What if I called myself a conservative – but virtually all of my writings on the subject were devoted to passionately denouncing conservatives, and I didn’t actually favor any conservative policies to address any of today’s problems? What if I had virtually never published a positive word about conservatism (apart from “however…” type passages in essays denouncing conservatism?) What if my self-styled conservatism had the practical effect of giving myself a better platform from which to denounce conservatism?
My guess is that, if all that were the case, most conservatives would find my claim to conservatism suspect. Modern conservatism encompasses many different views, but it doesn’t encompass the view that modern conservatism is a terrible idea that ought be done away with.
On a feminist mailing list, I recently called Cathy Young an “anti-feminist journalist.” Cathy has taken issue with this:
I think that labeling me (or, say, Wendy McElroy) “anti-feminist” (1) is inaccurate and (2) establishes a rigid ideological definition of what “feminism” is. I also think that, whether or not Barry intends it that way, “anti-feminist” is a pejorative. Indeed, I would say that Barry himself uses it as a pejorative: the section on his blog dedicated to critics of feminism is called “Anti-Feminist Zaniness,” and in this 2004 thread, he says, in a partial defense of yours truly, “I’m not saying that … she doesn’t say stupid, anti-feminist things…”
Okay, let’s take this a bit at a time.
Is “Anti-Feminist” Always A Pejorative?
Do I use “anti-feminist” as a pejorative – that is, as the OED puts it, as “a word or expression which by its form or context expresses or implies contempt for the thing named”? I don’t think I do. I use it just as I use words like “libertarian” “republican” and “conservative” – terms which describe political philosophies.
It’s true that in the loose talk of a comments section that was (at that moment) pretty much all-feminist, I wrote that Cathy said “stupid anti-feminist things.” In hindsight, I should’ve put that more diplomatically (i.e, “endorses terrible anti-feminist ideas”), but I’m sure I’ve also referred casually to “stupid republican things” at some point in my life – and I bet many conservatives have done the same with words like “feminist” and “liberal,” when they’ve been talking casually among the like-minded. That doesn’t make any of these words pejoratives which can’t be used in a good-faith debate.
What Does “Feminist” Mean?
Before we can define “anti-feminist,” we have to discuss what “feminist” means. And here, we immediately run into trouble: feminism has dozens of meanings, depending on who you speak to. And, clearly, I have no authority (or desire) to define feminism for anyone apart from myself; people who want to think of themselves as “feminists” are free to do so regardless of if I agree.
So I’ll just talk about what “feminist” means to me. Here’s how I’ve put it in the past:
1) Believes that there is current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism which on balance disadvantages women.
2) Advocates for the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
Cathy would presumably find that a “rigid ideological definition of what ‘feminism’ is.” One of Cathy’s anonymous readers is harsher, writing that “Anyone with whom [Ampersand] disagrees on gender issues is ‘anti-feminist’ and is therefore a complete reactionary bigot.”
I don’t think either of these claims hold up to scrutiny. Far from being “rigid,” my definition of “feminist” is a vast sprawling tent, easily encompassing countless contrary feminist opinions (radical feminist, eco-feminist, liberal feminist, socialist feminist, womanist, cultural feminist, trans feminist, third wave feminist, etc etc). And although I disagree with aspects of most of those views, I’ve never called them “anti-feminist” views – because they’re not.
What is Anti-Feminism?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines an anti-feminist as “One opposed to women or to feminism.” Cathy doesn’t oppose women, but you’d have to impossibly distort her work to argue that she doesn’t oppose feminism; virtually all her writings on feminism are attacks on feminists and feminism. The OED offers a second definition: “a person (usu. a man) who is hostile to sexual equality or to the advocacy of women’s rights.” Cathy isn’t hostile to equality (and she’s not a man!), but her writing clearly is “hostile to… the advocacy of women’s rights.” She thinks women already have virtually all the rights they need, and therefore further advocacy is unnecessary.
In the introduction to her book Ceasefire!, Cathy concedes that in one area – the family/work balance – women might still have a legitimate complaint. But virtually all other concerns that justify a “case for continued feminist activism,” she dismisses as illegitimate. There’s a big difference between criticizing some feminist views, and denying that there’s a legitimate need for a women’s movement at all. How can anyone who doesn’t see a need for a movement for women’s equality, be a feminist?
As I wrote two years ago:
My main problem with “ifeminism” and other conservative brands of feminism is that they seem to be premised on the idea that (at least in this country) feminism has already won. The essential message I see in McElroy’s iFeminist columns and books like Who Stole Feminism? is that women are already equal; there is no need to agitate for change in order to bring women’s equality about.
So, for example, conservative “feminists” argue that we shouldn’t worry about the wage gap, because it’s merely a matter of worker’s individual choices, and has nothing to do with discrimination. They argue that the rape crisis is fiction, a result of feminist exaggerations and morning-after regrets. They argue that domestic violence has nothing to do with sexism because (as Christina Hoff Sommers argued) men are equal victims of spouse abuse.
Note the common theme – in each case, the conclusion of the argument is that sexism against women is no longer a problem, and political, activist solutions – that is, feminism – is no longer necessary.
Well, that’s nice – but it’s not feminism. Feminism is and has always been about activism; feminists are trying to change society. In particular, feminism is about changing society so that women, who are unfairly kept down in our society, can at last experience full equality.
If you don’t believe that sexism is an important problem keeping women down today, then you may be a nice person, and you may believe in equality – but you’re just not a feminist.
Why This Matters: Does Feminism Have Any Meaning At All?
The danger I see in Cathy’s views is that, if they were generally accepted, the result would be that the word “feminist” would be drained of meaning. If Cathy is a feminist, then feminism is no longer “an organized movement for the attainment of… rights for women” (to quote the definition of “feminism” Cathy cites). Feminism no longer means fighting sexism against women. Judging by Cathy’s writings, her brand of feminism involves attacking feminism at every turn while generally supporting men’s rights activists.
In Cathy’s view, being a feminist doesn’t require endorsing any feminist policy positions, or ever taking a pro-feminist stand in public, or being part of a movement for attaining women’s equality, or thinking such a movement can do any good at all. In the end, Cathy seems to think “feminist” is a term that can reasonably be applied to anyone who doesn’t explicitly oppose equality. But nowadays, virtually everyone says they favor equality, so that means nothing.
I agree with Cathy that a “rigid ideological definition” of feminism would be a mistake. But the opposite mistake – being so all-inclusive that “feminism” ceases to mean much of anything – is just as bad.
Uppdatering: There seems to be a related discussion going on here. Unfortunately, I can’t understand a word of it Swedish. If any “Alas” readers can read that language Swedish, please let the rest of us know the gist of their discussion. :-)
Uppdatering Uppdatering: There’s a translation, by the author, posted in the comments now. Yay!
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My favorite definition of feminist is found in Tomato Nation:
Feminism – as befits the longest and most successful revolution the world’s ever seen – is very, very encompassing.
I would think it’s fair to say that people who believe that the revolution has gone too far, that women have more than achieved equality, are people who do not “believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes” – because they are content with the present, unequal, state of affairs. If you are not capable of perceiving when women and men are unequal, or if you believe that the present inequality is inherent to women and men’s natures, then you are certainly not much of a feminist.
On the other hand… Historically speaking, the measure of the success of the feminist revolution has consistently been that radical feminist ideas turn into mainstream feminist ideas turn into mainstream ideas that everyone’s forgotten used to be radical feminism.
Actually, Barry, there are quite a few self-identified conservatives who have argued that the dominant brand of conservatism today (neoconservatism) is a betrayal of everything true conservatism stands for. I haven’t heard anyone refer to them as “anti-conservative.”
Cathy, if you want to join the discussion on this thread, I would actually be more interested in your response to this part of Ampersand’s post:
(I should admit: I am not familiar with your writings, and while I tend to trust Amp’s judgement, I’ve no direct knowledge of the kind of thing you write.)
Jesurgilac — yes, I do intend to reply to that. In the meantime you might find it interesting to read my post which Barry links, which explains what my understanding of feminism is.
Amp, I’m not sure that I agree with you about iFeminists. On McElroy’s site she says
Sounds good to me.
She goes on to add
Now, I don’t agree with that. I think you’re right that it assumes women are already equal. but I don’t think this is anti-feminist. The goal is the same, the methods are just different. Nor do I think having people like iFeminists are hurtful to the feminist movement. While they’re not always right, I think they serve as an important counter-point to feminists who view women as the eternal and unwitting victims of patriarchy. We have made progress, and we still have a ways to go. I think this tension keeps me honest and realistic about that state of women right now.
I know this is a little bit off-topic, because everything I’ve read from Cathy I do consider anti-feminist because I find her writing disrespectful and dismissive of women who don’t agree with her, but I don’t think it can be applied across the board to others you mentioned in your post.
which explains what my understanding of feminism is.
I read it.
If you wish to let that stand as an expression of your beliefs, yes, of course you are anti-feminist: I’m a little bewildered that you should want to claim yourself a “feminist” when you plainly dislike feminism so much.
I guess one of my problems with Amp’s characterization of Cathy is the claim that most of her writings attack feminism. I don’t see that this is true. Have you tried to quantify that claim, Amp? I would say that just as many of Cathy’s columns, etc. attack the loony right as much as the loony left.
Cathy is right, too, re:” paleoconservatives. Joe Sobran and Pat Buchanan are 100% against the war in Iraq and hate Bush to boot, but nobody in their right mind would call them liberals.
Actually, Barry, there are quite a few self-identified conservatives who have argued that the dominant brand of conservatism today (neoconservatism) is a betrayal of everything true conservatism stands for. I haven’t heard anyone refer to them as “anti-conservative.”
