Liberal feminism has failed women

Ask yourself this: if it was legal for women to walk around topless in the same way it is for men, would you do it? Would you choose to walk around in public naked from the waist up on a hot day? Or sit topless in the park, would you go into the shops to buy groceries topless? If not, why not? In fact, walking around topless is legal for women in New York City but nobody does it.

Take the ‘Free The Nipple (FTN) campaign’ which can be filed under Slutwalk for stupid “feminist” ideas. FTN was started by filmmaker Lina Esco in 2012 to highlight the fact that men do not get hassled when appearing topless in public but women are not afforded the same freedom to do so.

Notions of choice and equality underpin liberal feminism, which results in appalling ignorance when it comes to the material and lived reality of women and girls. For example, I have witnessed campaigners against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) being abused on social media for using the term “female” to describe this human rights violation. Apparently it is transphobic to suggest that vaginas are exclusively female.

Things that are currently classed as empowering for women include: buying unbearably high shoes, pole-dancing as exercise, breast enhancement surgery, posing naked on Instagram and “sex work”. But what one thing do these submissive practices all have in common? They are all performed to please men. And all supported by liberal feminists.