I mean, blaming feminists for not crushing the patriarchy seems a bit silly. Feminism has failed to achieve it's goals basically in every single realm. But blaming the oppressed for not being unopressed ain't it
And yeah, there are problems with non-intersectional feminism but the brunt of covid 19 shit falling on women feels like systemic issues. If women earn less they are more likely to be the one to give up work. Plus societal norms push this stuff as 'womens work'
When the article uses the term "feminism" it is referring to the formal feminist organizations/think tanks/lobbying groups who push the public narrative that defines how people define the concept and measure progress.
And on that front it is a massive fucking failure.
Men or women, usually in life you have to pick 2 of the 3: successful/interesting career, family, happiness. Its extremely difficult to get all 3.
People assumed in the 20th century that men had all 3 and women only had 1 so equality/feminism would bring both up to parity. In reality men had the same choices, and modernity has just brought everyone up to face the same dilema: which 2 do I prioritize?
White men with upper middle class or better incomes have been able to have all three. Just because western men of privilege have, for the past roughly 100 years, chosen to spend their time in their own pursuits instead of with their families to the point of it becoming a trope doesn't mean those men didn't have the choice.
Women are the ones faced with diametrically opposed cultural forces demanding familial responsibility while also pushing an expectation of career success.
And any "pick 2 of 3" that ends with one of the choices being something as vague as "happiness" doesn't really add up, FYI, as its a function of the first two and other varaibles. You can't solve an equation for X, Y, and Z if Z is only defined by its relationship with X, Y, and N.
Culture and religion has to stop being the 3rd rail of feminism. Harmful traditions cannot be a woman's progressive choice reinforcing a diverse lifestyle for one group and an out of touch enemy of modern progressive women to another group. Islam, Haredi Judaism, and many other fundamentalist patriarchal traditions are as systemicaly harmful to women as evangelical Christian southern republicans or corporate America.
And here's the thing, women raised in those communities do speak up against their own cultures and are routinely criticized by "liberal" or "feminist" white people.
Why are you jumping straight to oppressive regimes as the only non western world Christian cultures that might take offense to the version of feminism marketed today?
We have alternative forms of feminism in western society NOW. A lot of women would prefer a career and no family, that is a modest deviation that at this point the general public accepts pretty readily as capitalism has won out over all other cultural motivators in our society, so getting that money takes precedence for most over even basic health.
But go talk to an accomplished woman who put her career aside to have a family and see how society at large has responded to that. It ain't kind in most cases, and that is largely the domain of white middle class and higher women who live within a comfort bubble where that can be seen as acceptable.
The point of feminism should, as with all equality programs, focus on equality of access and services that promote access, not just equality of opportunity for the highest achievers. If a person, based on cultural or religious beliefs, chooses to live a different life than the mainstream narrative of female achievement that is her perogative, not oppression. Oppression is the obligation to be a mother and housewife without a choice to pursue a career, a working woman without real means to have a family, or even a "girlboss" who is expected to find a way to juggle both because they're exceptional at their career but also want a family.
The contemporary feminist messaging has been co-opted by capitalist dogma, convincing everyone that work productivity is of the utmost value. People pay lip service to parenting as the "hardest job" or "most important job" anyone does but none of our programs and policies in the U.S. specifically and most western world cultures in general support that.
Capitalism is promoting feminist progress as the number of woman CEOs of Fortune 500 countries, i.e. how many "girlbosses" we've seen since the 1970's. That is nothing more than exceptionalism propaganda. Meanwhile when things like the cost of child care, insufficient availability of child care, the lack of or ending of after school programs, etc. come around the majority of discussion focuses on how it effects "families" as a whole, ignoring that it disproportionately impacts women by a wide margin. That is not even getting into how much more ink girlboss stories get over surfacing the rising inequality in family care in our society.
The narrative of feminism has become nothing more than grist for the mill of capital creation, with women keeping the burdens at home while adding the weight of also needing to be profit generators. This was used as a way to hide wage stagnation and now that dual income households are common the expanded labor pool is used to continue the enforcement of it, via the constant threat of slipping down the quality of life ladder most families are barely clinging onto.
www.nytimes.com