That’s because you’ve flipped the ends of Barry’s analogy. The “self-identified convervatives” are the old skool, concerned that the neoconservative use of “conservative” as a buzzword to cloak a decidedly non-conservative agenda is, well, damaging the meaning of conservatism; who on earth is left to stand athwart history and yell stop? —It’s those neoconservatives who are stretching the word into meaningless taffy. And trust me, demonstrating that the “dominant brand of conservatism today” is anti-conservative is something of a cottage industry.
Cathy,
I just moved from Boston to Colorado, and have been a Globe reader all my life. Sometimes you make sense, but far too often I would agree with Amp that the positions you espouse are anti feminist. Many, many times, your writings have made me want to put pen to paper and let you know where I think you’re off track.
Cathy, I’m based in Boston and am familiar with your Globe columns. Everything you’ve written pretty much dismisses feminism and its ideas. How, exactly, does this make you a feminist?
Well, I guess the issue is whether feminism is a “set of beliefs” or a “direction.”
In 1970, people could say “I’m paying John more than Mary because he’s got a family to support,” or “We’ve really got to hire a man for this position, to create a sense of group cohesion,” and that was completely legal. There used to be different classified sections for Men and Women.
Today, that is all obviously illegal, and I think todays “feminists” and “anti-feminists” both think this is a good thing.
The question becomes, once you’ve achieved “de jure” equality, do you declare victory and go home, or do you keep fighting until you get equal outcomes. If you stop, were you a feminist before you achieved legal equality, but stop being one after you have? Can a person, without changing her beliefs an iota, be called a feminist in 1960 and an anti-feminist in 1980? Under Amp’s definition, it seems so.
I can certainly see why someone who was identified by everyone as a feminist at Point A would think that the definition should stick.
Richard: Can a person, without changing her beliefs an iota, be called a feminist in 1960 and an anti-feminist in 1980? Under Amp’s definition, it seems so.
Under the dictionary definition of feminism, you are a feminist if you take part in “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests”. (I’ve never met a feminist who didn’t agree with the Tomato Nation definition of feminism, after all.) If, in 1960, you take part in “organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests”, if you “believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes”, then you are then a feminist. If, by 1980, you have stopped doing any of that, then you have stopped being a feminist. If by 2000, you have started working and/or fulminating against people who “believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes”, then you are an anti-feminist.
Had Phyllis Schlafly lived in 1864, with the same beliefs she held in 1964, Schlafly would have been a feminist. Mainstream feminist beliefs in the mid-19th century became normal ways of thinking a hundred years later. Does this mean we should refer to Schlafly as a feminist?
On the basis of that definition, I’m a feminist.
BTW, Amp, I’d second Cathy’s analogy of neo-conservativism vs. “classical” conservativism.
But, as Amp says, it’s OK to be an anti-feminist. That’s not an insult (except on this blog I guess, and in certain other places). It’s merely descriptive.
It can be a virtue if you think there’s something gravely wrong with feminism (a legitimate opinion, even if I don’t agree with it), just as being anti-Republican is either a virtue or a vice, depending on your opinion of the Republican party.
I don’t claim that most of her writings attack feminism. I claim that most of her writings about feminism attack feminists or feminism.
It seems to me the issue is one of complex , or systems ,thinking opposed to simple,or reductionist. Feminism , like every ism or conceptual structure ,is a matrix of interrelated aspects, theoretical, organizational etc and any definition WILL have an ideological component. Thats part of the tension (and a good thing). So we don’t argue yes or no whether women are oppressed but to what degree or in how many aspects of that matrix. A capitalist, white, Protestant woman is certainly less oppressed than a working class, colored, Muslim woman, or ,for that matter (here is where it gets interesting), man. Take all these variables, shift them around and arrive at different levels of subjugation, oppression,exploitation etc..
This analysis is not cookie cutter and therefore hard to sell as a program but I believe feminism as a movement for “equal rights”needs to see itself as a subset of “humanism”, or the movement for the much more magnificent concept of Justice. Here is where Left leaves Right and if you can’t go there….
Ifeminists consider formal equality under the law the be all and end all of feminism. I don’t think that’s enough – and neither do most dictionary definitions of feminism, for that matter.
More importantly, Wendy’s record is more than just what you quoted. And, like Cathy, Wendy virtually never uses her column to say anything pro-feminist; only to attack feminists and feminism. Check out some of the “Alas” archives about Wendy McElroy to see what I mean.
A feminist:
1) Believes that there is current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism which on balance disadvantages women.
2) Advocates for the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
It seems to me that Wendy McElroy and Cathy Young would agree with you on (2) (At least insofar as they are fighting for whatthey see as equality) but not on (1).
The question becomes, once you’ve achieved “de jure” equality, do you declare victory and go home, or do you keep fighting until you get equal outcomes.
I know this will sound snarky, but the way I (and a lot of people, I think) see the difference between people like Cathy Young and Wendy McElroy and people like the “Alas” writers is that the former advocate equality between the sexes while the latter actually favor feminine supremacy.
First of all, what Kip said. :-)
Secondly, I don’t think anyone – either on the neocon or the traditional con side of that debate – is saying anything like (to paraphrase what you say about feminism) “the case for continued conservative activism is based on claims that do not stand up to scrutiny.” None of them are claiming that conservatism itself no longer has any reason to continue; they’re just arguing over which branch of conservatism is best, Ralph Reed’s or Richard Cheney’s.
You’ve overlooked the huge difference between saying “our movement, which is still desparately needed, has taken a terribly wrong turn,” and saying “the case for our movement’s continued activism does not stand up to scrutiny.” That difference is the difference between being part of a fractious movement, versus being against the movement itself.
Yes, I agree, they would. But (1) isn’t skippable (at least, not in my opinion).
I think it would sound less snarky if you could actually come up with a single post of mine, anywhere, where I advocate for feminine supremacy.
The odd thing about this dispute is that Cathy and I actually agree on quite a lot. Cathy writes, “I believe we still need a philosophy to guide us on the journey of an unprecedented transition: a philosophy that is not pro-woman (or pro-man) but pro-fairness; that stresses flexibility and more options for all; that encourages us to treat people, regardless of sex, as human beings.” And I agree with all of that. It’s just that I think feminism at its best is that philosophy, and Cathy thinks that feminism is “the biggest impediment” to that philosophy.
She quit. She got what SHE wanted out of it, and when feminists started advocating changes SHE didn’t give a damn about, she decided “We’re equal now (equal enough for me, anyway), so feminism is no longer necessary.” She simply refuses to understand what I think is the basic idea of feminism, and that is the idea that women are all different, and have different ideas of happiness and fulfillment, and that they deserve to persue their own happiness and fulfillment, without having to take shit from or be limited by people who disapprove of their choices.
Patriarchy puts women into two boxes (wife/mother and whore) which are really two sections of one box (chattel). Phyllis Schlalfly’s ilk lifted wife/mother out of the chattel box, put it on a pedestal, declared “mission accomplished,” and proceeded to piss on the feminists who are attempting to set the box labeled “chattel” on fire, replace it with a non-box labeled “humanity,” and give each woman (both the whores and the wife/mothers) a blank name tag and pen so that they can define themselves.
Glaivester Writes: I know this will sound snarky, but the way I (and a lot of people, I think) see the difference between people like Cathy Young and Wendy McElroy and people like the “Alas” writers is that the former advocate equality between the sexes while the latter actually favor feminine supremacy.
It is by now traditional for anti-feminists to claim that equality is really “feminine supremacy”.
I think Richard Bellamy got it right.
There’s a difference between camps as to what kind of equality they feel is important. Some feminist do feel it’s acceptable to pay some people more than other on the basis that they have a family to support. They feel this will help alleviate systematic disadvantage against women caused by their caring responsibilities. Others would disagree with that, because they feel other types of justice (such as “equal-pay-for-equal-work”) are important.
It just depends what you mean by equality. Do you mean treating everyone the same, do you mean equal outcomes, do you mean equal respect, or what? The narrowly defined “treat men and women the same” form of equality does have a distinguished pedigree in feminist though: particularly early feminism.
I don’t think the sort of definition war above really helps to clarify things. But I think both schools have a claim to call themselves feminist and I think there are important differences between them.
Legal equality is not the only thing we need. Cultural equality is important as well—for women to be truly accepted as the equals of men, assumed equal until proven otherwise and not vice-versa.
Equality under the law is all well and good, but it is not equality in practice. THAT is what’s important. And saying “you’re equal, now shut up” is not feminist. (Where, precisely, does one find the Equal Rights Amendment in the constitution?)(And don’t say “women have cultural advantages that make up for that,” because they are not advantages to all women, nor do they come anywhere near compensating for all the inequities that far too many people dismiss, ignore, or refuse to see.)
Cathy:
Obviously you haven’t been reading any of the conservative verbal tar-and-feathering of Andrew Sullivan for deviating from the party line on issues such as torture, gay rights, and the way the current Iraq occupation is being mismannaged.
But *IF* Sullivan also advocated for socialism, gun control, a stronger EPA, anti-globalization measures, abortion rights, afirmative action, oacifism, etc… and called himself a conservative, what then?
You totaly side stepped Amp’s argument with a diversion over the conservative/neo conservative split, which is actualy mostly over deficit spending. Unless you’re trying to claim that the areas in which you deviate from mainstram feminism are that small. To which I say: bullshit.
I agree that this is what self-professed feminists typically believe. (I myself do not believe it.) I make no comment on whether Ms. Young believes this, or whether it is necessary to believe this to be reasonably considered a feminist.
