Saturday 26 September 2015

Do Women Have Real Choices?

There's no such thing as free will for women under the patriarchy. 

Ok ok, too big too soon, but there is a disturbing amount of truth in that statement. When people praise this day and age for offering women a choice between a career and motherhood, have you ever considered how that hardly constitutes a free and unconditional choice?

Context in the bigger picture: one of the main ways to philosophically discuss freedom is by differentiating between "freedom from" and "freedom to". For example, school subject selections offer freedom from a singular curriculum, but only the freedom to choose between government approved subjects. Both have their pros and cons; one is freedom from certain boundaries, one is restricted to certain boundaries. And from a feminist perspective, what we see is that women can usually only access this latter option. Rather than being liberated from oppressive gender roles and expectations to fulfill any path they wish, women find themselves being freed only to the extent of still-dominant patriarchal standards.

The baby/career situation is a good example. While it is true that women have been emancipated from gendered restrictions in the workforce (and even then only partially!), they still cannot escape the expectation of maternity. The idea that women are either mothers or workers is inherently patriarchal as it denies women a complex and nuanced lifestyle that might best suit them, whilst this luxury is afforded to men. It does not leave room for the full time businesswoman with three kids, or the occasionally employed freelancer who lives by herself. While we have no qualms about men in these positions, we perpetuate harmful stereotypes about barren hags, cat-ladies and housewives when women dare to live their lives as they please. Yes, women can become - with much difficulty - CEOs, but the concept of a "choice" between a career and motherhood continues to operate under patriarchal values of women's role in society. This "choice" is not true emancipation; it is lesser of two oppressive evils.

This facade of choice is present in so many aspects of women's lives. 

The "choice" to wear makeup works on a premise of male-enforced beauty standards; you either conform or you don't, and both decisions are based on a patriarchal status quo. 

The "choice" to shave is again simply conformity to an option provided by the *generous freedom* of the patriarchy. Women who don't shave are a specific category in a society dominated by the male gaze, rather than average people doing what is most comfortable. 

Basically women's "choices" are simply reactions to a patriarchal society. They are not decisions made in a vacuum, but actions based on a specific and oppressive set of gendered standards. 

I may claim that my overly-dramatic-cakey-layer-of-makeup-that-I-love is "my choice", but a soul searching self investigation reveals it is more just a reactionary decision to make a statement about my assigned position as a woman in this society, rather than a completely autonomous choice based on self-love, sunshine and honey cakes.

At least I have the choice to eat honey cake! Oh wait no, first I have to count the calories. Hooray for women's liberation. 

Disclaimer time: this in no way invalidates the choices women do make; just because there are larger forces at play does not mean hairy armpits or red lipstick indicate a helpless, weak woman.

Empowerment is extremely personal and all choices are worthy of respect regardless of the premise they were made upon. It is simply equally important to recognise the superficiality of female liberation, and commit to creating a society where women can make choices in a safe space, unaffected by sexism.

Leave your thoughts below :)

Hannah xx

3 comments:

  1. Another insightful post. Loved it. Not sure if you'll see a comment on one of your previous posts so I thought I'd just put it here. Reading through that whole argument between Nicki and Taylor put me on two side of the fence. On the one, I totally agreed with Nicki's argument about the discriminatory nature of the music industry in perpetuating images of beauty as strictly limited to while people. Totally agree. But then on the other hand, I am quite baffled as to how Anaconda not being nominated for the award is an example of how this is true. In my eye's Anaconda is not about celebrating beauty of other races, or beauty in general, but rather about having a good time and sexual promiscuity to some extent. That's my personal view on the crux of the song/video and thereby, I think Nicki was a bit disingenuous in using that particular case to represent the mistreatment. Once again, I agreed with the intricacies of feminism that you blogged about and the important ideas raised by the argument, but I'm just not sure if Nicki did herself justice in this sense. Btw I love them both lol. So if you could just enlighten me on your thoughts about it, that would be fab.

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  2. Hey Anon, I get notified when people comment, so feel free to post them anywhere :)
    I see where you're coming from, and I think its important to remember that Nicky chose Anaconda not getting nominated as her fuel because it was a "this is the last straw" kind of situation. Because she is so famous and powerful, the discrimination she receives is mostly a constant stream of microaggressions, such as being characterised as an "angry black woman". The thing is, these microaggressions are not very visible to the public eye.
    Anaconda had more success and far-reaching pop culture impacts than many of the nominations, so it was unlikely that there wasnt anything fishy going on when it didnt get a nomination - and it was public enough to warrant action.
    And even if there was no racism involved (...) the fact that it is a very viable option is what is so significant. Taylor should have acknowledged this and allowed for constructive discourse to take place.

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  3. I think a better example to make in order to answer the claim that using Anaconda was not a great example of music industry double standards is to compare it to Wrecking Ball. WB was a very similar song to Anaconda in that both women were very naked, the video clips were seen as 'scandalous' and they had very similar cultural impacts (both spawning multiple memes and parodies).
    So why is it that if the two are so similar, only Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball was rewarded? She WON the MTV music video award 2014, whereas Anaconda didn't get similar reward, Nicki didn't even get a nomination in the Video of the Year catagory let alone win that same award.

    The difference was that one video displayed a white women's sexuality and while the other celebrated black women and black sexuality.

    So when Nicki sent those tweets arguing that artists who celebrated skinny white girls got rewarded, she was most likely referencing Miley Cyrus and in fact, if you look at her later tweets she retweeted a couple of tweets about the double standard existing in the treatment of Wrecking Ball and Anaconda. So in answer to your argument, Nicki was right in using Anaconda because it very clearly demonstrated the racism of the music industry when compared to Wrecking Ball~ as was her intent!

    In conclusion, she slayed.

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