Why are so many women hellbent on acting against their own interest?

[thedankness]

From TWAW, pro "sex-work", "kinky sex" and porn, plastic surgery, accepting low standards in relationships with men, being anti-abortion to more trivial things such as wearing heels, and yes, shaving, and so much more, so many women will defend these things to the hilt. They refuse/are unable to see how these things are bad for themselves and/or women generally, even after presented with arguments. Obviously some people will disagree with points made in an argument, but I just don't see men subjugating themselves en masse like I do women.

I feel sad. Why can't we as women just love ourselves and look out for ourselves? I feel like we are groomed into self-hate. Is the notion of female self-acceptance and worth truly so radical that a significant number can't even fathom it as a possibility for themselves?

Why is it so common for women to act against their interest? And can or should we do anything about it?

This is a bit poorly-worded, have thoughts but am interested to hear others' opinions.

I do too. Choice feminism isn’t perfect, but what it does is gives women agency and autonomy to decide what is best for them, their own life path.

Choice vs non-choice is just too simplistic. Some things it's good to have choice on. Some things it's the best thing even if people make bad choices. On other things we need to think about the larger social implications of choices. In some areas choice is bad.

I think where the late 20th century went wrong is the embrace of the idea, among liberals anyway, that freedom is the highest value, and more freedom always brings more happiness.

It's not true for society nor is it true for individuals.

I do too. Choice feminism isn’t perfect, but what it does is gives women agency and autonomy to decide what is best for them, their own life path
But does it though?

The problem with choice feminism though is that it very conveniently allows the discussion to focus on individual women and their choices, which aren't made in a vacuum and are often choices made in an environment that is stacked against women (as a class).

By focusing on the choices individuals make, the systems that keep women oppressed as a class can conveniently go unchallenged because it doesn't take too long before liberal choice feminists (as well as those who aren't feminist, don't care about women's interests, and would quite like the status quo to continue) jump to claims that questioning how free choices are, or questioning the big picture around choice making is unfeminist because individual women feeling good about their decisions is the priority.

Aiming to get to the root cause of women's oppression as a class and resolving those issues would open up meaningful freedom for women to choose.

The root causes of women’s oppression do not include women having the agency and autonomy to make their own choices, or life decisions.

The fact some women make bad choices, choices they regret is not a reason to further infantilise us.

Do focus on the environment that is stacked against us.

Do focus on classism, racism and how they intersect with sexism.

Don’t dictate what choices are best for women and punish women who choose differently.

Don’t blame women having choice as a cause of our oppression- the opposite is the case.

I'm not blaming women making choices as a causes of our oppression.

I'm saying that focusing on a "you do you, if a woman makes a decision don't mention that decisions aren't made in a vacuum or that the environment is stacked against women as a class" style of feminism doesn't empower women as a class. If anything this sort of model tends to shut down getting to the root cause.

Too often the focus on individual choice allows for environmental and systemic issues to be downplayed by those pushing a liberal, individualistic model of feminism.

No decision by anyone is ever in a vacuum. Not for men, not for white people, not for the ultra rich. This is a given and doesn’t need to be mentioned. People take this into account when they make their decisions- women are painfully aware of the influences of society on their decisions.

You do you, does empower women when compared to the do as I say type of feminism you are espousing by setting yourself up as some sort of matriarch what knows best for all women.

Allowing individual choice (aka empowering women to live their lives as they see fit) doesn’t cause systemic issues to be downplayed and the fact you said this is actually blaming women having agency and autonomy for their own oppression.

Its like you think that if women were ‘good girls’ and make the choices you think they should; that like a fairy godmother, all our oppression will just vanish.

The problem with choice feminism though is that it very conveniently allows the discussion to focus on individual women and their choices,

It’s not us focusing on women’s decisions! Choice feminism is about not focussing, dissecting, criticising, influencing or even controlling/banning choices.

It is your sort of feminism that focuses on women’s individual choices and then after the above, sits in judgement and tries to force women into a mold of a ‘good girl’ by categorising certain decisions as either feminist or anti-feminist. It’s just more patriarchy as far as I am concerned.