Most self-professed feminists would claim that this is what they do. In practice some advocate for the advantage of women, while most advocate for the elimination of what they perceive as disadvantages affecting women. Very few recognise, consider, or advocate for the removal, of disadvantages affecting men. It’s not true, therefore, that they advocate for equality, since the result of what they advocate would leave men at considerable disadvantage.
While most professed feminists would probably claim to meet both prongs of your definition, and there undoubtedly some who actually do it begs a rather important question to assert the second prong as part of the definition.
Individuals who subscribe to a philosophy but eschew its wilder, wackier extremes are typically called “moderate,” not “anti.” We have moderate conservatives as contrasted with arch-conservatives and moderate libertarians as contrasted with anarchists. Why not have moderate feminists and arch-feminists? Or classical feminists and arch-feminists? Or classical feminists and neo-feminists.
It’s typical of zealots to think that any non-purist as “anti.”
nik Writes: It just depends what you mean by equality. Do you mean treating everyone the same, do you mean equal outcomes, do you mean equal respect, or what?
Nik, I think the acid test (so to speak) of contemporary feminism is: Do you look around at the way women and men are treated in the world today, and think “Women and men are equal now, there’s no need for feminism!” If so, then you are not a feminist. That would appear to be Cathy Young’s viewpoint: and if, any time she writes about feminism, she spends all her time attacking it, she is not only “not a feminist”, she is an anti-feminist.
I think the attempt on the part of anti-feminists to claim that they are feminists is akin to the thinking that leads homophobes both to express deeply homophobic views, and to claim that being identified as homophobic is an insult – that they are not homophobic, they just believe it’s a bad thing to be gay. Equally, Cathy Young appears to wish to argue that she’s not anti-feminist, she just believes that feminism is bad and wrong and bad. :-)
Barry,
Let’s assume for a moment that your definition of feminism is correct, that one must believe that there exists “current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism which on balance disadvantages women” in order to be a feminist. Feminists, by your definition, would like to see that inequality eradicated, and hope that someday it will not exist. Will you, when you feel that goal has been reached, stop using the word feminist, reserving it only for descriptions of historical figures who lived during a time before the pervasive sexism you perceive was eradicated? How will you know when that goal has been reached? What criteria will you use to determine when it is time to retire the word “feminist” in favor of another word that doesn’t require belief in current, pervasive gender discrimination? And what word will you use to describe yourself when you satisfy the second of your criteria, but no longer satisfy the first because your feminist goals have been achieved?
this really will sound snarky, even though i’m refraining from using the language that first popped into my head: someone who believes in equality between the sexes and also truly believes equality has been achieved, may or may not be feminist, but certainly is not living in reality. anti-feminism is secondary; the primary problem here is either ignorance or a lack of logical thinking.
amy: i obviously can’t speak for anyone else, but think once equality (both legal and actual) is achieved, feminism will be moot. feminism is a solution to an existing problem, like affirmative action. it’s all about context- affirmative action only makes sense because of institutional disadvantages that exist, the same way that antibiotics are (should be?) only taken when there’s an infection. after the infection is gone, taking antibiotics is no longer necessary, and would no longer be considered medication. when women are not oppressed, feminism is no longer prescribed.
maybe ‘feminism’ should be renamed ‘sexual equalism’ or something non-sexed or non-gendered, but i think someone would have to be pretty disingenuous to suggest that equality is not what the vast majority of feminists are working for. it’s ‘feminism’ because women happen to be the ones who have to overcome the societal disadvantage. again, it’s about context.
In general, especially since this thread is obviously going to include people from a wide range of views, I’d like to remind everyone to stay polite.
* * *
But Karen, by any reasonable survey of the philosophy of feminism, I am pretty much at the center, and Cathy – if she’s a feminist at all – is at the wilder, wackier extreme.
And it’s simply not true that I think any non-purist is “anti.” However, there’s a big difference between a “non-purist” and someone who’s entirely opposed to feminism, and I’d argue that Cathy falls mostly into the latter category.
Kyra writes: Legal equality is not the only thing we need. Cultural equality is important as well…for women to be truly accepted as the equals of men, assumed equal until proven otherwise and not vice-versa.
While I agree with you that cultural equality would be a good thing, I do not think it is feasible. Legal equality is something we can enforce, but cultural equality is a mixture of personal experiences, sub-cultures, and opinions, philosophies, and morals. One would have to affect and manage all of those in order to truly have cultural equality. Such a society would not be one I would enjoy living in.
If I may, because the definition was rather vague, what is meant by ‘ opposed to feminism’? Is it lack of support for the ideaology, or a concerted effort to undermine feminism?
oacifism?
jaketk: One would have to affect and manage all of those in order to truly have cultural equality. Such a society would not be one I would enjoy living in.
Privileged people frequently feel they would not enjoy living in a society where they were no longer privileged.
Hey, Amy. Nice to see you here.
In a future in which women are fully equal, I don’t think it would make any sense to be a “feminist.” It would be like being a suffragette in the US in 2005 – what’s the point?
Or perhaps “feminist” would come to refer exclusively to people who are actively trying to help women abroad who are oppressed.
What would a world with no need for feminism look like?
I’m pretty positive it would have more female office-holders, more female CEOs of the big companies, more fathers spending more time with their families, much less rape, much less intimate violence. It would not be a world in which there had never been a female president or even a serious female contender for president (no insult to Victoria Woodhull or Hilary Clinton). Men and women might not have identical career paths, but there would be much more overlap, and far less of the huge inequalities we currently have – be it women’s low pay or the disproportionate chance of male workers suffering deadly injuries. If there had to be selective service, it would apply to both sexes. Men would be almost as likely as women to take time off when a newborn arrives. In gneeral, there’d be much more social support for combining caregiving and career. While some people would be active in trying to reduce abortion, they’d be doing so by trying to reduce demand for abortion, rather than by trying to use government force to cut off the supply side.
And what if women had all the rights, but men had been left behind? I don’t think that’s too likely to happen, because in my view sexism is a two-sided coin; in most cases (aboriton is the big exception) it wouldn’t be possible to reduce harm to women without reducing harm to men, as well. (For instance, getting rid of the ways the breadwinner/homemaker dichotomy harms women’s interests would necessarily involve benefits for men – less time spent at work, more time spent with family).
But if women were fine and men were oppressed, then I guess the movement I’d join would be called the men’s rights movement. Or at least, that’s what it’s called right now. It’s actually very hard to predict what words end up being picked up and used by a culture, so I don’t feel there’s really any way to say what the word will be.
i hope i wasn’t impolite. i just think that people who don’t see the (anti-female) sexism in our society (and other societies) just don’t get it. i want to be open to other’s ideas, but i have a hard time with people who actually believe we have sexual equality. it seems that they’re either not really paying attention, or they’re somehow benefiting (or think they’re benefiting) from the inequality and/or the denial of it.
daran: i don’t think you’re being fair to feminists. i don’t have statistics on what all self-proclaimed feminists believe, but all feminists i associate with would like sexism-based disadvantages to be removed for men, too. especially my very ‘femmy’ male friend who is teased and insulted, a friend who is treated unfairly in his child custody case because he’s male, guy friends who worry about being drafted, etc. but a lot of these disadvantages for men result from the very beliefs feminists want to abolish. once people accept that being femmy isn’t bad (female is not bad) and that women don’t have to be the primary childcare givers, things will improve for both sexes. right now i can’t think of disadvantages for men that are not caused by the type of sexism feminists want to overcome, but i’d like to think i’d support the abolishment of them, too.
umm, sorry for the reiteration of amp’s ideas- i’m a slow typer.
I said:
I should clarify. It’s the ‘on balance disadvantages women’ bit I disagree with. There are certainly current, significant society-wide inequality and sexism that disadvantage both sexes, men to a greater degree.
Nor am I convinced that most feminists would insert the ‘on balance’ rider. It seems that most deny, trivialise, and/or dismiss the disadvantages faced by men.
The -ism I subscribe to, recognises that both sexes suffer in different ways from society-wide inequality, and seeks to understand and remedy this for both sexes. That -ism does not appear to be feminism.
by any reasonable survey of the philosophy of feminism,
I haven’t surveyed feminism. I simply lived it. I remember well the bad old days. I have plenty of war stories. And plenty of “firsts.”
Once upon a time, feminism was about equal rights for women, equal access, equal treatment. There are still a few areas in which women do not have equal rights, for example, the right to serve their country in military combat, but only a few.
I do not recognize what some today call “feminism.” I don’t know what happened while I was off living my hard-won, equal-righted life confident that the cause had prevailed and I could retire from it. I am at a disadvantage in this discussion because I’ve obviously missed a lot of activity. From what I see, though, it seems that something went wrong about the time of the great equity feminist/gender feminist debate. It’s all well and good to engage on the subject of spousal abuse, for example, but don’t call that feminism. Call it “women’s issues” if you insist that it be gender-centric. Or “post-feminism” if you’re attached to the label. But don’t exclude equity feminists from feminism. It is dismissive of the good work of the pioneers and it reduces the pool of supporters going forward.
Re Cathy Young, I discovered her only recently. I found her general political commentary smart and it resonated with me so I now read her daily. If you find her “attacking feminism,” I submit that she does so in the same context that conservatives attack Pat Robertson for some of his utterances.
Movements have stages. An important marker in any movement is the determination of when to declare victory and move on. If that cathartic event doesn’t occur naturally, movements can spin oddly. They can beat dead horses or overreach or go off on some tangent or morph into something else or become a parodies of themselves, among other possibilities. It seems to me that current feminism has lost it’s touchstone and should try to find it and revisit it every now and again.
