i agree w u that we need to be way way more critical abt shit like makeup and plastic surgery wherein "freedom of choice" is just leaning into patriarchal white-centric ideals of beauty etc. but i think freedom of choice is still impt in other aspects like life goals and saying that choice doesnt matter as much as fighting patriarchy in all aspects seems a little off to me? like if a woman happens to want kids, which is a gendered expectation, then by your post's standards, she isnt fighting the patriarchy. if she chooses to stay at home and watch the kid because thats genuinely what fulfills her more than a job and is fortunate that her spouse wants to and can financially support her, thats also going to be considered not feminist simply because she isnt doing the opposite of gender norms, according to your post. same goes for if a woman wears gendered clothes? has a job like childcare teacher, nannying, nurse? i dont like the idea of defanged (and largely cishet white abled) feminism as much as you, but acting like all forms of freedom of choice that conforms to gender norms is inherently bad strays really close to political lesbianism ideology wherein even choosing to be romantically involved with a man becomes traitorous. because dating men Is a gender norm. short of being a radfem, there is a line where we recognize that choice does matter because otherwise, the act of dating a man in itself plays into gender roles and expectations.

i just think theres a bit more nuance. i.e. genuinely further normalizing hurtful rhetoric/ideas (which makeup and plastic surgery do) should be looked at critically and i personally think we ought to abandon aesthetic surgeries n makeup for the sake of simply fitting into beauty standards all together. i also think that people will always have innate preferences. mine is towards counselling and psychology- is it unfeminist to go into a field that is woman dominated? must we let go of all freedom to choose to do "the most anti-patriarchy thing possible"? i feel like more nuance is necessary or we fall into traps for ourselves and actually end up stifling other women. like women who dont want to go into male dominated fields because its rife with sexism. like women who genuinely want kids with a man. like women who dont have the capacity emotionalmy or physically due to disabilities to work the jobs they are qualified for and so they choose to be homemakers. or even trans women who choose to do makeup because it saves them from transmisogyny. like yes, absolutely we need to critique where some preferences come from because, like with beauty standards and diets and skincare and fashion/makeup trends, some of them can be genuinely harmful to others (especially young girls who are exposed only to manicured picture-perfect bodies and faces). but at the end of the day, sacrificing All individual preferences will not make women happier, healthier or freer. and i mean this for ALL women.

yes I agree that nuance is important! that post is only a few paragraphs long and I made it in a moment of anger--so please nobody think that when I went into it, I was thinking that any conformity to a gender role is worse than death itself lol. like im literally in cornrows and a woman's shirt now.

that's why i always make the distinction between feminist action vs nonfeminist actions, rather than IDing as a feminist and then taking all the things I do as either qualifying or disqualifying me as a feminist. There's women who, for any reason, choose to be homemakers rather than work. Is that a valid choice for them? Yeah! Is it a feminist action? In my personal opinion, no--but is it wrong? Hell no. It's just that, on the list of things that a woman might say are things she's done to dismantle the patriarchy, being a SAHM/homemaker wouldn't be on the list. That's not a bad thing. We can't live our lives wholly dedicated dismantling something to the point of our own self destruction (and considering how deeply gender roles run--even down to social interactions--this would be impossible, anyways). that's where liberal feminism and choice feminism are in the wrong--it's ID first, and then the belief that as along as she's a woman Doing What She Wants, she's fighting the patriarchy (in lots of ways this is the case, but in lots of ways it definitely isn't). so a woman ends up saying its a totes feminist thing to like. actively support plastic surgery and the harmful makeup culture. rather than admitting that those are things that a feminist can do that don't make her not a feminist, but that definitely aren't feminist actions.

(I think most of the people reblogging that post understood as much, considering how there's any number of folks reblogging that who are women w long hair or wearing bras or doing something else that's a gender role and thus supported by the patriarchy)

My beef is with the pushing of personal empowerment over liberation from the thing that makes you need to feel empowered in the first place--and then acting like that is a win against patriarchy. like in the ideal world, people wouldn't need to wear make up, you know? Like, there'd be no expectation for women of any type of contour their faces and coat their skin and clog their pores and spend dozens or even hundreds every year to look a Specific Way. The fact that trans women have to wear make up for their safety is evidence that we live in a society where women are at risk of facing extreme violence for non-conformity--that's a fundamental change to society that make up, while helpful in a lot of these situations, bandages over. Bear in mind that I'm not saying that trans women shouldn't ever wear make up or anything! Make up as a choice for personal freedom/safety obv varies between women and by situation. It's still a gender expectation that men don't have to face, though.

My post was aimed more at the hardline liberal feminists/choice feminists who truly do think that make up is like. a 100% liberating tool whose acceptance actually contributes to the furthering of women's rights and the dismantling of patriarchy. it was generally directed at the women who call themselves feminsts but don't actually have like. an ounce of anything negative to say about the gender roles that are forced on us from birth. like they keep insisting that there is liberation through conformity as long as you change your mind about it or change the definition of feminism entirely. I don't think anyone's evil or partaking wholeheartedly in the oppression of women by wearing makeup n heels or being a SAHM, but again I know better than to equate a choice (often made under some level of misogynistic social coercion) with like, strives to get women in normally male-dominant fields or boost our representation in government or securing our reproductive rights.