The St. Valentine’s Day Blog Massacre, as another blogger put it, generated not only a flurry of feisty comments, but also original postings at a few other blogs. For my money, Charlotte at Living Small effectively silences the debate, taking it to another plane of existence, when she writes of home-making as a heroic act. And the writer in residence under the Wide Blue Sky reminds us of the abundance of the domestic and wraps up her take on the subject with the oft-quoted bottom line that feminism is about personal choice.
As I expressed today to a friend, however, I’m not entirely satisfied with with the “feminism is about choice!” slogan. While it is true that feminism is about having the right to choose (and ensuring that opportunities for choice exist), it has also been, in equal part, about understanding the reasons behind the choices women make and whether or not they are really in our best interests as human beings. In other words, feminism is about philosophy as much as it is about choice. (Given that there’s an entire branch of academia devoted to "feminist philosophy", I realize this is no news flash. I’m just trying, in the simplest terms, to pin down my own dissatisfaction with the slogan.)
So what's a feminist, academic or otherwise, to do when women want to totter about in heels, flash their breasts at Snoop Dog, or “opt-out” of the rat race in order to care for the people they love?
First off, this particular feminist will always cherish and safeguard the right to choose, no matter how “deluded” as to her best human interest the possessor of that right may be. Beyond that, there is nothing to be done but engage in civilized, if impassioned, discussion and offer catalyst to further thought, enlightenment and action. This whole idea of “delusion” is the wide blue sky of feminist philosophy, an infinite mix of culture, education, consciousness, stage of life, point of view, and personal experience—not to mention the 95% of our brain activity that goes beyond conscious awareness.
The resulting discussion is bound to be lively, especially now, as WBS points out, women who would otherwise never have been heard from are finding a quotidian forum (yes, "forum", not just "outlet") for their voices—gentle voices, quite often in warrior mode, under absolutely no compunction to please anyone else, whether for money or status. In this regard, they are perhaps some of the most authentic voices in existence.
1:10:01 AM 
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