a thread yesterday where someone was accused of being a misandrist, then revealed he was a man, and the accusation was swiftly revoked?

Is it trying to draw parallels of these horrific things, and saying that when a feminist eg says that women should be able to work full time and overlooks that many mothers don't want to do that, that it is the same thing?

On that basis though surely no-one would ever be able to say anything without a million caveats.

Yes I know all that. But I still don't understand her comment.

"Ask a little black or brown girl in some poor neighborhoods about being expected to be virginal (a concept that depends on whiteness from the very beginning) until her wedding day. She?ll probably laugh at you. She?s been continually harassed, abused and assaulted since age six."

What does that mean? Who is expecting black girls to be virginal? Who is expecting anyone to be virginal apart from fundamentalist religious types ie not feminists? Why the idea that only poor black females are sexually abused?

I hoenstly don't understand it.

I don't think I am thoughtless of the experiences of others?

I don't go around saying disabled people must be sterilised or being horrible to children who have been abused, AFAIK.

Should I not get defensive when I am accused of these things? How to respond to these accusations without sounding defensive?

But what is all this stuff about virginity and child abuse, gothanne? What's it all about? I don't feel I can talk properly about the issues she is raising when I don't understand where she's coming from.

"I think we are too polite and give too much credence to any old argument that comes our way"
Hear, hear. I can't believe this thread is still going.

"it sounds like an excited sixth-former who has just discovered something all the adults have known for 20 years"
ROFL

"the work that women do for free, at home"
Ahem, you mean "the work that people do ..."

D'you know what, sometimes I think we are too polite and give too much credence to any old argument that comes our way. None of what she said was a convincing argument for choice feminism IMO. I agree with Dittany, she has set up a whole load of straw feminists in order to knock them down.

Yes of course women are marginalised differently according to whatever socio economic/ ethnic group they are in; of course disabled women's experience of sexism is different from that of able bodied women; that's a statement of the bleedin' obvious and feminists have dealt with that over and over again - the article assumes that we are utterly unaware of the different contexts of different women's lives. It is not feminists who desexualise women with disabilities; it's our wider culture. Feminists have been in the forefront of making the arguments for women with disabilities being able to express sexuality. It's not feminists who tell women not to wear lipstick; it's twats (usually hostile to feminism) who tell us that if we do, we're letting down the sisterhood. There is only one tiny, very mad very unrepresentative strand of feminism which says all women have to go out to work in the cash economy as soon as their babies are weaned; most of the feminist movement has been engaged in the struggle to have the work that women do for free, at home, recognised as the crucially valuable contribution to society that it is.

Basically, she's doing that usual thing of pretending that feminism is all about white, privileged, able-bodied middle-class rich western women who haven't got a clue about other women in the world. Which indicates that she doesn't really know that much. I really can't take her arguments seriously, it sounds like an excited sixth-former who has just discovered something all the adults have known for 20 years.

But I don't see her points about what is happening to disabled women happening here. We don't carry out forced abortion and steriisation do we? Or do we? I can understand her underlying point, I think, but the examples seem extreme and baffling, which detracts from the point for me, I think. As i am so busy wondering which feminists say you must be a virgin until marriage and how that links in with anything IYSWIM.

although i could do you a nice line in deep southern literature if you fancied delving into the old black man/ white woman discourse?

Oops ... I did go in with the earnest analysis there, rather missing the point!

As you were.

lol lrd, quite. but i ignored that and went with the questioning of choice bit...

"Ask a little black or brown girl in some poor neighborhoods about being expected to be virginal (a concept that depends on whiteness from the very beginning) until her wedding day. She?ll probably laugh at you. She?s been continually harassed, abused and assaulted since age six."

That is a very strange statement. I know there's a long-standing association between whiteness and virginity, but how is it anything but metaphorical? As far as I know it's not an association that exists in, say, Eritrea, even though female virginity is also privileged in that culture.

Leaving aside the absolute patronizing bollocks about assuming all poor black girls get abused.

sorry - was really stream of consciousness around the subject, in line with sexuality/ disability discourses, personal experience etc, not referring to any articles in particular. (there's loads of stuff out there though)

i'm not sure that her specific points are valid (as i said upthread, her phraseology is about as good as mine lol - and the para about the little black or brown girl made me lose patience a bit) but rather that it was interesting to hear another voice who does not recognise choice feminism. but not because the choices are flawed by virtue of their restrictions in a male-dominated society, but by your own body. (or that society has imposed because your body does not fit the norm)

in the same way that whoever started the class thread didn't recognise the problems seen by mn feminists as relevant to her - (with due apols as can't remember her name) - she classed herself as a feminist, but felt that the feminist position on here (and in the media) was occupied by the white middle class woman.

i think it's weird that women who speak out against choice feminism would find her article irrelevant tbh. or need context - surely the only context necessary is that she is questioning the validity of choice feminism?

a little clumsy, and badly articulated in places if you're used to deciphering academic blah, but very interesting.

well, i found it interesting, anyway.

but i suspect that without having a daughter with a disability it would have been nowhere near as interesting. often i find myself in a dilemma as to whether to foreground (and guard against) the issues she will face as a woman, or those she will face as a person with a disability.

it shouldn't be so.

she is an individual.

but as a woman, the 'choices' available to her are restricted.

as a woman with a disability, they become further restricted.

i was just interested in this from the pov of a writer who has been musing about feminism. in my opionion she should have skipped the culture/ races stuff and considered the subject further from the disability angle, but that's just me...

Thinking some more, I can see her point aboutthe idea that people can make choices presupposes tehir ability to make those choices. And that people can be prevented from having free agency to make choices for all sorts of reasons.

What I don't understand is her examples, where she lists things that feminists say are the "correct" choice to make, and then says that come people have no choice. But the examples she gives aren't things that i recognise as being general feminist stances (maybe they are elsewhere in the world?). And the fact that she is lambasting feminists who look at the choices and say that one or another is the "correct/feminist" one, means that it is not choice feminists that she is attacking, but non-choice feminists (whatever they are called?).

eg a choice feminist would say that women should be able to choose whether or not to wear makeup. Some feminists (not that I've seen it on here) would then say that the correct feminist choice is no makeup. This overlooks the fact that some women are not able to choose whether or not to wear makeup - in her example due to disability, I suppose other reaosns could be cultural pressure, pressure from family/partner, no money, religious reasons etc etc etc.

So what is her final point? That because some women can't choose, feminists should not say that one choice if preferable to another? Because that excludes some women?

Sorry to keep going on, I am struggling to get a handle on what she's getting at.

Sorry about a million posts in a row there