#choice feminism

[scum-man-of-pesto]

This is SO REAL like first of all, the matriarchy they initially had was still this hyper-feminine mess where all the barbies still had to look perfect and attractive and have their hair and makeup done etc wereas the Kens simply, did not. Not to mention Alan even. And then still the only pressing harm of the Barbie-run society was that Barbie didn't give Ken much of her time in the way that he wanted her to, and as a result he subjugated every woman in the world?? He made all the Barbies ramp up the performance of the male gaze, spoke down to them, stole their literal houses and hard work, and enslaved them, and then the message was still like "uwu Barbie should've given more time to Ken so he didn't react this way" like no FUCK OFF are you kidding? The Barbies should've just systematically eliminated the Kens because at best they're useless and at worst they're clamoring to cause actual material harm. I WISH the movie lived up to "deeply bizarre and anti-man". It's actually really telling where we are in society that so many see this as an actually radical perspective filled with man-hate when it was literally so coddling to men. Don't get me wrong either, I did enjoy it for what it was like I know it wasn't going to go into an actual deep leftist analysis or anything but this reaction to it as though it had is making me nuts

#barbie #barbenheimer #barbie movie #feminism #feminist #leftism #leftist feminist #femininity #male gaze #misandry #anti man #radical feminism #choice feminism #beauty #beauty industry #conservatives

[theweeklydiscourse]

It’s not Nara Smith who bothers me, it’s the people who suddenly develop an allergy to critical thinking the moment anyone points out that she’s a tradwife influencer.

Many people get aggressively defensive when you point out that she’s making money off of her TikTok account and selling a curated image. When people defend their uncritical consumption of her (and other influencers) content, they’ll talk about it as though her TikTok account is merely a hobby that shows her everyday life. They’ll say that we should respect her right to choose that lifestyle and that it just so happens to win her popularity and monetary gain.

“But feminism is about choice isn’t it? What ever happened to letting people enjoy things?”

No, feminism isn’t about choice and that’s why you learn about the harmful consequences of choice feminism in literally any introductory gender studies course. That mindset does absolutely nothing except uphold the status quo and discourage thinking critically about our choices and the societal factors that influenced them.

It’s no coincidence that this particular image of a beautiful, visibly affluent young woman with three young children is gaining popularity in our current political and cultural climate. It’s no coincidence that more and more influencers are buying into this specific image of the homemaking wife while obscuring the invisible labour that goes into such a task. It’s not surprising that in a time where women’s economic anxieties are growing, that the leisurely affluent lifestyle of an influencer homemaker is becoming increasingly popular.

#feminism #tiktok #Nara smith #tradwife influencers #TikTok discourse #intersectional feminism #choice feminism

[tornapartbythorns]

Choice feminism really is encouraging the deterioration of women's rationality and critical thinking. My younger sister is 15 and she's really into stick-on acrylic nails at the moment.

We were sitting in the living room the other day, and she was ranting to me about how damaged her actual nails are. Apparently, sometimes her fake nails fall off prematurely and it rips the top layer of her actual nails off. So her actual nails are super thin and they hurt because of it. So I asked her "why don't you just stop wearing fake nails?"

She just stared at me and proceeded to say "I like them." Like.... your ACTUAL nails are being damaged routinely and you're in pain, but you're not even going to let them heal because your fake nails are the priority. So I had to tell her again "Your nails are being damaged. Leave them alone and just stop wearing the fake nails." She told me no and flipped me off (jokingly).

Just because you like something doesn't mean it's good for you. Acrylic nails serve absolutely no purpose; they're a waste of money and they're inconvenient. Yeah they might look pretty, but *why* are you so hell-bent on wearing them, especially when they're hurting you? Are you doing it because you actually want to? Do you *actually* like doing it? Or are you doing it to compensate for something? To feel included or trendy? To impress others?

Choice feminism truly is a baby blanket for women's insecurities and for business exploit them. It's completely erased any true feminist analysis or belief about the female body (that our natural bodies are fine and shall never need to be modified). I'm hoping my sister will snap our of it and realize that her fake nails are unnecessary. But with the vice grip that "choice" has over young girls now, I severely doubt it.

