What I don't feel I covered in my Levenson review is WHY choice feminism is currently everywhere: in women's magazines, new books, speeches, interviews... Sex And The City mused about the ethics of feminism, high heels and whether to call him first on numerous occasions (and can I just take the opportunity to point out that Carrie is now Happily Married, so somewhere in her wicked, miserable past, she must have done something good.) It is automatically assumed that twenty-somethings are feminists in some way or other at the moment, at least if they're urban, educated, middle class and not too right wing.
It's only a theory, but I think a lot of these new 'Choice Feminists' are from the same generation as me. I think they, too, wanted silky smooth legs, and to pluck the hairs out of their chins, and a boyfriend like Todd Wilkins from Sweet Valley High. And I think it's been a long road, trying to work out whether we should feel guilty about owning a Gillette Venus or not. My mum was really mean to me for shaving! Should we criticise others who make their bodies even more sexy than we do (up to 40% too sexy)? Should we tell those hairy girls in the dungarees that they, too, are now allowed to devote 5% of their waking hours to 'grooming' and 'pampering'? Probably not, because the hairy girls are likely to tell us to go fuck ourselves. They might even have a sound political position to back this up.
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At last, these burning questions are solved by Moran, in How To Be A Woman, the twenty-first century's answer to The Second Sex. (I'm not sure if she answered my own burning question, which was 4.) Do I Even Want To Be A Woman Or A Feminist
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