Daran,
I am interested to know more about where you see anti-male discrimination. I certainly think it exists, and I have some ideas about the shape of it, but would like to hear more from others about where they see it. When thinking about equality, I do feel that there are places where women have an edge. Are different approaches needed to combat anti-male discrimination, or is it just that feminist ideals are not being applied to practices that discriminate against men?
That said, I think that in general, women’s position in the world (in this country but more dramatically in others) is materially worse then men’s position in the world. Men have more explicit power (power to command) while women’s power tends to be implicit (power to persuade, charm, cajole). Men have more money, more sexual autonomy (even without abortion/childbirth, look at women’s inability to insist on a condom in much of Africa plus general slut/stud dichotomies), and more men are in power in the business world and in politics, as pointed out by Amp. This implicit/explicit power divide is particularly problematic because it allows women to be painted as morally inferior–“sneaky,” “manipulative,” “dishonest” and men to be congratulated for being straightforward.
However, I also think that anti-male discrimination should be abolished as well–but I’d like to have a better idea of how men are discriminated against and start talking about what we can all do about it.
But, as Amp says, it’s OK to be an anti-feminist. That’s not an insult (except on this blog I guess, and in certain other places). It’s merely descriptive.
I don’t consider it to be an insult, although I am a feminist. It’s simply a statement of fact. It may make some folks uneasy (I’m thinking of the folks who run the site Ladies Against Feminism) if they soley identify/define themselves by what they oppose.
Karen, I’m glad you think that feminism’s done it’s job and everything is hunky dory now.
It’s all well and good to engage on the subject of spousal abuse, for example, but don’t call that feminism.
You know, even Richard Gelles, the researcher that the anti-feminists cite, has made it very clear that the majority of intimate partner violence is perpetrated by men, and the majority of people targeted and injured by these acts are women. To say that’s not a feminist issue, and that it does not point to a serious power imbalance, is ludicrous.
I think I am in love with this blog. I would marry it if I believed in that sort of thing.
When I use the term anti-feminist is is prejorative because being anti-feminist is being discriminatory against women. That is a bad thing. Just like being racist is bad.
Young, McElroy, Sommers and Patai are cut from the same cloth of women paid and otherwise rewarded by right wing organizations to pump out antifeminist drivel. Without feminism none of these cheecky monkeys would have a job writing anything with their names attached to it.
What is ironic is that so many of them stump for FIRE and other reactionary organizations while consistently and strenuously trying to tell other women what they can’t say and viciously attacking them if they won’t shut up. Sommers tried to get a feminist philosopher kicked out oher her professional association because she didn’t like what she talked about. Patai spends a significant part of of her time complaining about what other professors (who she has never met nor observed teaching) are doing in their classrooms. McElroy and Young write the same boring articles every month making such inane claims as women are as violent as men. Give us a break ladies! How is this productive?
That language in the blog update link is Swedish. I don’t know it well enough to make any reasonable translation.
My impression of Young, McElroy, and other “iFeminists” is that they tend towards the libertarian wing of the Republican party and not towards the religious/Big Nanny wing.
Libertarians tend to believe in the absense of informal discrimination, and in blind meritocracy, ie, that if government was minimized, the talent rising to the top would be predominantly white hetero male upper-middle-class-upbringing because those individuals must be naturally smarter and harder-working than all others of different gender, sexuality, color, or economic origin. Libertarians who happen to be female or persons of color tend to view themselves as exceptions to their gender or race, and hold most members of their gender or race in contempt as lazy, stupid, etc.
Libertarians do not, in fact, believe any such thing.
They must, or else there’s no explanation for the fact that most of the government, media, and most corporations are ruled by rich white men. If women and minorities “can’t even” succeed with the government helping them out with the occasional affirmative-action law, there’s no reason to believe that they’d succeed if we just let things go on as they have.
I am open to an explanation of how this is not true, though.
Jesurgislac writes: Privileged people frequently feel they would not enjoy living in a society where they were no longer privileged.
It has nothing to do with ‘privilege’. I do not know of anyone who would enjoy living in a society that dictated what you could think, feel or express, even if the society were considered a utopia. I do not think removing bias is worth removing or controlling people’s thoughts.
I’ll be glad to derail Amp’s thread with a lengthy exposition of the libertarian philosophy and position, but right now I’m slamming on deadlines. Raincheck?
Thank you for articulating this so succinctly. I have often found this to be the case in personal interactions with Libertarians infuriated by any efforts to correct discrimination. Since they obviously believe white male superiority to be the natural order of things, any efforts to correct for institutional bias are somehow “cheating” and unfairly favoring the assisted group. You will never, ever hear them admit to this, despite the intellectual dishonesty required to argue for this position while simultaneously denying any personal bias.
Arrgh, I can’t *believe* I actually feel compelled to jump in and take this position, but:
I do think it’s possible to hold libertarian and feminist views at the same time. By Amp’s definition, no less.
I find it perfectly plausible that someone can recognize gendered discrimination and work to fight that inequality, while at the same time believing that the government is an inappropriate or counter-productive place to have that fight. One might believe that the inherent nature of government is to protect the powerful, and that attempting to create change through it will always inevitably lead to perversions of what is intended. (See, for example, what happened in Canada after MacKinnon and Dworkin passed the anti-pornography law. You know the only businesses that have been gone after with this law? Feminist- and gay-oriented bookstores. The master’s tools, etc.) Instead, they may believe that you need to have grassroots change, change attitudes rather than laws, etc.
Not saying that most, or even many, libertarians believe this. But I do think there’s some value in keeping this viewpoint in mind when thinking about how to effect change, although I certainly don’t subscribe to it whole-heartedly. (Whether this is what iFeminists actually believe, I have no idea. Someone else will have to make that judgement.)
jane:
Of course. Just about everyone agrees that there should be equality between men and women, and that nobody should be disadvantaged or discriminated against because of their sex. There are very few people who are explicitly supremicist.
It’s when you go beyond the bland statement of equality, and look closely at feminist discourse, that this laudibly gender-neutral stance gives way to highly one-sided analysis and advocasy.
I assume you’re in the US
Indeed, these men have a real and justifiable fear of being enslaved by their own government and sent, possibly to their deaths, and at the very least to kill other men.
Your female friends do not have that fear, or anything remotely like it. In my opinion, this trumps every significant society-wide inequality or sexism that disadvantages women in the US today.
Not only do you apparently hold the opposite view, but you regard the expression of mine to be ‘disingenuous’.
You attribute the persecution suffered by your femmy male friend to the notion that “female is bad”, yet you don’t attribute the discrimination against fathers in family courts to the idea that “male is bad”.
You do not appear have an explanation for why it is that men and not women are generally subject to conscription. I give mine below.
I see little evidence that feminism generally has recognised that society regards men as expendible cannon-fodder. As children we watch men being casually wasted in a thousand adventure films and television shows, and it doesn’t matter. The death of a woman by contrast is almost invariably depicted as shocking or tragic. As adults we are always reminded in the media to shed an extra tear whenever there are “innocent women and children among the casualties”. It is this which conditions us all – men and women alike – to accept as normal the conscription of men, the high rates of male death in the workplace, the disproportionately high proportion of men excectuted, the millions of males selectively killed throughout the world in wars where they were either not combatents or or no choice but to be combatents.
If this is “the type of sexism feminists want to overcome”, then why aren’t feminists talking about it? Where are the feminist media analysis that discuss it? I can find any number that look at the same media, and complain about how men are depicted as being proactive, in positions of power, etc. There is a lot of feminist attention (rightly) paid to the rape of women as a war attrocity. Where is the comparible attention to gender-selective murder of men as a war attrocity?
Feminism is not the cause of these problems, of course. But feminism has been sucessful in projecting its message into the mainstream in a way that is detrimental to any solution.
Jane (in another post):
As long as it maintains it’s gendered focus, any attempt to rename it would be dishonest.
Jaketk, I agree, but I don’t think anyone here has proposed removing or controlling people’s thoughts.
I think people here should be cautious about assuming too much about Cathy’s views – especially the stereotypes of what libertarians think. Here’s part of what she wrote in a comment on the thread at her blog:
There’s almost nothing in the above quote I’d disagree with – although I’d point out that the “soft discrimination” of societal and family expectations is a form of sexism, as objectionable in its own way as direct employer discrimination.
jaketk Writes: It has nothing to do with ‘privilege’. I do not know of anyone who would enjoy living in a society that dictated what you could think, feel or express, even if the society were considered a utopia.
Nor do I, but no one’s proposed it. What you said you would not enjoy was a society in which personal experiences, sub-cultures, and opinions, philosophies, and morals had been affected/managed by feminism to create cultural equality: that is, a society in which men were no longer privileged. That would affect personal experiences, sub-cultures, opinions, philosophies, and morals – but not because anyone was dictating what you could “think, feel, or express”.
A hundred years ago, you would almost certainly have thought that the idea of women having the vote was absurd and ridiculous. You would probably have thought that the idea that when a woman did the same job as a man she should be paid the same wage was absurd and ridiculous. You would undoubtedly have thought that when a woman marries a man she ought to take his surname and all her children should take his surname, too – and that anything else was possibly illegal, and certainly subversive. All of these things were radical feminist notions then: they are now part of mainstream thinking. I am willing to bet that your “personal experiences, sub-cultures, opinions, philosophies, and morals” with regard to these (and many other) areas has been affected/managed by feminism – but not because anyone ” dictated what you could think, feel or express”. Just because society changed, bringing radical feminist ideas into the mainstream.