#radblr #radfem #radfem safe #radical feminism #radical feminist theory #choice feminism #radical feminist safe #radical feminists do touch #radical feminists do interact

[limeade-l3sbian]

#this literally pulled me out of a three day funk #you have no idea how satiating common sense is #choice feminism

[the-land-of-women]

#laetitia ky #radfem safe #radfems do interact #radfems do touch #choice feminism #liberal feminism #radical feminism

[icedsodapop]

The unholy trinity of White feminism: choice feminism, girlboss feminism and imperialist feminism

#white feminism #girlboss feminism #choice feminism #imperialism #free palestine #feminism #intersectional feminism

[aloeverawrites]

Familiarize yourselves with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The US hasn't signed it yet, but if they had the stunts the alt-right are trying to pull would definitely go against it.

We have to be on the forefront of the children's rights movement and protect it intersectionality along with other civil rights movements like trans rights, gay rights, women's rights, poc rights, indigenous rights, Jewish rights, disabled rights and all basic human rights.

If they go after one of us, they go after us all. Right now children aren't protect so they're being targeted first.

We can't let them use "what about the children" as an excuse to create laws that harm children and adults. But as far as I can see, we are not making as much noise about children's rights. People who care about children might be drawn to the alt-right if they falsely believe that this is the only children's rights movement, we can't allow that to happen.

So spread the word.

Children's rights are human rights.

Trans children's rights are human rights.

#human rights #anti facist #anti capitalism #leftist #children's rights #childism #think of the children #feminism #lib fem #choice feminism #womanism #men's lib #trans rights #poc rights #indigenous rights #disablity #actually autisitc #signal boost #spread the word #children's rights are human rights #un #activism #direct action #come on people let's make some noise

[hard--headed--woman]

not every choice a woman makes is feminist. even if she really wants to make that choice - which in many cases isn’t even the case, because of female socialization, internalized misogyny and other factors. some choices follow the classic rules of femininity, fullfill the patriarchy, obey to male fantasies, follow sexist stereotypes - and so aren't feminist at all. it isn't misogynistic or anti feminist to point that out or to criticize it. how could saying that a thing isn't feminist be anti feminist ? feminism tells us not to be sexist to other women no matter their choices, it doesn't tell us to defend all choices and to act as if all of them are empowering. so do what you want but please understand that not everything you do is feminist just because you want it to be. you being a stay at home wife who wears dresses H24 isn't a feminist move, it obeys the patriarchy - even though you can do other things to help women.

#radblr #radical feminism #radfem safe #radfem #radical feminist safe #radical feminist community #radical feminists do touch #radical feminists please touch #féminisme #féministe #féminisme radical #female socialization #choice feminism #liberal feminism #rad fem #radical feminist #radical feminists do interact #feminism #patriarchy #gender roles

[haggishlyhagging]

"I did it for me," reads the plaque held by the woman in a Botox ad. There's a sense that she's presenting the plaque to us, the audience, and it's kind of unnerving. The makers of the ad are conversant in the basic language of both body acceptance and choice feminism, and this ad is an attempt to make an end-run around any existing skepticism about cosmetic surgery, by appealing to free, market-savvy choice and its result, empowerment. This woman who paid a tidy sum of money for a smooth forehead and nonexistent nasolabial folds is not a dupe of the patriarchy, dammit! She's not doing it for a man; she's not doing it for a woman; she's doing it for herself, and those are the magic words. Variations on “I did it for me” appear and reappear in ads for Botox and breast implants; they're present when Vogue suggests—you know, just puts it out there—that you could shorten your toes in order to better fit them into Jimmy Choos; they exist whenever morning talk-radio hosts give away free breast implants to the woman with the best small-boobs sob story. "I did it for me," "I did it to feel better about myself," and, "I'm not doing it for anyone else" are defensive reflexes that acknowledge an imagined feminist disapproval and impatiently brush it away.

It's been twenty-five years since Naomi Wolf wrote, in her bestselling book The Beauty Myth, that "The ideology of beauty is the last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women whom second-wave feminism would have otherwise made relatively uncontrollable." For all the gains that various women's movements have made possible, rigidly prescribed, predominantly white beauty standards are one site where time has not revolutionized our thinking. Concurrently, it's also where the expansion of consumer choice has made it possible to bow to such standards in countless new ways.

