Uma Blanchard

If there is one thing most feminists will agree on, it’s the right to choose—and that’s a problem. Though the “right to choose” is a slogan specific to the abortion debate, the language of choice pervades the feminist movement. Every woman is now allowed to choose what exactly feminism entails, and enact it any way she sees fit.  Basically, feminism is now as inclusive as your friendly neighborhood Arby’s. My friend calls herself a feminist because she likes all the Jezebel articles on Facebook. Another friend claims feminism because he believes in equal rights for women, even though he thinks corporate initiatives for female leadership are unfair to men.  Sarah Palin, the pariah of the Great White North whom Fox News has discarded, sporadically calls herself a feminist.

This April, I got the opportunity to hear trade secrets from the reigning female leaders at the Columbia University Women’s Leadership Conference. I mostly went because I wanted to see Gloria Steinem, the keynote speaker. Unfortunately, the discussion with Steinem was an underwhelming retrospective of Ms. magazine. No contemporary or hard-hitting questions were asked of her. Otherwise, the event felt overwhelmingly corporate.