Take the motherhood penalty that causes the gender pay gap- the focus is on well women are choosing to take too much time off work so that’s why. No, that’s not the root cause of the motherhood penalty. The penalty is because presenteeism and never getting off the work treadmill is what our society values. It doesn’t value motherhood. So your brand of feminism that says don’t be a SAHM, that’s not a feminist choice, get back to work, get a nursery, don’t stay home until the youngest is in primary school- you are trying to dictate ‘feminist’ choices to choose our way out of oppression.

That doesn’t work. Hasn’t worked. Will never work.

If you were a choice feminist, you’d be like us, not focussed on the individual choices women make but focussed on the root causes. The only reason you think we are and call us choice feminists is because you want to control women and so inevitably our interactions end up with you declaring how a choice is not feminist, and sets women back and we responding no such thing, let women be women how they want to.

Back to 'we want to control women' based on nothing but projection and assumptions. It reads as insecurity in your own choices ironically, as if other people's negative judgement equals a desire to control which you need to push back against. Not everyone's choice needs to be validated just because they're female. That's assuming we all want to judge individual women when actually we're discussing class issues.

Women today only have the choices they have as individuals because older women recognised the limitations on them as a class and fought to have more. You might value individualism above all else but you have collective action to thank for the options you have today.

Focussing on the root causes is radical feminism, not liberal feminism.

Yes - make up going home from hospital? Dear God - I was focused on whether I could fit back into my own shoes or would still have to borrow DH’s size 8s.

@thedankness I don't have to be insecure in my choices to be annoyed by some random person who tells me my choices are wrong because they are causing this person inconvenience

I absolutely value freedom of choice - otherwise we will end up with a twisted version of feminism that promotes every other type of discrimination, including sexism as it assumed women just don't know what is good for us all!

Also, I think you guys are being deliberately misleading about the hospital bags. I saw the same lists.

Make-up was mentioned in the same category as having oil diffusers, a good book and your favourite playlist - ie non-essential things that may make you feel better at different points of your hospital stay.

I sure wasn't thinking of listening to music when my contractions kicked in before my c-section, but I'm not here wondering what social pressure makes people crave soundtrack for each activity

”Women today only have the choices they have as individuals because older women recognised the limitations on them as a class and fought to have more.”

Yep, among those women were myself and my mum.

What we fought for were for women to have more choices and more societal freedom to take those choices. We didn’t fight to stop women choosing to be SAHMs and bully them into being child free or working mums. Feminism wasn’t about making women more like men and only valuing what was traditionally the public and private roles of men. Feminism has always been about liberating women and adding value to the traditional public and private roles of women.

“Back to 'we want to control women' based on nothing but projection and assumptions. It reads as insecurity in your own choices ironically, as if other people's negative judgement equals a desire to control which you need to push back against.”

It’s not a projection or an assumption. Eliminating women’s choices all starts with making a choice socially unacceptable. Once that is accomplished, the next step is to get the public will riled up enough to ostracise those who choose it or even outright outlaw it.

We did not fight for more choices only for other women to set about judging certain choices as ‘feminist’ or ‘anti-feminist’ because that is step 1 of rolling back feminism. It is making choices socially unacceptable, so that hypocritically, this “no one makes a choice in a vacuum” is purposely exploited to pressure women down a certain path- the path deemed ‘most feminist’ by a cabal of self appointed matriarchs. Ironically by claiming any woman choosing otherwise that they are brainwashed and keeping women back as a class. If the choice is something especially problematic to the matriarchs, like women daring to choose to donate eggs or be a surrogate mother, the ultimate goal of making it socially unacceptable is to then get it outlawed. You know “feminist” activists are pushing for these things.

”That's assuming we all want to judge individual women when actually we're discussing class issues.”

Whether a woman wants to go by Ms, Mrs, Miss or keep or change her surname when married is not a class issue. Nor are even larger issues where women choose one way or another- like having children at 18 and then pursuing a career in her 40s. Your issue is the fact that women have choices and you think there is only one ‘right’ choice, one correct way to live as a feminist woman, when this is the opposite of liberation.

The end goal is to control women. Anything other than validation, tolerance and acceptance of women having autonomy and agency to make their own choices is anti-feminist.

I agree, but any feminist who is against analysing and condemning certain choices by pretending they are class issues is labelled a “choice feminist”

It’s a bit of a sneery, reductive label stuck on many of us, but not how we describe our own feminism.

The trouble is this seems rather like thought control to me. It seems self evident that what person A does to person B affects person C but you seem to be saying that It’s anti-feminist to say so.