Choice has become the primary way to talk about looks, a phenomenon that journalist Alex Kuczynski called "an activism of aesthetics" in her 2006 book Beauty Junkies. In the book, the cosmetic surgery industry in particular is portrayed as a kind of Thunderdome where the waiting lists for a new injectable climb into the double digits, impeccably spray-tanned celebrity doctors jostle for prime soundbite space in women's magazines, and speakers at surgeons' conventions end their speeches with a call to "Push plastic surgery." With a rise in options—more doctors, more competing pharmaceutical brands, the rise of cosmetic-surgery tourism that promises cheap procedures in tropical locations—the landscape of sculpted noses and liposuctioned abs has been defined by choice. The "activism," too, is one of individual choice—it refers to being proactive about one's own appearance, vigilant enough to be able to head off wrinkles, droops, and sags at the pass. Framed within our neoliberal discourse, an activism of aesthetics doesn't dismantle the beauty standards that telegraph worth and status, but advocates for everyone's right to purchase whatever interventions are necessary to achieve those standards. The individual world shrinks to the size of a doctor's office; other people exist only as points of physical comparison.

Though we often think of beauty and body imperatives in their prefeminist form—the hobbling footbinding, the lead whitening powders, the tapeworm diet—the ostensibly consciousness-raised decades since the 1970s have brought a mind-boggling array of dictates, standards, and trends to all genders, but most forcefully to women. When capri pants were the move of the moment in the 1990s, Vogue was there to suggest quick surgical fixes for knobby knees and undefined calves. Less than ten years later, the clavicle was the body part du jour, balancing the trend of voluminous clothing with reassuring proof that, under all that material, the wearer was appropriately thin. (One clavicle-boasting woman stated to The New York Times that the clavicle was the "easiest and least controversial expression of a kind of sex appeal"—not as obviously sexy as breasts, but evidence of a physical discipline coveted among the fashion set.) A handful of years after that, the focus moved south again, to the "thigh gap" coveted by a largely young audience, some of whom blogged about their pursuit of the gap with diet journals and process photos.

Though certain types of bodies have historically come in and out of fashion—the flapper dresses of the 1920s required a boyish, hipless figure, while the tight angora sweaters of the '50s demanded breasts, or at least the padded semblance of them—the pace with which bodies are presented as the "right" ones to have has quickened. The beachy girls-next-door of the 1970s were elbowed out by the Amazonion supermodels of the 1980s, who gave way to the heroin-chic waifs of the '90s, who were knocked off the editorial pages of the early 2000s by the Brazilian bombshells, who were then edged out by the doll-eyed British blondes. Meanwhile, the fashion industry selectively co-opts whatever "ethnic" attributes can be appropriated in the service of a trend. Black and Latina women with junk in the trunk who have been erased by mainstream glossies, overlooked as runway models, and ill-served by pants designed for comparatively fat rears were rightly annoyed to hear from Vogue, in 2014, that "We're Officially in the Era of the Big Booty" thanks to stars like Iggy Azalea, Miley Cyrus, and Kim Kardashian. There is no wrong way to have a body" wrote author and size-positive sage Hanne Blank, but that sentiment will always be contradicted by a market, and a media, that depends on people not believing it.

-Andi Zeisler, We Were Feminists Once

#andi zeisler #female beauty #performative femininity #feminism and capitalism #choice feminism

[allindiarise]

Online pornography is being accessed by boys as young as eight, and one out of every three pornographic videos features explicit sexual violence or aggressiveness. This is just terrible. Mainstream pornography frequently depicts violence against women, such as strangulation and degradation, as the norm. Pornography is distorting men and destroying women's lives.

#female socialization #feminisim #atheism #choice feminism #gender stereotypes #anti prostitution

[scum-man-of-pesto]

I really, really need more women and girls to make punk/punk adjacent feminist music like the Bleeders or S.C.U.M.

I need to see "SCUM Punk"/"Gash Rock" spread as the new dominant political/feminist movement in alt scenes (I think S.C.U.M. are using Gash Rock like the Bleeders instead of SCUM Punk now, but I still figured I should inlude it for those unaware, I know it was SCUM Punk in the zine, but obv it's not possible to retroactively edit a zine). I'm tired of liberal-ass Riot Grrrl music that's just like "I somehow "reclaimed" the status-quo and now I love it!!! I'm mainly going to yell about other women and personal occurances!! I will materially change nothing and only defend things I like without questioning why I even like them!!! Yay western hyper-individualism!!!!" etc. All while claiming to be radicals and leftists. Alt scenes are so filled to the brim with misogyny, and Riot Grrrl does genuinely nothing to challenge that.

