The question of what feminism is or means has been divisive for years now. But at its core, feminism is a political movement for liberating women from patriarchal constraints. The goal of feminism is to establish an equal playing field between both women and men, as well as grant women freedom from patriarchal norms.
In recent years, this has taken a detour. Feminism has been overrun with individualism and a mentality of “well, if I enjoy it, it can’t possibly be a bad thing, right?” This mindset in mainstream feminism is called choice feminism.
Choice feminism is the belief that all actions a woman makes are automatically feminist because she is a woman. Therefore, we cannot criticize any action she makes through a feminist lens. Within choice feminism, the choices women make are branded as empowering without any real critical thought behind where they may have come from. This shuts down any critical thought or analysis.
The idea of personal choice has shifted the goal post for the feminist movement. Instead of striving for a better world for women and girls, we’re paying more attention to defending our choices from the most minor criticism from a feminist lens.
Under choice feminism, the feminist part of the term also takes a back seat. Feminism is turned from a political movement into more of a social club with a heavier emphasis on feeling good, not reality.
The go-to defense of “It’s my choice” is a thought-terminating cliche. It’s meant to feel like we’re making strides, while in reality, we’re going in circles. That’s my issue with choice feminism: it’s a copout weaponizing uncritical thinking.
Empowerment isn’t praxis; it’s used as a sales pitch to make feminism look marketable and commodified. Claiming all actions women make are empowering leads us to having no real goal for change. It prevents us from having cohesive critiques of patriarchy and what’s good for women.
It feels hypocritical when social media influencers say“all bodies are beautiful, but I’m going to make a three-part series on why I got buccal fat removal because I hate my hideous face. All women are beautiful. Now, let me sponsor a makeup company that just released a new makeup set for 8-year-old girls. You don’t exist to be a sex object, but I’m going to have an album cover of me getting my hair pulled and on the floor like a dog that you swore you saw in a 1950s ad.”
A major use of empowerment is the cosmetic industry. Critiques of makeup, especially how it and beauty culture in general impact young girls, were a central and obvious point to make. But now we have brands marketing to girls as young as 10 and clothing for girls getting smaller while boys’ clothes remain untouched.
Thinking uncritically of things you do that are expected of you isn’t doing anything good for other women. When a 10-year-old girl begins seeing how different boys’ clothes are from hers and how her peers are wearing makeup when they were playing at the sandbox, she’ll think you can’t question it. She’ll think that’s just how the world is meant to be.
If everything is empowering and feminist, nothing will be. If you have no power unless it pleases a man, then that man can and will leave you to starve. Empowerment as a tool of patriarchy is a machine to sell anything to women as long as it has a corporate “#girlboss” on it.
Not all actions we make as women are feminist simply because of our gender. If we all focus on individual choice rather than collective freedom, we abandon issues we should have our full attention on. Our focus is the freedom of all women, not only personal freedom.