Feminism is a revolution that’s been more successful than any other, in the long term, and all without killing anyone or brainwashing anyone.
AB, this is the reason I can’t get on board with many anti-porn feminists: as long as the folks who get to decide how to use the power to censor think of “man fucks woman, subject verb object” as the norm and think of kinky lesbian sex as deviant, they’ll never use that power as I would have them use it.
(Not to get off on a tangent, but I always thought Lorde’s metaphor was wrong. A tool has no agency. Either a hammer of a screwdriver can be used as a paperweight, a doorstop or a dildo. No matter how ill-suited they are for those uses, they will not complain. Nor will they complain of who uses them, or of who benefits from their use. The master’s tools will tear down the master’s house. It is the master’s servants who won’t. )
Statutes always leave a fair amount of discretion in application. If they create private rights of action, they’ll be used by anyone with standing as they see fit. If they create regulation, their implementation and enforcement is in the hands of the regulatory agency. If they impose criminal sanction, they leave the enforcement in the hands of the prosecutor. It is in my view not only acceptable, but really necessary, for feminists to consider whether giving the government power to do something will really result in that something getting done, or if it will merely result in the government using more power for ends we do not support.
daran mostly-
to start, i’m sticking with my “it’s about context” theme- as in “it’s called feminism because on the balance, throughout the world, women are more disadvantaged than men.” that’s why it maintains its gendered focus. when men are more disadvantaged, we’ll work toward a masculinism movement.
i’m not sure if you’re saying that *my* gender-neutral stance gave way to one-sided analysis and advocacy, or if that’s feminist discourse in general. but in case you are addressing me specifically, i will point out that i noted that i couldn’t think of any disadvantages men have that wouldn’t be at least partly addressed by feminism/ attention to women’s issues. and you didn’t give me one, so all i’ve got to work with are my own examples. and i still believe each one is related to anti-female sexism.
i don’t want to belittle your fears, but very few men of my generation confront the fear of the draft as often as women of my generation confront anti-female sexism. no-one in my generation was alive and over 18 for the last draft. and none of my male friends were/ are seriously worried about it happening. i’d be scary if it happened, but it hasn’t. no-one in the us today faces forced conscription.
it’s hard for me to accept that men’s abstract fear of a draft trumps the lower wages, rape, etc that women face every day.
and, while i think conscription is bad in general, if it does exist, women should be included.
but i still think all of these things are related to underlying sexism that is set against women. at dictionary.com, a synonym for ‘female’ is ‘weak.’ of course, if female=weak, we don’t want to send women into the military. and as a man, you must prove you are not weak, because to show weakness is to be feminine. the underlying assumption is still female=weak=bad. the end result is that men are conscripted, which is horrible, but still, the reason men are fighting is because man=strong. and feminists *are* trying to overcome this. feminists don’t believe that female=weak, male=strong.
(i’d like to point out here that there is forced female conscription in many places, although not usually enforced by the gov’t- the maoists in nepal, for example. also, i’m too lazy to look this up- what are the number of women killed in war these days as compared to men? a lot of women are killed as civilians.)
the childcare thing is an extension of this: if men take care of children, they are feminizing themselves. again, men suffer here– they don’t get custody of their kids, they lose out on relationships with their kids– but i’d argue that the underlying assumption is not that man=bad, but that man-acting-like-woman=bad.
this is also why there’s so much horror about gay men (and much less worry about lesbians): one of those men must be putting himself in the position of a woman, either in the relationship as a whole, or just during sex (being on the receiving end). a real man should be doing the fucking, not getting fucked. women are the ones who are supposed to get fucked (preferably by a man).
**in the end, even if you don’t believe the feminists are working towards these issues for men, i think that they will be resolved by feminism.**
so, give me an example where men are disadvantaged for reasons other than the anti-feminization of men, where feminism won’t help the situation, and i’ll try to fairly deal with it.
Yay, I get to correct this common Dworkin-MacKinnon misconception.
1. MacKinnon & Dworkin not only never tried to pass any laws in Canada, no form of the ordinance they proposed in the USA was ever adopted by the Canadian government.
2. Dworkin has written against obscenity laws such as Canada was discussing in the Butler case.
3. Books detained for inspection by Canadian Customs officials were done so under guidelines in effect for years before 1993 and these guidelines were unaffected by the Butler decision.
Thomas, you’re confusing giving individual citizens hurt by pornography the power to sue pornographers (the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance) with giving governments power to censure pornographic materials (the inadequate ‘obscenity laws’ we’ve got right now). Corporations and governments are already abusing their powers of censure in all the ways you express fear about, but since the proposed solution to addressing the harms of pornography is a civil remedy it would not put any more power in government or corporate hands. Quite the opposite.
Now that’s outta the way…
The first letter to the editor I ever had published was a response to a Salon.com article Cathy Young wrote in 2000 dismissing the wage gap between men and women as evidence of sexism. I agree with Amp that of the most known anti-feminists Cathy Young is one of the more cogent, but in my opinion that’s not saying too much. I also think the ideas expressed in her writings on feminism are easily identified as antagonistic to the basic concept of a feminist movement and thus are rightly called anti-feminist.
This has all gone rather far from the point that I intended to make, which was that one of the prongs of Ampersand’s definition was contentions because some people would argue that many feminists do not meet it.
Ismone:
I’ve already given a few answers.
I do not agree that equality is a feminist ideal. It seems to me to be a fundamental contradiction to suggest that equality is not in practice being applied be applied equally. Sure, most if not all feminists espouse equality, but so do most non-feminists.
The problem is that most feminist discourse is one-sided, focussing upon the advantages enjoyed by men and disadvantages suffered by women, both percieved and real, while ignoring, dismissing or trivialising those that operate in the oposite direction, If it didn’t, you wouldn’t need to ask me how men are disadvantaged. You wouldn’t need to look beyond feminist discussion.
Explicit power is power that can be easily taken away. Consequently men are also more likely to be powerless. Men, not women, are conscripted, and conscripts are not typically given the power to command. More men than women are subject to forced labour (and international law permits this, for men only. Women are protected (in theory, anyway)). Men who do cannot fight are more likely to be massacred.
This doesn’t contradict what you said, but is the flip side of the coin.
I can’t comment about the situation in the rest of the world, but in the west a wift, with her smaller household allowence may have more freedom to choose what to spend it on than the husband, who has to pay the rent, pay the electricity, etc.
Again I can’t really comment on the situation in the rest of the world, nor even the power dynamics that take place in western bedrooms. It’s certainly not clear to me that women are in practice less powerful than men.
Childbirth options vastly favour women in the west. After intercourse, she can take the morning after pill, have an abortion, give birth and put the child up for adoption, or bring it up herself and demand that the father financially support her to do it. In some states she can even legally abandon the child in a designated safe place. The father can only wait to see if he has to pay for it, and maybe get some access rights if she decides to bear it.
The flipside of the slut/stud dichotomy is that a woman who choses not to have sex is regarded as chaste, while a man who choses not to have sex, or worse, who “can’t get laid” is less of a man for it.
Many more men are not in power in the business world and politics. That the Bushes are a powerful family in the US, does not mean that Dave Bush, the New York rest-room attendent, is powerful or that he derives any benefit merely because he has something in common with some powerful people.
It also allows men to be painted as abusers with women their victims.
That would be a great start.
How come men’s rights advocates nearly always ignore the substantial disadvantages that come with pregnancy?
Yes, only the pregnant person can choose to get an abortion – that’s an advantage for women, in a way. But it’s also true that only the non-pregnant person suffers the considerable difficulties of being pregnant – including a small but real chance of injury or death.
When will your posts acknowledge that men aren’t the only people in the world with problems? Do you really think that pregnancy confers nothing but advantages on women?
If the father brings up the child himself, he has a corresponding right to be paid child support (one of the former employees at my workplace has her paychecks garnished and paid to the Dad). That’s equal rights, not extra rights for women.
In some states, so can the father.
In practice, of course, it’s mostly mothers who end up in this situation – but that’s because the father, unlike the mother, is biologically capable of abandoning a child during the pregnancy. I think it’s obvious that the situation contains advantages as well as disadvantages for fathers.
Legally, an adoption is not valid if the biological father doesn’t approve of it.
Of course, biologically fathers and mothers are not identically situated; it’s possible for a mother to keep a pregnancy and adoption secret from the father, but not vice versa. However, I think it’s clear that the biological inequities (1) probably can’t be solved by legislation, for the most part, and (2) contain advantages and disadvantages for both parties. To describe them as favoring women, as if being the “pregnant party” didn’t also have substantial disadvantages, is silly.
Another thing that must be asked in these discussions is, what’s fair for the child (assuming the child is born)? Most of the solutions proposed to make things “fair” for Dads – such as giving fathers the right to cut and run without obligation (i.e., “choice for men”) – would obviously, in a society as bad at supporting poor children as ours, be unfair to children. Furthermore, because men would have fewer incentives to use birth control, we’d end up with more fatherless children then we currently have.
AB wrote:
This is a very important point. The problem with legislation to fight discrimination is that government power is, at core, the power of force — laws are obeyed becasue the government enforces them. I’m not so sure it’s proper for the government to intrude into, say, private hiring decisions. If certain employers want to be sexist in whom they hire and how they treat their employees, that is, in a way, their right, just as free speech protections also apply to people we don’t like. And everybody else has the legal right to boycott those employers and write them angry letters, and write eloquent blogs to convince the public at large that sexism is wrong. We don’t want people to be nondescriminatory because it’s the law; we want people to be nondescriminatory because they know and believe with perfect reason that that’s what’s good and right and just.
