【尼日利亚每日信任报】Who decides what an empowered woman looks like?

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Who decides what an empowered woman looks like?








原文原文 / Original Text

There is something deeply paradoxical about the way some of us talk about women’s freedom. Choose a career, and you are empowered. Choose motherhood, and someone may wonder whether you have sacrificed your ambition. Choose independence, and you are celebrated. Choose to build your life around a marriage you value, and suddenly your freedom becomes a matter for debate. Reject traditional expectations, and you are liberated; embrace some of them by choice, and you may be told that you have not evo

I should probably make something clear before I go any further. I am definitely not a feminist, but that does not mean I dismiss feminism. I recognise the enormous contribution feminist movements have made to conversations about women’s rights. What I question is the idea that, in order to support women, I must subscribe to one particular definition of what an empowered woman should look like.

Perhaps that is also why I have always been uncomfortable with labels. Labels can provide identity and community, but they can also create expectations about what one must believe, support or reject. I would rather retain the freedom to think, question, agree, disagree and define my own worldview without having to fit neatly into an ideological box. A woman should be able to support gender equality and equity without adopting every position associated with feminism, just as she should be able to

I have often wondered whether we have reduced feminism to a universal template for womanhood, when the very principle feminists claim to be defending is the freedom of women to define their own lives. What does freedom mean to one woman? It may not mean the same thing it means to another. A Northern Nigerian woman may have a very different understanding of a fulfilling life from a woman in Sweden, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or the United States.

That does not mean women’s rights should be relative. The right to dignity, safety, education, opportunity and freedom from violence should never depend on geography. But what a woman chooses to do with that freedom can be deeply personal, and that distinction matters.

Women are often judged for making choices that do not fit another woman’s definition of liberation. If she wants to be a full-time housewife, people ask what happened to her ambitions. If she wants to be a career woman, people ask who will raise her children. If she wants no child, people question her womanhood. If she wants six children, people assume she has sacrificed her identity. If she wants marriage, she is sometimes portrayed as dependent. If she does not want marriage, she is sometimes

I believe feminism, at its most fundamental level, should expand a woman’s choices, not replace one prescribed life with another. If a woman chooses to build a career, support her. If she chooses to dedicate herself to her home and children, support her. If she wants both, support her. If she wants motherhood, support her. If she does not, respect her. The point is not that we must agree with every woman’s choices. The point is that we should defend her right to define what a meaningful life loo

Something else that concerns me is the emergence of another kind of standard: the idea that there is one recognisable image of the empowered woman. She is expected to be fiercely independent, career-driven and unwilling to defer to anyone, while women who value more traditional forms of femininity can sometimes be treated as though they have settled for less. But why should empowerment have one appearance? Why should a woman in the boardroom be considered more liberated than a woman raising chil

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来源：Daily Trust Nigeria (https://dailytrust.com/)
原文链接：https://dailytrust.com/who-decides-what-an-empowered-woman-looks-like/
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