but it's my choice, so it must be feminist, right?

[chibi]

this is often given as a justification for things that i would consider anti-feminist: choosing to be a lapdancer is a feminist act if the woman is freely choosing it for example

i could be really facetious and say that right now i have chosen to start this thread rather than work on my essay (whoops), and since i am a woman, this too is a feminist choice, or tonight I am having a beef casserole instead of pasta and this is a feminist choice too

do those proponents of a 'it's my choice ergo it is feminist' POV not think that it is possible for women to make choices that undermine themselves or other women in terms of equality?

can anyone who comes from this perspective clarify it further for me?

Oh don't think feminism is about an individual making a choice to do something that personally works for them - at least not at this stage. To me it is about each person actively working for an equal environment where in the long term women are able to make choices free from discrimination or expectation placed on them because they are a woman. Until we reach a time when there is equality, we can't make a lot of choices.

For example; for every confident and together young women with good prospects and a loving upbringing who chooses to lap dance, there will be hundreds and hundreds of women who have been abused and degraded and think that lap dancing is all they are worth. To call the choice of the 'happy' lapdancer "Feminist" is an insult to those hundreds of others.

So are you saying that the "truest" feminist approach is to consider the wider implications of as many of your free choices as you can?

I'd say so, but I think that is the truest ethical response in general, not just feminist. But then I think everything is political. Not everyone, and I would imagine not all feminists do.

More on 'empowerment'

I often get told 'it's your choice to have kids...'

But it wasn't my choice to be the child bearing sex.

David51, thanks for the link.

A quote from David51's link on Drive-Thru burlesque / Pavement burlesque:

"The latest offshoot of the Burlesque craze involves the largely female participants ?sexually empowering? themselves through ?provocative performances of perambulation? in edgy inner city surroundings. ?Flash mobs? of motorists are encouraged to congregate and view the performances by driving along the chosen ?performance zones? at low speed."

Opportunities for kerb crawlers are expanding.

Flamingo "But the extent of the harm of shaved legs is what?

No harm will come to you if you conform shave your legs or pubes. The feminist issue here is the harm that comes to women when you don't .
Wear a bikini with your pubes hanging out next time you go to the pool and see what happens. Don'T shave your legs for a few months then wear a skirt out.
That's the feminist issue here. The consequences for women who don't conform. So shaving is not inherently harmful, in fact it's the safest decision for a woman to take because she's less likely to be the target for abuse, and she's more likely to have a range of mates to choose from. It's the safest option under patriarchy.

So I wouldn't call it a choice.

I don't mean that post to sound snidey. I shave my legs when I go to the pool, but otherwise I don't. The sheer amount of pressure on me to conform is too unbearable. I wouldn't be able to not shave because of the consequences. So I'm not criticizing women who do conform, I'm criticizing the idea that it's a "choice"

But the harm is to me, Sakura, if don't conform. If every woman stopped shaving their legs, then that harm wouldn't happen. So as an enlightened, self-confident woman, wouldn't I be contributing to the cause to stop shaving my legs? I don't really give a shit what other people think - I make enough non-conformist parenting choices to be quite used to things like that - but I actually don't like my legs unshaven! I don't like the feel of it, and I don't like the look of it. And I know that is because of my cultural conditioning.

I think it depends on the definition of harm. I take it in the broadest sense. There are people that it would cause harm to if they had pubes hanging out of a swimming costume, emotional harm to themselves. If they are big on being accepted, or place great weight on whether others see them as groomed, or if they struggle with the expression of their own adultness (for example. These are not what would apply to everyone at all. Everyone would have their own reasons. I've picked some). Of course that personal harm might be hugely less important than the harm they cause to others in terms of perpetuating social expectations, but it's a balance of harms.

My point is a little different. I'm not exactly talking about the social conditioning which we all admit is taking place here. I shave my legs.

I think my point is it doesn't make a difference whether a woman likes the feel of shaven legs or pubes. The point is she has no choice, one way or another. Unless she has a particularly strong character which can weather the ridicule and misogynistic comments, then she must shave her legs and pubes when out in public.

Many men will never know whether they like shaving or not, because it's not a social requirement for them.

Yes I agree

itsalaugh i would say so, yes.

... But I do shave my legs... and my pubic hair.

I'm not convinced by all of this.

DrRichard: "[she] is merely following the subliminal messages that been fed to her since birth". This may be true. However, for that to be the case, it requires you to know the person's mind - why they made the choice they did - better than they did themselves. That's pretty strong stuff.

I've seen a number of women make this claim directly to women posting on these boards on various topics (usually about sexual behaviour of some sort). The almost universal reaction of the women who've been the recipient of these posts has been "you're patronising me by telling that you know better than me why I made my choices".

From the sidelines, I'm left thinking "Sheesh, if you actually wanted to change someone's mind and (1) open them up to the possibility that their choice may not be as free as it seems and (2) that you therefore have better insight than they do into the workings of their minds, why don't you choose a method that's a bit more likely to be effective? Is it some sort of weird irony that you choose a method that shows such a lack of insight into how women are likely to react to such assertive confrontation?"

The other thing that doesn't seem to being acknowledged is that while some choices may be pernicious or self-damaging, lack of choice is pretty damaging too. It reminds me of people saying "we don't need choice in the NHS", and I'm left thinking, "if your local hospital was MidStaffs, and your gran died there in appalling circumstances last year, and now you're ill, you almost certainly do want to be able to choose to go somewhere else, and rightly so."

Finally, sakura said: "Many men will never know whether they like shaving or not, because it's not a social requirement for them." Men don't shave their legs, and only a few shave their pubes (although the trend is upwards due to pornification), but they do tend to shave their faces in most developed countries. There are quite significant consequences for them in not doing so. Similarly, they cannot put makeup on without consequences. They cannot wear earring and some other types of jewellery without consequences in many careers. Body odour is considered unacceptable for both genders.

David51's link to that satirical article about burlesque is a pointer to where choice might lead women sometime soon.

slhilly, I'm sorry, what are the significant consequences for having a beard?

A lot of the men in my life have facial hair, I'm not sure what consequences they're suffering.

Plenty of people distrust men with facial hair, claiming they look as if they're "hiding something."

slhilly: "There are quite significant consequences for them in not doing so."

Sorry, what are the consequences to men of not shaving? I know plenty of bearded men. I don't get it!

Although I accept there are consequences to men who wear make up and and earring in two ears.

OLKN - really!? I don't think that can be as significant as women who don't sahve their legs, surely?

My DH had a full beard until the grey became too much, now he just has (a rather bushy) moustache, but in a trip to the States (California, I think) he was told that people distrust the fully-bearded. I don't think it's as much of an issue here; perhaps I'll start a thread?

But no, being distrusted by nutters isn't much of a big deal.

I started a thread - bearded men are just fine.

But where the social conditioning is gender specific (it is alright for men do to something that it is not alright for women to do), then it usually is possible to trace it back to the patriarchy, HopeForTheBest. I assume the pyjama thing is bad for women and men equally.

I see patriarchy as a structure that shapes the whole of society, so could track anything back to it. It's not something that applies sometimes and not other times. It might be more or less so in different situations. I also see race, class, wealth as being other structures. (And others I can't think of now) I imagine there's some classism going on with the pyjama one.