Discussion Roundtable: Is Criticizing Ballerina Farm Anti-Feminist?
Let's talk about choice feminism
Two weeks ago Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm gave her second ever interview to a major publication. This time it was to Vulture with the headline “Ballerina Farm is Happy with her Choices.”1
A very familiar debate has broken out in the comment section of the article:
On one hand: “Feminism today is about choice and authenticity. If you want to get pregnant every year and bake sourdough bread everyday—do you. Just don’t judge the woman that makes other choices. Leave this woman alone. She is not forcing any woman to do anything or be anything.”
And on the other: “One of the major issues here is that this lifestyle is presented as a choice—and for this specific influencer it genuinely may be—but within high-control religious groups there is actually little-to-no choice for women, and these are the groups/demographics who are predominantly promoting and propagating the “tradwife” lifestyle.”
This debate that tends to arise anywhere Ballerina Farm is discussed is really about choice feminism.