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- for me the act resonates too much of a time (only one generation ago in my own family) where women did not have a choice as to whether to bake goods at their husband's request, and indeed lacked many many other choices, many of them much more significant, such as the right to say no to sex" That's kind of the crux, for me. At NO POINT would anyone here say that women shouldn't have sex because at one time they couldn't say no.
Now - we may decide to categorise things - cake baking no, marriage no, taking husband's name no, having sex yes, taking a year's mat leave, yes - but that is essentially subjective and based on personal history, taste, appetites, etc. And it's the pragmatic personal solution, but it's theoretically pretty inelegant, because I think you have to muster up reasons as to why one thing is ok and another not.
To me the right to refuse, the right to not feel under pressure from your partner or society is fundamental, and everything else comes under that. So Xenia refuses to take mat leave, but someone else refuses to be forced back to work. Motherinferior refuses to get married, whereas someone else chooses to. I refuse to be called Mrs, and did a PhD with this very much in mind, whereas some people don't mind.
Where does this leave the scary generation of girls who think that Katie Price is a feminist icon? Several of you on here would say that I, in my baking choices, am as misguided as they are. What I tried, and failed pretty much spectacularly to get across yesterday, is that I think this is not a subject where you can have cut-and-dried answers. Why is sex ok, but baking "for" your husband not? Because women like sex? Is that natural, but taking pleasure in baking learned behaviour?
I don't know the answers, I don't, but I just don't think that a blanket approach to what women can or can't choose to do is ever going to be a productive long-term solution. And this leaves me with a real conundrum over pole-dancing, and Katie Price, and all that.