We didn’t fight to stop women choosing to be SAHMs and bully them into being child free or working mums. Feminism wasn’t about making women more like men and only valuing what was traditionally the public and private roles of men.

Are you implying that posters on the thread are advocating for that because I haven't seen any evidence of it? Also historically feminism was encouraging women to be more like men (arguably out of necessity at the time) and that is one of the criticisms coming from feminism today (one which I agree with).

Feminism has always been about liberating women and adding value to the traditional public and private roles of women.

Do you think that part of this liberation also includes respecting our biological differences in the context of our relative vulnerability and need for boundaries?

Eliminating women’s choices all starts with making a choice socially unacceptable.

I'm glad you acknowledge that social acceptability governs choice to a degree, and can have an indirect effect on law/policy. Gendered social norms constrain us and can lead to little or no choice in practice even if we have freedom in theory.

We did not fight for more choices only for other women to set about judging certain choices as ‘feminist’ or ‘anti-feminist’ because that is step 1 of rolling back feminism.

I think step 1 of rolling back feminism was already done in the third wave where the value of individual freedom was placed over any sense of ethics in order to justify things that keep women down as a class e.g. prostitution. Surrogacy, as you mentioned, also uses the women's autonomy argument to override arguments about the ethics of commissioning a baby, of asking a woman to risk her health and life not for life-saving purposes but for a desire, of renting a woman's body, of examining the rights and responsibilities of all parties involved including the child etc. In both these examples, feminists aren't trying to make the woman's choice to sell her body socially unacceptable; rather the man/couple's entitlement to buy a woman's body unacceptable. Do you think there are no choices that are beyond reproach?

Your issue is the fact that women have choices and you think there is only one ‘right’ choice, one correct way to live as a feminist woman

I certainly think choices can be deemed more or less feminist through analysis but that does not mean there is one "right" choice in any given situation nor is anyone obligated to make choices on the basis of how feminist they are. What I disagree with is a woman claiming a feminist choice on the basis of autonomy alone.

Whether a woman wants to go by Ms, Mrs, Miss or keep or change her surname when married is not a class issue.

We'll have to disagree, as pp have already provided insight into how they've been affected by this precisely because it is a class issue.

Anything other than validation, tolerance and acceptance of women having autonomy and agency to make their own choices is anti-feminist.

It's paternalist maybe, or anti-libertarian, but it's not anti-feminist because validating the choices of individuals because they are female was never the goal of feminism.

the goal of feminism has always been for women to have equal rights - both in legal and in social sense

and there is also an argument that if you make things you disagree with illegal (e.g sex work, surrogacy, abortion etc.) you are not eliminating an issue, but making conditions of it more dangerous to women involved - so effectively, you are penalising women for not doing what you would like them to

Most early twentieth century feminists very aware of the sexual double standard wanted votes for women and chastity for men. For a combination of biological and economic reasons free love was a bit of a luxury belief.
It still seems to me that biological factors still make arguing for tolerance of ‘rough sex’ a bit of a luxury belief. ‘Choice’ isn’t everything.

what needs arguing for is consent - what do people consent to when it comes to sex is really up to them (the very definition of rough sex is a bit vague)

since when slut shaming became a part of feminism?

Rough sex is a vague term, but as a defence against the accusation of murder it hasn’t only been used in cases of strangulation. Consent can be difficult to disprove if the person alleged to have consented is dead.
Feminism has always been about reducing the damage wrought by male sexual irresponsibility. Demanding the same standards of behaviour from men and women in the interests of the common good is entirely consistent with feminism.

You can't consent to being murdered.

@WhatWouldJeevesDo genuine question, has this defence actually ever worked? given that it is an obvious lie that you can kill someone accidentally this way?

Because nobody can give consent to actually be killed you know

The way to go imo is not to make it illegal for women to do things (surrogacy, sex work) but to prosecute the buyers. And also ensure women have better educational and economical prospects so they don't have to resort to renting out the usage of their bodies for acts that may kill them for a pittance of money.

Abortion is a weird one to add to your list. Sex work and surrogacy harm women, safe abortion rights protects them. What made you do that?

www.lancaster.ac.uk/law/blog/how-the-law-enables-the-use-of-the-so-called-rough-sex-defence-despite-r-v-brown

This defence works really well. Not just for murder.

Yes. It has
Just reading a 14 page article on the issue but have things to do.