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IT’S ALL ABOUT ‘CHOICE’
Posted by Laura on March 10, 2010
Tags: Books, feminism, Radio, socialisation
I’ve currently knee-deep in a backlog of books, radio and tv programmes and blogs on feminist issues. Half-way through Natasha Walter’s Living Dolls, Kat Banyard’s The Equality Illusion next on the pile and the Women BBC2 series being taped for my future viewing pleasure. Thankfully I’ve been sucked into the world of podcasts and am keeping somewhat abrisk with ongoings via the Women’s Hour I’ve been listening to on my commute. So this is how I got to hear Kat Banyard’s recent interview.
As I have yet to read Banyard’s book, I can’t comment fully on her argument and am merely going on the basis of the Radio 4 piece but what again was evident to me was this reference to ‘choice’. The notion that women have choices and that their involvement in potentially degrading environments such as pornography or the wider raunch culture is now being presented as them demonstrating ‘choice’. Women can and/or are choosing to work as lap-dancers because perhaps they feel empowered by such work. Women choose to watch pornography because they too can now seek enjoyment from it. And what’s worrying to me is that whilst there is now this attention from feminists being placed on this backlash by wider society to turn ‘choice’ on its head and an acknowledgement of still the damaging consequences of such choosing acts, that the deeper implications of ‘choice’ are falling away from public debate again. To me, what was missing from Kat Baynard’s interview was a stress on the illusion of choice – the argument that women may feel they are making choices, they may feel they are empowered but some may argue that such is an illusion; a product of long-term socialisation to accept particular values, to even desire particular things. It’s the same criticism that could be made of Hakim’s ‘Preference Theory’ – the theory that women’s careers/furture domestic roles are a result of their preferences, or ‘choices’, which ignores that these preferences are often constructed by society and are not innate.
As I said, this is going on one short radio piece. I hope that this is given more attention in The Equality Illusion but only time will tell…
Tags for this post:Books, feminism, Radio, socialisation