Saturday, January 28, 2006
Choice, Judgment, Responsibility, and Accountability
As evidenced by a number of my posts in the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the issue of "choice" and how that relates to the choices women make, especially in terms of family and career. I decided I wanted to do some further writing on the issue, and this is the first resulting post. I have ideas for at least two other posts which I’ll try to write in the upcoming week or two, and then I guess I’ll see where that leaves me.
As I thought about this issue this past week, I went back and reread an article by Linda Hirshman published in American Prospect a few months ago. There was a lot of uproar in both conservative and liberal circles to Hirshman’s article (see this article for a critique, and this article for an overview of some of the critiques).
In this article, Hirshman defines "choice feminism," which is a variety of feminism that purports "A woman could work, stay home, have 10 children or one, marry or stay single. It all counted as 'feminism' as long as she chose it." She argues that "choice feminism" has failed because while it has opened doors for women within societal institutions, it hasn’t addressed the fact that women still believe their place is in the home. She argues that there is a problem when women justify their acceptance of traditional gender roles with the declaration that it’s their choice, and that feminism needs to go beyond affirming the choices of women:
Despite my general wariness of judgment (see my previous post on this subject, especially the conclusion) I can’t dismiss Hirshman’s conclusion. Feminism is a worldview that is profoundly about making judgments—judgments about society, judgments about the way men and women interact, etc. In my book, things such as violence against women and eating disorders are "bad choices," and I want to use my feminism to make this kind of judgment about these issues. At the same time, there is a problematic "culture of judgment" that surrounds the choices that women do make, and women often feel guilty for the good choices that they make because we as a society feel like it is our duty to judge women’s choices, especially when it comes to how their choose to negotiate family and work demands.
So, how do we negotiate this morass of "choice" and "judgment"? To what extent does feminism ask us to make judgments of other women’s choices? In my mind, I think it’s a delicate balancing act. We need to try to figure out how to respect and trust women’s autonomy and ability to make good choices about their own lives (because women have not gotten enough recognition of this kind), while still recognizing that their choices and beliefs are influenced and dictated by culture and society.
I love jedmunds from Pandagon’s thoughts on the issue. She writes in response to Hirshman,
I think the answer in how to balance the dilemmas of "choice" and "judgment" often lies not in dictating the "right" choices but 1) getting women to recognize how their choices are constrained in a male-dominated society and 2) change societal norms and structures so that women aren’t forced to make "essentially surviving choices." It requires us to look at the causes and motivations behind the choices that women make and try to keep the majority of judgments in that realm.
I think the issues here are responsibility and accountability, words that often go hand in hand with "choice." The question is: who or what is responsible for the choices that women make, and who is responsible for holding those who are responsible accountable?
In answer to the first part of the question, I think we need to recognize a dual responsibility. Women should be held responsible for their own decisions (I think a recognition of this goes hand in hand with affirming women’s autonomy and abilities), but I think we also need to recognize the ways that society shapes, influences, and limits women’s choices. When society presents a woman with two equally bad choices, is she fully responsible for making a "bad" choice? I would argue "no."
My answer to the second part of the question goes back to how I think we need to approach the issue of judgment and women’s choices. Because it is difficult to fully understand and appreciate the reasons behind individual women’s choices, and because a multitude of individual women’s choices typically do not have direct impact on our daily lives, I think we (as individuals) need to be wary about holding individual women accountable. For instance, my friend Dolly’s decision to go back to work when she has an infant doesn’t directly impact me, and therefore, she is not accountable to me, which means that I need to reserve judgment. At the same time, I think that society and its institutions are accountable to its members in ways that individual members of society often aren't; we can make judgments about society and the ways it shapes women’s beliefs and decisions in problematic ways and hold society "accountable" by critiquing these problems trying to make changes. I think that we need to focus our attention on society and the way it sets up "choice" for women in problematic ways before we can truly address the "right" or "wrong"-ness of the choices that women make.
As I thought about this issue this past week, I went back and reread an article by Linda Hirshman published in American Prospect a few months ago. There was a lot of uproar in both conservative and liberal circles to Hirshman’s article (see this article for a critique, and this article for an overview of some of the critiques).
