I’m not in a good spot to go in-depth right now, but I’m glad you’ve found a way to say in writing something I’ve been trying to articulate in in-person conversations with far too many people. This should be about as basic and obvious as… I cannot even think of something as basic and obvious as this should be. And yet I’ve never seen anybody else acknowledge this.

Thank you so much.

But with these boots I was, and remain, not interested in being sensible.
.-= kaninchenzero´s last blog ..Re: Trust Me =-.

I could not resist engaging this, being a habitual wearer of combat boots. Mine have any number of things going for them: the steel toes keep me from hurting myself when I am tired and stumble. The soles are designed to have traction even when wet. As a bonus, the soles are also rated safe for working with live electrical circuits, which was a concern while I was still in the Navy but not so much now. The tall tops provide excellent support for my ankles, which were grievously sprained in boot camp and one of which now rolls to the outside when I am tired. Because of the way they’re made, it’s easy to find insoles for them that give me fantastic arch and heel support, which help in keeping my poor back from being any more painful than it has to be.

My combat boots are, in fact, the most comfortable and practical pair of shoes I own, and it is a constant annoyance to me that I work in an office where I can only wear them on casual Fridays.

“Please be aware that moderation can take up to 36 hours, as we have contributors all over the world and we often attempt to achieve consensus before deleting or allowing a contentious comment. The moderator responsible for the post in question may also be away or indisposed, in which case you may see comments going up while yours is held in moderation because those comments are deemed acceptable by other moderators, but your comment is waiting for the attention of the original author.”

This isn’t about any of the comments sitting in moderation right now, just a reminder that the author of this post is a disabled woman who has not had the spoons to get back into the comments and moderate them as she finds appropriate.

However, I was under the impression that the *problem* with “choice feminism” is that certain (privileged) women have more choices than others. For instance: White, thin, middle class sex-workers may have more choices in terms of clients, location, and specific activities performed. Immigrant, working-class woman of color, or those who do not fit conventional standards of beauty often have less. Abled women and those in heterosexual marriages have more choices/opportunities when it comes to adopting children than lesbians or disabled women do. Women with class privilege can decide whether they wish to participate in expensive beauty rituals, while poor women cannot. Etc, etc.

My argument against choice feminism has always been, do all women have equal access to such choices? To me, the very idea of choice itself implies privilege.

And no one’s saying “choice feminism” is the awesomest thing ever either. Of course we are constrained by our physical social economic environments. We never have complete freedom of choice. Often we have only shitty options available and it’s really difficult to figure out which might be least shitty. It’s just the term used to denigrate us when we point out that, forex, claiming that the feminist thing to do when a cis woman marries a cis man is to keep the last name she had before she was married. That this claim erases the experiences and needs of a great many women and tells them they are harming women for having done so. This is when they start talking about “choice feminism.”

And seriously, you’re calling a group of people working together to run a social-justice-oriented blog individualists? Do engage the text, please.
.-= kaninchenzero´s last blog ..Re: Trust Me =-.