In this way, de jure equality under the law isn’t the end of feminism to a libertarian feminist, but merely the end of feminism as a political movement. The cultural “battle for hearts and minds” must continue onward.
How come men’s rights advocates nearly always ignore the substantial disadvantages that come with pregnancy?
Because pregnancy is biological, and outside the scope of what can be controlled or argued about. We can argue all day that it isn’t fair for Maude to have to carry the baby; changes nothing. We can argue about who should have control of the reproductive process in a social context, and make real decisions.
as someone who just watched a woman go through a bad pregnancy, and having been through an extremely painful abortion myself, i think that the fact that women can choose the morning-after pill, abortion or adoption, is at least met by, if not outweighed by the fact that women are the ones who *have* to choose the pill, abortion or adoption. yeah, it sucks that after a woman gets pregnant the guy loses the decision about whether a kid is born, but it also sucks that i’m the one puking and shitting and bleeding all over the bathroom floor after his sperm meets my egg, while my boyfriend is eating dinner in the next room.
i don’t even know how to answer the ‘wife with an allowance can spend it however she wants’ comment. hello?! she only gets the allowance if he gives it to her! are you serious?
and ummm, doesn’t holding most political and top corporate positions give men more power? political and economic power don’t matter in your accounting?
daran, do you really believe men are more disadvantaged because of sexism than women are? and if so, why haven’t you given us lots of examples? (‘she gets to have an abortion’ and ‘she gets to spend an allowance’ don’t count. and i answered the military concern above.) what are the numbers for forced labor for men? i’m sorry guys feel bad to be branded with the “can’t get laid” label, but i need more than that…
again, if you can show that men are more disadvantaged, i’ll join the masculinism group. until then, i’m going to fight on the side of the people that are politically and economically underrepresented.
Zack M. Davis-
Does a fictional entity created by the government and given powers and rights not available to natural persons – such as limited liability, the centralized management of collective resources, and immortality – all for the benefit of people who can afford to invest portions of their wealth – have a right to be sexist in whom they hire and how they treat their employees?
Make a libertarian argument for allowing sole propriterships to discriminate, and I will listen. I might not agree, as there are government pressures on even those to consider, but you will be starting from a reasonable philosophical position. Ask me to let Wal-Mart off the hook, and you have abandoned any logical libertarian position. Wal-Mart would not exist without government intervention.
Daran,
Yes, this has gotten out of hand. If you can tell me what you think should be done to advance equality, instead of criticizing strawfeminists, I would love to hear it. Until that time, I’ll answer your arguments.
As a feminist, in fact because I am a feminist, I support drafting women. I don’t think that women’s lives are any more valuable than the lives of men. If you’ve made any other arguments, I haven’t caught them. Most feminists I’m familiar with (including MacKinnon) support women in combat.
Equality is a feminist ideal. How well certain well-publicized feminists live up to that ideal is another matter. All I argue for are policies that advance equality–equal pay for equal work, equal treatment in the workplace, equal prosecution of crimes committed against women, equal educational opportunities, etc. In the real world, this doesn’t yet exist, not even in the west. I am also concerned that right now, men are underrepresented at American universities. (Incidentally, my dad doesn’t care.) As for feminist discourse being one-sided, that is what is most commonly reported, but not what is true. Prof. MacKinnon has discussed the double standard that harms men–the myth that men are always up for sex, the fact that men are more often treated violently, that women are exempted from the draft, etc. Also, since women are materially worse off everywhere, even in the West, it’s no big shocker that feminism is focused on discrimination against women. There is more of it.
That point about husbands and wives is too ridiculous to respond to. The bottom line is, more women are below the poverty line than men, even in the US. It gets worse in third world countries.
I won’t answer the sexual autonomy point as to pregnancy and childbirth, because that’s not what I was talking about, and Amp hit that point. You didn’t answer my point about women’s inability to say no or to protect themselves against STDs.
When it comes to sexual double standards, I agree with you that it is wrong to encourage men to be sexually indiscriminate, and to punish them if they are not sexually active. I think that every person, male or female, should enter into sex freely, not be pressured into it or out of it due to social norms. A lot more women get called sluts than men get called virgins, though. And I want to get rid of the dichotomy. That means men don’t have to be studs, either.
I would disagree that explicit power can be taken away more easily. The reason that implicit power is so problematic is that it can’t be enforced. Persuasion means that the target doesn’t have to listen. They often do not.
As for women as victims, if a man, even her husband, commits an assaultative or sexual offense against her, he should be convicted. If she commits an assaultative or sexual offense against him, the same is true. There are a lot of women in the US being convicted as abusers because they tried to defend themselves and their partner called the cops first. Just like you, we’re only victims when someone commits a crime against us. If you read crime stats., most men are victimized by strangers who are also men. Most women are victimized by men who are either intimates or family members or friends or acquaintances. I’d be interested to hear what you make of that.
Just a few quick points.
1. It simply isn’t true that I never say anything positive about feminism. I’ve said, repeatedly, that I think feminism in the 1960s and ’70s was (despite its excesses) a worthy and much-needed movement. And by the way, it’s simply not true that “everyone” today claims to be for equality. Legal equality, yes, but it’s a leitmotif among conservative writers on gender issues (e.g. Danielle Crittenden, Wendy Shalit, Maggie Gallagher, Harvey Mansfield) that the feminist-driven of sex roles and sexual norms has harmed society and by and large made women themselves miserable. That’s a position I’ve consistently opposed.
2. I don’t think that everything today is “hunky-dory” as far as gender equality goes. (I will add, however, that the only instance I can think of today in which sex discrimination is enshrined in law — military roles — it clearly disadvantages men more than women. The ban on women in combat does disadvantage women for whom military service is a career, but male-only draft registration applies to all men, and men in the military do not have the option of serving in non-combat roles.) I simply think that today, institutional sexism against women is not nearly as great a factor in holding women back from parity in all walks of life as are unequal family roles. (By the way, I can instantly think of at least two feminist books making the same case: Kidding Ourselves by Rhona Mahoney, and Flux by Peggy Orenstein.) Unlike most conservatives, I don’t think these unequal roles are preordained by nature, immutable, or good; but I think the cultural attitudes that shape them are held by women as much as men, and give women significant advantages — such as greater flexibility in balancing work and family and greater freedom to pursue a fulfilling but low-paying occupation.
3. I think that in many areas, the so-called feminist movement in its present form is actively working against equality — e.g., demanding that female perpetrators of domestic violence be treated differently from male ones. (By the way, I’m a bit puzzled at the notion that a gender-egalitarian society would necessarily have a lot less domestic violence: isn’t this idea thoroughly refuted by the fact that domestic abuse is no less common in gay and lesbian couples than in heterosexual ones? The notion that lesbians batter each other out of “internalized misogyny” — see this article, for instance — strikes me as, to put it as politely as I can, unconvincing.)
4. As posters on this site may or may not know, I have repeatedly and quite harshly criticized conservative anti-feminists along with feminists (see, for instance, here, here and here. My book, Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, is primarily a critique of contemporary feminism but also has a chapter criticizing conservative gender politics (and another chapter which features some strong criticism of the men’s movement). I hate to pat myself on the back, but as my book was headed for publication I was advised by several people to either take out or substantially tone down the chapter criticizing conservatives in order to ensure that the book received support from the conservative media. I refused to do that.
5. I don’t really want to quibble about the definition of “feminism,” though I will note that under the dictionary definition, support for “the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes” should be sufficient to qualify, whether or not one supports the movement that claims at any given moment to be advancing these goals. Frankly, I believe that the term “feminism” has been so debased by its practitioners that I’m not particularly interested in laying claim to it (and I also think that it inherently has overtones of being “for women,” rather than “for gender equity” — which isn’t always the same thing). However, I think that the term “anti-feminist” has a very clear dictionary meaning: someone who opposes equality of the sexes. I therefore consider the term to be both pejorative and, in my case, inaccurate.
Decnavda wrote:
That’s a good point. I concede.
One the key things I learned in women’s studies classes is that there isn’t one monolithic feminist viewpoint. There are different feminist frameworks and a process of dialog between them – liberal, socialist, marxist, radical, lesbian, -feminisms. A radical feminist (someone who believes that that sexism is the root of social inequality) could make a career out of critiquing Marxist feminism (women’s inequality is a by-product of the class struggle, comrade). To someone who wasn’t clued in, that might look like anti-feminism. The TA in my ws101 class got really hostile when i self-identified as an anarcha-(pro-)feminist – it fell outside the range of responses she was equipped to handle. I was suprised as how conservative Amp’s view of the world after feminism wins is. Presidents, Chiefs, conscription – hierachy and domination.
To those of us fighting for women’s liberation, that ain’t it.
Amp defines feminism solely in terms of equality.
It’s not that bad a working definition, but I have a few quibbles.
So if the the status and condition of men were reduced to the current status and condition of women, would that be a win?
If the Vogons came and life on earth was destroyed, so that men and women were equal, would that be a win?
I don’t know Cathy Young’s writings, so I’m not in a position to decide whether they are anti-feminist or what.
But for those of us who became sex radicals amidst the larger context of the women’s liberation movement and the anarchist tendencies of the anti-war movement, it’s quite possible to find things to criticize about today’s mainstream feminism, without being anti-feminist.
– arbitrary aardvark
i-(pro)-feminists tend to be concerned with more than is the pie cut fairly. we think about who made the pie and why, how large is the pie, will there be more pie tomorrow.