In this article, Hirshman defines "choice feminism," which is a variety of feminism that purports "A woman could work, stay home, have 10 children or one, marry or stay single. It all counted as 'feminism' as long as she chose it." She argues that "choice feminism" has failed because while it has opened doors for women within societal institutions, it hasn’t addressed the fact that women still believe their place is in the home. She argues that there is a problem when women justify their acceptance of traditional gender roles with the declaration that it’s their choice, and that feminism needs to go beyond affirming the choices of women:
Conservatives content that the dropouts prove that feminism "failed" because it was too radical, because women didn’t want what feminism had to offer. In fact, if half or more of feminism’s heirs…are not working seriously, it’s because feminism wasn’t radical enough: It changed the workplace but it didn’t change men, and, more importantly, it didn’t fundamentally change how women related to men.”According to Hirshman, since "choice feminism" didn’t go far enough, we need to reintroduce the practice of "judgment" to feminism.
Despite my general wariness of judgment (see my previous post on this subject, especially the conclusion) I can’t dismiss Hirshman’s conclusion. Feminism is a worldview that is profoundly about making judgments—judgments about society, judgments about the way men and women interact, etc. In my book, things such as violence against women and eating disorders are "bad choices," and I want to use my feminism to make this kind of judgment about these issues. At the same time, there is a problematic "culture of judgment" that surrounds the choices that women do make, and women often feel guilty for the good choices that they make because we as a society feel like it is our duty to judge women’s choices, especially when it comes to how their choose to negotiate family and work demands.
So, how do we negotiate this morass of "choice" and "judgment"? To what extent does feminism ask us to make judgments of other women’s choices? In my mind, I think it’s a delicate balancing act. We need to try to figure out how to respect and trust women’s autonomy and ability to make good choices about their own lives (because women have not gotten enough recognition of this kind), while still recognizing that their choices and beliefs are influenced and dictated by culture and society.
I love jedmunds from Pandagon’s thoughts on the issue. She writes in response to Hirshman,
What Hirshman seems to want to believe is that the answer to the nauseating "choice" feminism, which isn’t really a brand of feminism so much as a backlash phenemenon anyway, is to find the "right" choices and guilt women into making them. I wish it was that easy, I do, but I quarrel with the idea that there is a "right" choice in a male-dominated society. But every "choice" women make has a built-in punishment to it, something she has to give up that men with the same goals and desires don’t have to sacrifice....My point is there is middle ground between this silly "all choices are feminist" crap and a more nuanced understanding that all choices women make are in response to oppressive forces and have to be understood as essentially surviving choices.In my previous post, one of my central points was that women don’t have the freedom of choice that they think they have--their choices (and really, the choices of everyone) are constrained by societal norms, institutions, etc.
I think the answer in how to balance the dilemmas of "choice" and "judgment" often lies not in dictating the "right" choices but 1) getting women to recognize how their choices are constrained in a male-dominated society and 2) change societal norms and structures so that women aren’t forced to make "essentially surviving choices." It requires us to look at the causes and motivations behind the choices that women make and try to keep the majority of judgments in that realm.
I think the issues here are responsibility and accountability, words that often go hand in hand with "choice." The question is: who or what is responsible for the choices that women make, and who is responsible for holding those who are responsible accountable?
In answer to the first part of the question, I think we need to recognize a dual responsibility. Women should be held responsible for their own decisions (I think a recognition of this goes hand in hand with affirming women’s autonomy and abilities), but I think we also need to recognize the ways that society shapes, influences, and limits women’s choices. When society presents a woman with two equally bad choices, is she fully responsible for making a "bad" choice? I would argue "no."
My answer to the second part of the question goes back to how I think we need to approach the issue of judgment and women’s choices. Because it is difficult to fully understand and appreciate the reasons behind individual women’s choices, and because a multitude of individual women’s choices typically do not have direct impact on our daily lives, I think we (as individuals) need to be wary about holding individual women accountable. For instance, my friend Dolly’s decision to go back to work when she has an infant doesn’t directly impact me, and therefore, she is not accountable to me, which means that I need to reserve judgment. At the same time, I think that society and its institutions are accountable to its members in ways that individual members of society often aren't; we can make judgments about society and the ways it shapes women’s beliefs and decisions in problematic ways and hold society "accountable" by critiquing these problems trying to make changes. I think that we need to focus our attention on society and the way it sets up "choice" for women in problematic ways before we can truly address the "right" or "wrong"-ness of the choices that women make.
// posted by Seraphine @ 9:40 PM 