It is so frustrating to listen back to a lot of my past Riot Grrrl favs sometimes now, but I do think that they were right about fighting for their beliefs with loud and angry music. It is such a solid avenue to build a movement out of. There's no better way to get people interested than artistic expression that they think is cool.

So, just like the Riot Grrrls of yesterday and the Gash Rockers of today, grab instruments and start yelling. Make a band. It doesn't have to be all women/girls to start. You don't need to know how to play when it comes to punk or music like it, you just need to be angry and have the ability to google basic chords or beats. Start yelling. Start screaming. Make it so that they can't ignore the voices of women and girls suffering in this patriarchal hellscape system anymore. There's already a couple bands literally doing it, so now is the TIME for you too!!

#feminism #feminist #misogny #sexism #choice feminism #leftism #riot girl #riot grrrl #riot grrl #riot grrl politics #feminist punk #feminist music #feminist movement #feminist media #leftist feminist #radical feminism #radfem #libfem #scum punk #scum #gash rock #society for cutting up misogynists #society for cutting up men #bleeders #bleeders band

[tedhugheshater]

oops repost

#oop is raisoncornelia #feminism #choice feminism #radblr #beauty standards

[taylor14firefly]

https://archive.ph/2023.01.15-174807/https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/11/16/feminisms-second-wave-has-failed-women

Liberal feminism has failed women

by Julie Bindel, 16 Nov 2020

"It is not exactly hard work being a liberal feminist. Nothing has to change, no challenge to the status quo is necessary and men do not need to be admonished. In other words, things stay the same and the quest for individual enlightenment and liberation becomes key. “My body, my choice” is one of the most recognised slogans of second-wave feminism. This is because, prior to the many achievements of the women’s liberation movement, women’s lives were defined by the absence of choice. Women had little or no say over whether or not they married or had children, or even about sexual practice and pleasure. Feminism created a landscape in which women could, to an extent, exercise choice. But lately, the concept of “choice” has been co-opted by liberals to mean acquiescence to harmful practices that benefit men. [...] Liberal feminists are so scared of offending men that they bend over backwards to maintain the status quo as opposed to seeking proper liberation for women. They are happy to be given a seat at the table where they might get thrown a few crumbs, rather than taking an axe and smashing it to smithereens. If men support a particular type of feminism that should be a clue as to its ineffectiveness. Feminism should be a threat to men because we are seeking liberation from patriarchy, which means that they lose the privilege they were afforded at birth by simply owning a penis."

#radical feminism #liberal feminism #julie bindel #choice feminism #gender abolition #liberation #second wave feminism #liberalism

[heterorealism]

#choice feminism #heterorealism #heteropessimism #feminism #dating memes #gender #misandry #men aint shit #dating apps #dump him #men ain’t shit #dating #relationship #feminist #feminist memes #breakup #heterosexual #dark feminine energy #dark femininity

[burningtheroots]

The problem with "choice" feminism is the fact that it completely disregards patriarchal conditioning.

When I‘m critical of "choice" feminism, I don‘t mean to personally attack any woman who makes these "choices".

I simply want more women and girls to become aware of how misogyny & patriarchy has shaped our perception since childhood, and how these "choices" are basically implemented in us.

All these "choices" CAN be choices, but they usually aren‘t because they‘re made by someone else and we can either go along with it or become outlaws in a world that teaches us how to think and feel about them.

We don‘t want to police you, we just want to be critical in order to dismantle a system and patriarchal beliefs so we can all be free and make choices which are actually OURS and not male-influenced in any way.

#radfem #radfems do touch #feminism #radical feminism #radfems do interact #radblr #radfems please touch #women deserve better #womens rights #sex based rights #sex based oppression #women rights #female liberation #misogyny #sex not gender #female labor #choice feminism

[yourmybluebanisters]

me at the downfall of liberal feminism/choice feminism

#liberal feminism #choice feminism #radical feminism #radfem #feminism