Jesurgislac writes: Nor do I, but no one’s proposed it. What you said you would not enjoy was a society in which personal experiences, sub-cultures, and opinions, philosophies, and morals had been affected/managed by feminism to create cultural equality: that is, a society in which men were no longer privileged.
if the basis of cultural equality is that one must agree with the feminist ideology, then such a change would only result from dictating and controlling what people could think, feel, and express. opinions that are critical of the ideology would be deemed sexist and therefore unacceptable. we have seen this before, though the term used then was ‘heresy’. what you describe has a rather utopian feel to it. perhaps rephrase it without the ‘privilege’ bit.
I am willing to bet that your “personal experiences, sub-cultures, opinions, philosophies, and morals” with regard to these (and many other) areas has been affected/managed by feminism
affected, in the area, yes, just not positively. managed, no. i generally have problems with ideologies that claim to be the ‘right one’ and i am not allowed to question that premise. not surprisingly, me and most religions don’t get along.
Feminism is a revolution that’s been more successful than any other, in the long term, and all without killing anyone or brainwashing anyone.
in order: i don’t think so (Christianity beat you by about 1900 years), that’s debatable and i know several people, including myself, who can prove that wrong. if you honestly think feminism can do no harm, is never wrong, and beyond distortion, others have thought the same thing, and… they didn’t end well. the 20th century is pockmarked with those mistakes.
Daran – there are a lot of us who believe strongly that if a draft is called it should call men and women alike. I have been heard to argue loudly and repeatedly in my conservative family that a government that would send my brother to war (married, child, pacifist) off to war, while excusing me (unmarried, childless, not pacifist), was certifiable. Fortunately for us both we are now past that age (and I have children and a spouse now), but the belief still holds. If a draft were called, I would not want my brothers, husband, sons, to be sent off to die while I sat at home because of my sex.
Does that mean that I’m not a believer in equality because I also believe there are a lot of disadvantages for women that should also be addressed? Because that’s the impression I got from your post.
I’m beginning to feel like a lion in a den of Daniels here. A lot of people want to take issue with what I’m saying – which is fair enough – but it’s very difficult (and time-consuming) for me to reply adequately to you all.
Ampersand:
I was responding to the claim that “men have more sexual autonomy” in the context of societal inequalities. That only women get pregnant and suffer physically is not something imposed by society. The choices I mentioned are all choices that society gives to women. (That a morning after pill is possible for a woman and not a man is a physical fact. That one has been developed and made available to women is a societal choice).
That’s a strawmen. I’ve never denied that women have problems. I’ve never denied that women suffer as a result of societal inequality. The only part of the first prong of your definition of feminist to which I do not substantively subscribe is the clause that says “which on balance disadvantage women”. In my opinion, it’s the other way around. (I do subscribe to your view that your first prong is a necessary veiw to hold, in order to reasonably be considered a feminist, but that’s a different matter entirely. I do not consider myself to be a feminist)
No, I think Western society confers advantages on pregnant women. Big difference.
That’s equal rights in theory. In practice men are less free to bring up their children himself, for a whole lot of societal reasons.
Again, theoretically.
He’s physically capable of walking away. The law (i.e society) tries to prevent this. She can’t walk away without undergoing an invasive medical procedure. Society facilitates this, if she wishes. Society also allows her, but not as a practical matter him, to walk away after the birth.
The upshot of all this is that all the choice, all the autonomy, that society can grant lies with the woman. The man is spared the physical ordeal, and can physically walk away. Neither of these is is society’s doing, and in fact, society tries hard to prevent the latter.
Obviously, but those advantages that society can grant and which can reasonably be described using the word “autonomy” fall to the woman.
This is not an area of law that I’m familiar with, but I doubt that is an absolute restriction.
The ‘as if’ part didn’t come from me. All I’ve been doing is rebutting Ismone’s proposition that women have less sexual autonomy than men, in so far as that remark was intended to apply to women “in this country” which I have presumed to be America, (context supplied by her) and in so far as that autonomy arises from societal rather than physical considerations (context originally supplied by you). (I decline to address her remarks about condoms in Africa because I am not sufficiently well informed on that subject to be able to debate them intelligently.)
On the other hand, you describe the biological inequities as “contain[ing] advantages and disadvantages for both parties.” as if those advantages and disadvantages (again in the context of autonomy) were not tipped by society in favour of women. I think that ‘as if’ coming from you, because otherwise there would be no point of disagreement between us.
Again, you are responding to arguments I have not made. Even if we were to agree that current situation was the best of all possible worlds, it would still leave all the autonomy that society can grant with the women, and therefore still represent a counterexample to the claim that women are societally disadvantaged.
I said:
Which contradicts my original ‘no comment’. Ah well, it’s a man’s prerogative. :-)
Daran,
Not familiar with other Western law, but in the US, both parents must consent to adoption unless they (whether male or female) are found unfit in a court proceeding, and the standard for unfitness is that the evidence be “clear and convincing.”
My point about sexual autonomy is that the slut/stud dichotomy means that every time a woman has sex, she has to worry not only about pregnancy and the fact that she is more likely to catch a sexually transmitted disease than the man she is sleeping with (AIDS, among other diseases, is more easily transmitted from M to F than vice versa), but that having sex will ruin her reputation or damage her career.
Have you ever thought, I can’t sleep with her because if she blabs I will be branded a slut and my professional reputation will be ruined? People will gossip about me and not take me seriously? Maybe other women will treat you with disrespect and assume you’re up for it all the time?
Give back “liberal,” and we’ll talk.
jane:
I don’t doubt that it sucks. It’s just not an example of “significant, society-wide inequality and sexism which on balance disadvantages women.”
You don’t have to, since I never said anything of the sort.
They matter, but they can look after themselves. It’s the powerless and poor that consern me, who are no less powerless and disadvantaged if they happen to be the same sex as most of the powerful and rich.
I think that, taking into account the severity of the injustice and taking a world-wide view, the total wieght of sexist injustice suffered by men exceeds that suffered by women. By ‘sexist’ I mean arising from differential and distriminatory attitudes toward the sexes whether ‘societal’ or individual. (individual attitudes arise from society, of course.)
I also don’t think it matters. Both piles of injustice (not to mention the pile that can’t be attributed to sexism) are so mind-bogglingly huge that the only thing to do is to take whatever tiny portion of the Augean shit that lies within your power to remedy, and do so. Think about the individual lives that you can make better, and not about the enourmous scale of the injustice that remains beyond your power to address.
Both of those were rebutals. ‘She has less sexual autonomy’ doesn’t count in so far as the claim was intended to apply to “this country”. I never said “gets to spend an allowance”. That’s a strawman. I was thinking more of my own spending, which (because I live alone) includes both typical breadwinner expenditure (rent, untilities etc) and typical allowance expenditure (food, clothing etc.) Now it so happens that I have a lot of freedom to choose what I buy in the way of food and clothing, and very little when it comes to the rent and untilies.
In reality, only a tiny proportion of my spend is truely discretionary, and it really isn’t clear to me that the discretionary spend availabe to women in households with a male breadwinner is less than that available to the man.
No you didn’t. You dismissed it. “Not my country, not my generation”. You didn’t respond like that to Ismone’s African condoms which are also not your country, not your generation.
I know that there’s been no recent draft in the US, but I think there’s a genuine danger that the Iraq situation could lead to one. And while individuals here might say that any draft should apply to both sexes, we know very well that it won’t. Nor can I imagine the feminist movement marching the streets to demand the draft for women.
What there has been in the US is a call-up of reservists, many of whom might legitimately consider their service done.
There are plenty of men in other countries who are conscripts, and plenty of men left in yours, not of your generation, who were.
One of the few very scholars to have attended to the genocidal (or “democidal”) dimension of forced labour is R.J. Rummel. In his book Death by Government, Rummel offers the estimate that “at a rock-bottom minimum, 10 million colonial forced laborers must have died” as a result of the brutal exploitation inflicted upon them, and “the true toll may have been several times this number …
Gendercide Watch is aware of no estimate of the gender breakdown of these deaths by forced labour, but the casualties must be at least 85-90 percent male, probably higher. Most corvée institutions in antiquity, in the colonial era, and in the modern age of state-building appear to have targeted males exclusively or almost exclusively. As such, corvée labour, along with female infanticide, may be reckoned the most gendercidal institution in human history
http://www.gendercide.org/case_corvee.html
I need more than women getting branded with the “slut” label, to which that remark was a response.
The “masculinist” movement, to the extent that I’ve been able to identify it, consists of a lunatic fringe with no discernable moderate mainstream attached to it. Maybe I just haven’t been looking in the right places.
Again, I don’t accept the premiss that the rich and powerful ‘represent’ the poor and weak whose gender they share.
No it’s not, and you shouldn’t. The alleged “special privileges” of corporations are dramatically overhyped and actually amount to very little. Centralized management of collective resources and corporate immortality aren’t special privileges; they’re just part of a legal framework designed to simplify the operation of large corporations.
And all limited liability really means is that you can’t sue shareholders for things they didn’t do. If you’re wronged by a corporation, then you can sue the corporation and take everything it has. I believe that you can also sue the specific individuals responsible for the wrong, if they behaved in a criminal or negligent manner. But why should you be able to sue shareholders who weren’t even aware of any wrongdoing?
You also can’t sue creditors who lend to partnerships that have wronged you; is that a special privilege that gives us an excuse to regulate the hell out of partnerships, too?
Mostly I just read Amp’s blog rather than comment, but I’m afraid that I have an issue with one of the comments made in this thread.
I think you are terribly mistaken. If you take into account the rest of the world, barring the Western world, you’ll find that sexism affects women more than it does men. Your argument would have had some validity had you just said the Western world, but I’m afraid you really don’t know a great deal about the rest of the world if you feel that way.
