Feminism is about choice

The very word "feminism" conjures up the cliched images of the 1970s: radicalised, bra-burning women marching and shouting through the streets. Second-wave feminists were incensed by their position as second-class citizens, subservient to fathers and then dominated by husbands. They had a revolutionary agenda and demanded far-reaching social change.

Now that this generation of feminists is approaching retirement, the world is a very different place. Young women in Australia are free to pursue a career, to get married or not get married, and to decide to have or not have children, without a social stigma being attached to their choices. Due in no small part to the cultural shift in attitudes to women that Australia's greying "sisterhood" encouraged, many young women are now empowered and influential.

Yet this is the frustrating thing about the F-word today: so much of the feminist debate still assumes that women are powerless. If a man and a woman are in a relationship, then he is in control. If a woman is in a workplace, then she is a target for harassment. If a woman wants a career and children, then she is destined for a life of doing the "double shift". Obviously, you cannot trust men to step up to the plate.

For young women of my generation, the brand of feminism which says that women are disempowered and harassed just doesn't have much resemblance to real life. A quick scan of my friends and colleagues renders the idea that we are all dominated and subordinated by our partners and husbands laughable.

One of the biggest victories of feminism was freeing women from the compulsory domestic drudgery of being a housewife. Now, getting married or having children does not automatically consign you to a life in the kitchen.

In 1982, 48.3 per cent of women were employed. By 2005, that number had reached 67 per cent. By international standards, the gender wage-gap in Australia is quite small.

As women do more paid work, they do less housework. Researchers at the University of Queensland recently found that women in dual-income couples in the 1980s did significantly more work (paid work and housework combined) than their partners. By 2005, the gap had largely disappeared.

But feminism focuses on these facts and says we have not gone far enough. It says that we are still victims, and we will be until women work – and earn – as much as men. We will be victims until every husband does the dishes exactly 50 per cent of the time. And this is where feminism is getting it wrong.

Women who have children earn about $160,000 less over their lifetime than those that do not. This is presented as evidence of women's continued subjugation. But doesn't this just reflect the fact that many mothers choose to take time out of the workforce or work part-time so they can spend more time with their children?

For these women, the time spent with their children is probably infinitely more important than the number at the bottom of their tax return.
It is not changes in the average woman's wage, or a drop in the average number of hours spent vacuuming, that empowers women. It is the ability of each woman to make choices about her own life.

What matters is that if a woman wants to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a politician, she has the same opportunities to do this as a man. Or if a woman wants to devote her life to raising her children, she can. What does not matter is if more men than women choose to do one or the other.

Women need equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.

It is pertinent to ask: if the world has changed so much since the 1970s, do we need feminism at all? There are still battles to be fought to achieve true equality of opportunity. It would be naive to think that women are no longer victims of harassment, violence and discrimination. But this has become the exception rather than the norm.

We need a new feminism that does not assume that women are victims and does not try to pigeonhole us into one homogenous group. It does not tell us to stay at home, or get to work. It does not focus on workforce participation, or the gender wage-gap, or the average number of hours spent doing housework. The new feminism is about choice.

Jessica Brown is a policy analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.