Twit(ter)-feminist Megan Tyler blathers on about the evils of “choice feminism” pop culture’s current interpretation of the fight for women’s rights as nothing more than the right to sexually abuse yourself or others in the name of vaginas everywhere:
… the choice arguments are fundamentally flawed because they assume a level of unmitigated freedom for women that simply doesn’t exist. Yes, we make choices, but these are shaped and constrained by the unequal conditions in which we live. It would only make sense to uncritically celebrate choice in a post-patriarchal world.
Like many of her slightly more academic contemporaries, Tyler is a disciple of Marxist feminism. To a Marxist, no one has a choice. Women are the oppressed proles, men the oppressive bourgeoisie. The philosophy balks at the concept of choice because free market capitalism and the governmental independence that goes along with it is a denied possibility at the outset. That denial creates contemporary feminist foot-in-mouth disease. Symptoms include middle class white girls balking at the idea that either Beyonce or the local stripper should possibly choose to sexualize her image in order to make money, while simultaneously celebrating slut walks as an earmark of the struggle for women’s liberation.
What are the “real problem women still face”? According to Tyler, they are what can easily be dubbed “first world woman problems” like a lack of state-sponsored child care and, of course, the dead horse that is the equal pay myth. Marxist feminists would find these both to be excessively obnoxious, as they wrestle with the State the way they wrestle with men: All powerful, but never benevolent enough.
When Tyler and her ilk begin to counter the hypocrisy of “choice feminism” with the reality of the inequalities women face in the Muslim world, give me a call. I’ll be happy to bring them a crowbar so they can finally get their Manolos out of their mouths.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member