Fifty Shades and the secret compromises of women

There's a reason this retrograde fantasy is so popular

It's an uncomfortable fact that at the very moment the #MeToo movement advocates for equal treatment in the workplace, women are rushing to theaters to watch the final movie of the Fifty Shades trilogy, in which the female protagonist happily marries her obsessive stalker-cum-employer.

For many feminists, it's frustrating that the hardscrabble fight for true equality coincides with fantasies about subordination. It seems to play into the worst myths about women: specifically, that they liked their oppressed status as second-rate citizens, and experience "women's lib" as a burden they long to shrug off. This, after all, is the kind of thinking that leads to schools informing teenage girls they're not allowed to say no to boys who ask them to dance. And to presidents and senators praising men who beat their wives as "hard workers" and "good guys."

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Lili Loofbourow

Lili Loofbourow is the culture critic at TheWeek.com. She's also a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Review of Books and an editor for Beyond Criticism, a Bloomsbury Academic series dedicated to formally experimental criticism. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues including The Guardian, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Slate.