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That Feminism Is Still Needed

Now Damaging Gender Roles?

That Feminism Is Still Needed

Men Have Big Problems Too

To attempt to dress cosmetic surgery in the flag of feminism is absurd.

This freedom issue is particularly important to women, who have historically been subjugated by men, their bodies regarded as owned and for the use of men. Cosmetic surgery – the ultimate control over one’s body, perhaps – is the latest stage in the emancipation of women and their ability to decide what happens to their bodies. Cosmetic surgery is empowering.

Feminism promotes an unnatural equality between the sexes. There is nothing wrong with sex-role dif...

Women have shown that they are just as capable as men of playing a central role in public life; men have shown that they are just as capable as women of looking after the house and bringing up children. Given this, the suggestion that the male/female public/private divide is biological, natural and right looks somewhat suspect. Feminists point out that the roles traditionally accorded to men are those which - by virtue of being public - involve the widest exercise of political power and influence, and argue that claiming that this is natural and inevitable is an effective way of naturalising male power over women. Claims that motherhood is more fulfilling for women than career success operate as criticisms of women who choose not to have children, and are therefore self-fulfilling prophecies; they tell us nothing about what women are really best at.