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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Earlier poster and later poster: You're both over-conflating feminist theory and social justice/poverty theory. Are there intersections between the two? Yes. But at bottom, the choice you lambaste is largely a wealth disparity/social justice issue. Choice to take a chance on a risky venture. to change a job. To take time off. To explore a passion. To start a business and fail. To take more vacations. To take more flexible hours. When those "choices"  overlap with feminist issues, it isn't coming from the presence or absence of choice as determined by wealth, it's coming from the persistence of a reality that women still do the lion's share of "home" and "family" work--no matter how lucrative or exciting or beloved their careers. If men and women equally took on those burdens, you would no longer call the choice to stay at home or not a feminist issue. You would call it a wealth issue/poverty issue. That's because, principally, it is.

I'm not saying all is equal. Wealth disparity disproportionately affects women. Many, perhaps most, feminist issues disproportionately affect poorer women. No doubt poor women typically getting the very worst of both gender problems and problems of poverty. That reality, however, doesn't transform primarily economic problems into primarily feminist ones; further, a wealthier woman's access to certain choices because of her economic status does not transform her, if a feminist, into a non-feminist on that basis. Indeed, poverty and lack of choice about childcare does not transform a non-feminist into a feminist either. Maybe a woman is a feminist, maybe she isn't, but the poverty and wealth issue won't answer that question, no matter how hard you try to make it do so.

It's especially rich to hate on women with "choices" when you face the reality that the "choices" many wealthier women make are frequently the result of the very conditions feminists of all economic stripes would like to see improved--equal pay for women, safe/non-harassing workplaces, paid maternity leave/family leave, gender equality (particularly at home), etc. Honestly, this scorched earth approach to any woman who isn't living your definition of a feminist is approaching a level of moral superiority reminiscent of the ideologically opposed confinement--but confinement nonetheless--of the cult of true womanhood and other such anti-feminist nonsense.

So by all means, pp's, fight gender inequality. Fight wealth inequality. Fight it all. But keep things straight. And maybe, just maybe, try to be a little more supportive of fellow women.

(and just in case you care, I work full time. No I do not have to. I am a feminist. No, my choice to work when I don't have to does not make me a feminist).

[/quote]

Hey privileged white woman, every heard of intersectionality? Feminist theory is inseparable from economics and race. Black women and women of color (do you SEE of all the Central American and Philippine nannies in the area watching white babies?) have long, long supported the domestic lives of wealthier white women. So when you ask people to "be a little more supportive of fellow women" who do you have in mind exactly? And from which lofty perch do you speak?[/quote]

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