(inspired by this post)I have a strange problem. You see, if some lady on the internet thinks that shaving ones legs is less feminist than not shaving or if some lady is like makeup is the tool of the patriarchy, I have to admit that this is not a burning concern on my mind. So during the argument about BDSM on twisty's blog I was really confused because it's not like we're going to go into one's bedroom and look and see if you're doing BDSM in the properly feminist way. Really, it's an ideology, not a club. I guess the confusion comes from like the whole society is like "look! makeup! You must wear it!"(I have to admit I don't often put on much because it is too expensive and takes too much time to find flattering makeup) and "yea, show your tits" so I don't see how a few women on the internet speaking against the standard is going to really affect your life at all. It's not like the feminist police comes to my house and says "Ah! She is not indeed naturally hairless as her mother! She shaves!" and kicks me out of the movement while I'm forced to join the IWF and talk about how we all should be baking cookies(except for me, who is charged with the important task of telling you all to bake cookies).

I guess my confusion is from basically, why even perpetuate these stereotypes at all? Like, the amount of hairy makeupless feminists who are running around yelling at women for owning push up bras well, there aren't that many of them. And that applies to sex pos feminists as well. Like, you know what? Once I showed a man sexualized pictures of myself. Antiporn feminists did not break down my door and tongue lash me about how I was letting down the cause. (I'm not very fond of porn either actually). Heck, have your BDSM scenes(I'm more comfortable with that than porn as I tend to assume that everyone has discussed what they want beforehand). I think the problem is that people are assuming that analyzing or disagreeing with someone else's choices means that they mean that you're a bad feminist if you do X.

For example, I think that most strippers are not in fact working on their dissertation on sex roles, and that it's not exactly the most pleasant job in the world. However, you could strip in a feminist way(it'd probably involve having say, fair labor practices and many different body shapes and sizes,etc), but I simply don't think that stripping without critical reflection is likely to be feminist. That doesn't mean that being a stripper means you're kicked out of the movement. Oh, it's hard to explain, but what I'm getting at is that yea, maybe those strappy shoes that I wanted to buy are not 'feminist', but you know what? It's not really a big deal if people don't think my choice in footwear is feminist. Yea, my footwear can be analyzed in how it shows that women often are stuck with footwear that they can barely walk in, but when people say that they don't mean I'm a bad person or that my shoes are inherently evil.

It's not about you, it's not about the shoes, it's about the patriarchy is what I mean I think.