Your Arbitrary Preferences Are Not “Feminism”

I endorse the entirety of this Irin Carmon post, but I’d like to highlight a couple of points:

And Huma Abedin might not be acting in the way you believe you would if you were married to Weiner, but you are not Abedin, and her choices about whom to marry belong to her and not to you. Neither Abedin nor Leathers are advancing policy that harms women as a class. (Nor is Weiner, for all of the fond fantasies of Republicans who would like to I’m-rubber-you’re-glue “the war on women.”)

[…]

Things that are not feminism:

Asking a question about why women do or want things and answering with why you do or want things, and calling it feminism. (Or, as Julia Wong put it, “My feminism demands that women be allowed to speak for themselves.”)
Assuming that a “vibrant young woman” (separate from a “soulfully beautiful and professionally accomplished one) suffers from false consciousness about her own sexuality, and that she needs your pity and implicit shaming, and calling it feminism.
Claiming that you are not judging women’s sexual behavior differently from men’s, and then judging women’s sexual behavior differently from men. And calling it feminism.

This related post from Atrios is also correct. I find the idea that (apart from an abusive relationship) that it’s any of my business whether people should stay in marriages or not, or that feminist principles could dictate some universal answer that could apply in all situations, bizarre. Huma Abedin should do whatever she feels is best for her and I have no idea what that is, the end.