Beth Montemurro, "Charlotte Chooses Her Choice: Liberal Feminism on Sex and the City" (page 2 of 3)
The Trouble with Liberal Feminism
Since the Home Box Office (HBO) is less constrained by a push for
network-TV-like ratings and, given that it generates revenue from its
viewers and is thus not dependent on advertising dollars, its programs'
producers can instead focus on crafting intricate story lines that allow
for the complexity of characters. HBO may be less concerned about
falling within the comfortable range of emotions or, in this case,
gender displays that are standard on mainstream series. By placing work
at the center of Carrie, Samantha, and Miranda's lives and identities,
rather than as something to be abandoned at marriage, Sex and the
City allows for a more "realistic" or in-depth story to be told. In
fact, Charlotte's own insecurities about her decision and her concerns
regarding how she would be judged also communicate the idea that work is
and should be important to women. Her defensiveness, which comes through
forcefully in a subsequent phone conversation with Miranda, implies that
she realizes that she might have regrets about not working and that she
has internalized the message that she should work. When, for example,
she accuses Miranda of judging her and exclaims, "You think I'm one of
those women . . . One of those women we hate who just works until she
gets married!" Charlotte reveals her own view that women should be
independent, which demonstrates that she herself is conflicted. This
statement has feminist undertones (although the divisiveness among women
it suggests is decidedly not feminist), since it implies that women who
change their lives, or who are primarily oriented to attracting a
husband, sacrifice themselves and comprise their identities.
When she demands that Miranda support her decision, Charlotte claims
that, given the women's movement, she has the right to choose whether or
not she should stay home. She shouts into the phone repeatedly, "I
choose my choice!" as if to say her decision is OK because it is
supported by feminism. When Charlotte says these words, when she decides
to stop working, she calls on a principle associated with liberal
feminism—that every woman has the right to decide for herself what
is best. This both oversimplifies and misinterprets liberal feminist
goals, while still promoting the critical sentiment that women are
diverse, and that one woman's decision of what to do with her body or
her life should be in her hands, in spite of what her friends, family,
or society at large may say. However, it also articulates some of the
problems associated with liberal feminism as a perspective and the
consequent misappropriation and misapplication of this perspective by
women and various social institutions.
Liberal feminism is based on the idea that differences between women
and men cannot be explained by biology and thus differential treatment
is unjust. Liberal feminists have argued that people should be regarded
as individuals, rather than as men or women, and thus should be able to
make decisions based on what is best for the individual. In this episode
of Sex and the City, when Charlotte refers to the women's
movement, she seems to be referring to the idea that women have been
"liberated" or freed from the constraints of patriarchy and are able to
work and attain success at levels similar to those attained by men.
Thus, she has the right to decide for herself what will make her happy
and satisfied as an individual. If she chooses not to work, then she is
not succumbing to traditional feminine expectations; rather, she is
doing what she sees as right for her and thus she should not be judged
for this. Of course, this is problematic on several levels. First, only
certain women have been "liberated' in this sense and, as feminists
critical of liberal feminism would argue, few women have the ability to
make this choice. For example, bell hooks attributes the divisions
within early second-wave feminism to the fact that women from different
racial and class groups have different interests. She argues that many
poor or working class women would have relished the opportunity to stay
at home with their children, but this was not an economically viable
choice. This whole debate about choice must be placed in the context of
oppression; Charlotte's choice is predicated on other women's lack of
choices. Furthermore, Charlotte mentions that "Trey suggested" she stay
at home, indicating that the idea to stop working is not hers alone. Her
wealthy doctor husband presented the option to her as a gift of sorts,
as if to say, "I give you permission to stay home," and Charlotte fails
to acknowledge that her choice is made possible only by her subsequent
economic dependence on her husband.
Similarly, as Rosemarie Tong articulates in her classic text
Feminist Thought, liberal feminists tend to "overemphasize the
importance of individual freedom over that of the common good" by
detailing a white upper/middle-class feminism that is not accessible to
all (Tong 11–38). As Alison Jaggar (among others) has critiqued,
liberation for the individual does little for liberation of the
oppressed or for the understanding of the diversity of oppressions faced
by women from different race and class positions. Thus, liberal feminism
can be faulted for its assertion that if women and men are viewed as
equals and given equal opportunities, then any woman or man can succeed,
rather than critiquing the structure of society, calling attention to
its institutions as racist and classist.
Furthermore, Charlotte's use of the women's movement as support for
her decision co-opts feminist ideas in order to suit her purposes, and
liberal feminism's simplistic premise unfortunately lends itself well to
such appropriation. When Charlotte says, "the woman's movement is about
choice" she implies that any choice—whether it be motherhood,
career, or taking a cooking class—should be OK because she claims
to be making the decision herself. This is a tactic that has been used
by the media and advertisers in order to manipulate women into buying
products or ideas about self-improvement under the guise that they
deserve to be self-indulgent, that women have put themselves second or
last for too long. As Susan Douglas argues, industries ranging from
beauty (L'Oreal's "I'm worth it") to tobacco (Virginia Slims' "You've
come a long way, baby") have traded on feminist ideas of "women's
rights" to indulge, to take "pleasure" in themselves and to pursue their
interests, to do what men can do. Douglas argues, "Women's liberation
metamorphosed into female narcissism unchained as political concepts and
goals like liberation and equality were collapsed into distinctly
personal, private desires. Women's liberation became equated with
women's ability to do whatever they wanted for themselves, whenever they
wanted, no matter what the expense" (Douglas 243–94). Not only
have advertisers used feminist themes to sell products by encouraging
narcissism, but as Arlie Hochschild demonstrates, other media have done
so as well. In her words, the advice/self-help genre of books "abducted"
feminism, particularly the ideas associated with liberal feminism, by
encouraging women to think more about themselves and their needs, in the
same way that men supposedly have (Hochschild 1–24). These books
assume a selfless woman who needs to learn to put herself first in
relationships. The multibillion dollar weight-loss industry has
capitalized on this as well. Encouraging women to join weight-loss
groups or purchase expensive dietary supplements or prepackaged meals
under the artifice that they should do this for themselves, rather than
be critical of impossible societal standards of beauty and body image,
is also a co-optation of feminism (Stinson). All of these strategies
result in women's participation in their own oppression, under the
clever guise of women's liberation.
Charlotte calls on these same principles in her justification of her
decision. If she wants to spend a day painting pottery, then she should
because she deserves it and it is her right as a woman to decide what is
best for Charlotte. Her misappropriation of feminism is not taken
lightly or manipulated by the writers and producers of Sex and the
City as other media have done. Rather, Charlotte's construction and
employment of her own breed of feminism is depicted as one-dimensional,
inappropriate, and certainly not feminist. By having the other
characters question Charlotte's decision, we see her disciplined for her
dependence and judged for her choice; it is apparent that even Charlotte
herself is aware of the flimsy nature of her argument.
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