First of all, most Middle Eastern countries do not allow women to have rights. In many, women cannot even vote. Women have to have chaperones. Burqas and other headwear for women is not just a sign of sex, but also a way of women to hide their skin because they are not allowed to reveal it. Rape is the fault of women, not men.
In Iran, women cannot drive cars. In the same country, girls are legally accountable at a ridiculously young age (if I remember correctly, it’s 8), while for boys, it is somewhere in their teens (this means they can be prosecuted as an adult for their crimes)
Let’s not forget the famous “honour” killings.
In China and India, countries that are grossly overpopulated, parents use infanticide and abortion on female babies/feti. Sons are valued more, and that’s why there is a huge gape between the sexes, particularly in China.
In many African countries, rape is used as a war crime. The Rwandan Genocide is one example. Yugoslavian rape camps are another. It is used as a control, and it is also the reason that more women than men have HIV in Africa.
In Turkey, a muslim country that has an extremely high rate of unemployment, women constantly risk being kidnapped and sold into the sex slave trade. Children are at risk, as well. (The sex slave trade is among the worst in Turkey.) These are countries where more women than men are unable to find work or to find work that pays for their basic needs, assuming that the law permits them to even have a job.
The list goes on and on. If you want to make claims that men have it worse in the Western world, I can understand where you’re coming from even if I don’t agree. However, to argue that men have it worse than women in the rest of the world is blatantly ignorant of different cultures.
I’m just hoping that I completely misunderstood what you were trying to say.
jaketk Writes: if the basis of cultural equality is that one must agree with the feminist ideology, then such a change would only result from dictating and controlling what people could think, feel, and express.
No. As I said, I think most (all? Well, I hate to be sweeping) people in the US believe women should have the right to vote. You probably do – don’t you? A hundred years ago, that would have been a radical feminist position. It isn’t now, because the culture in the US has changed: you now agree with that part of feminist ideology. You agree not because anyone was dictating or controlling what people could think, feel, and express about women having the right to vote, but because the feminist revolution changed the culture you live in.
in order: i don’t think so (Christianity beat you by about 1900 years),
Feminism, as a revolutionary movement, is just over two centuries old: let us say that it began to prove its successes by the time it was about a century old. For Christianity to have “beaten” feminism by about 19 centuries, it would have had to be a successful revolutionary movement in 25 B.C.E., which seems like a rather improbable claim to me.
However, that’s a historical quibble. You could always argue that you meant to say 1300 years. :-)
Christianity is a successful revolutionary movement, but not one that could ever make the claim that it’s never killed or brainwashed anyone.
Cathy Young Writes: 1. It simply isn’t true that I never say anything positive about feminism. I’ve said, repeatedly, that I think feminism in the 1960s and ’70s was (despite its excesses) a worthy and much-needed movement.
You really can’t bring yourself to say anything unqualifiedly positive about feminism, then – not even for the brief era, well in the past, providing rights that are politically safe these days to openly support? Evidently not.
Cathy, what bothers you about being referred to as an anti-feminist, when quite patently, that’s what you are?
Jesurgilac:
Do you think that not taking an “unqualifiedly positive” view of “X” amounts to being “anti-X”?
If I had said, “I think that while America has done some bad things, it has still on the whole been a force for good in the world,” would you call me anti-American? Somehow, I seriously doubt it.
How can any sane person deny that 1970s feminism had its excesses, considering that some feminist activists at the time equated marriage with prostitution and some urged complete sexual separatism?
Do you think that not taking an “unqualifiedly positive” view of “X” amounts to being “anti-X”?
Feminist ideas tend to take at least a generation to move into the mainstream. That you can, now, bring yourself to accept that feminist accomplishments in the 1970s were necessary, really says nothing more than that you don’t oppose feminism once it becomes mainstream – and that you cling to the status quo: you prefer not to associate yourself with any of the discomfort necessary to make changes, but are willing to accept the rights once they have been won for you. If you merely kept your head down and took the benefits, that would make you a non-feminist: as you attack feminism, that makes you an anti-feminist.
“I think that while America has done some bad things, it has still on the whole been a force for good in the world,” would you call me anti-American?
If you spent all your time online attacking America, and pointing out all the bad things the US has done and is doing, I would expect people to refer to you as anti-American, yes. Further, if you could not bring yourself ever to say anything positive about the US, without qualifying it with a reminder that you hate the things the US does, then perhaps you would deserve the label.
How can any sane person deny that 1970s feminism had its excesses, considering that some feminist activists at the time equated marriage with prostitution and some urged complete sexual separatism?
Feminist activists have been pointing out since 1900s at least that so long as hetero marriage legally means that the woman provides sex and the man provides financial support, marriage is akin to prostitution. (Obviously, if sex ceases to be a legal obligation and financial support becomes a mutual requirement, marriage then moves away from prostitution. But the equation has been pointed out by feminists for around a century, if not longer.) Urging sexual separatism is even older than that obvious equation: Aristophanes wrote a comedy about it in the 4th century BCE, for heaven’s sake. To pin ideas that have a long, long history on to “1970s feminism” shows a lack of historical awareness, or a willingness to believe the worst of everything labelled “feminism”.
If you spent all your time online attacking America, and pointing out all the bad things the US has done and is doing
(Or even: whenever America was discussed, you attacked the US.)
Is there a category for “moderate feminists”?
Mendy: Sure, there is. But “moderate” is a funny word, that can mean different things.
I think of Molly Ivans as an example of a “moderate feminist,” in that she’s certainly not a radical feminist like Catherine MacKinnon, but at the same time she’s not far to the right of most feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers. But I’m not sure if that’s the sort of thing you’re wondering about or not.
Jesurgislac:
First of all, it’s a gross caricature of my views to say that I discuss gender issues only to attack feminism. I have, for instance, extensively criticized conservative attacks on working mothers and on women’s sexual freedom. I have also criticized “biology is destiny” arguments that invoke evolutionary psychology and research on sex differences in the brain to justify traditional sex roles. I’ve written very positively about women’s athletics as an example of feminism at its best. I have written in favor of full equality for women in the military. I also find it a bit bizarre that you try to portray me as pro-status quo when I have repeatedly said that we need to change cultural expectations about male and female roles in the family. In fact, I would say that in arguing for equal treatment for men and women in such areas as child custody and domestic violence, I am far more “anti-status-quo” than today’s feminist movement.
you prefer not to associate yourself with any of the discomfort necessary to make changes, but are willing to accept the rights once they have been won for you.
“Discomfort”? What discomfort? As I see it, the “feminist” movement today is mostly about demanding female privilege, not equal treatment. “Discomfort” would be accepting that you don’t automatically have superior child custody rights because you’re a woman, and that if you assault your partner you should be treated exactly the same as a male batterer.
As for the anti-American analogy: I guess, then, your definition of “anti-American” would include any person who for the past several years has had nothing but critical things to say about American foreign and domestic policies, and who believes that the Bush administration has warped everything that America stands for?
Cathy: In fact, I would say that in arguing for equal treatment for men and women in such areas as child custody and domestic violence, I am far more “anti-status-quo” than today’s feminist movement.
Men and women have equal treatment under the law with regard to child custody. That women, more than men, tend to be awarded child custody, is because women, more than men, tend to have been the parent who took care of the children prior to divorce. Today’s feminist movement certainly supports allowing men who want to be more involved with child care to do so.
Men who are beaten or abused by their partners do not receive equal treatment: not only is there a strong cultural resistence for men admitting they are being beaten/abused, many resources for people subject to domestic violence are available for women only. Today’s feminist movement certainly is not opposed to men becoming more willing to acknowledge themselves as victims of domestic violence, nor opposed to men setting up domestic violence shelters for male victims. (Men appear extremely resistent to either course, but that’s hardly something that can be put down to feminism.)
So, if you’re for there being cultural changes in employment and in male status that would enable men to take equal responsibility for child care, that would enable fathers on divorce to ask for equal custody, then you are indeed in line with the current feminist movement – I’m not sure why you would think you weren’t.
Equally, if you’re for the cultural changes required that would let men being readier to admit that they are being abused and need help, and for men getting involved in helping male survivors of domestic violence, then again, you’re in line with the current feminist movement – and certainly, moving against the status quo.
Now, what have you written about wanting the status quo to change so that men work more to help other men (rather than complaining that women aren’t doing it), and men take more part in the “invisible” household work of cleaning, cooking, and looking after children? About changing the culture of employment so that taking a career break to have children doesn’t mean, for either women or men, being permanently disadvantaged in the job market? About employment law changes to enable men to claim paid paternity leave and work become more family-friendly? Without, that is, also attacking feminism?
As I see it, the “feminist” movement today is mostly about demanding female privilege, not equal treatment.
And that would be precisely why you are anti-feminist. If you perceive working for equal treatment for women and men as “demanding female privilege”, then you’ll always be anti-feminist, until the equal treatment worked for is achieved, and far enough in the past, that you can perceive it as equality rather than privilege. Supporting the status quo of male privilege is anti-feminist.
I guess, then, your definition of “anti-American” would include any person who for the past several years has had nothing but critical things to say about American foreign and domestic policies, and who believes that the Bush administration has warped everything that America stands for?
Why are we now discussing what makes someone “anti-American”?
Cathy wrote:
I don’t think that saying that feminism was worthwhile three or four decades ago, but doesn’t serve any positive function today, is a message I’d call pro-feminist.
They still say they’re for equality – they just define equality more narrowly than you or I do. And I acknowledge that you’ve been a consistent critic of conservatives, and that you often say things I agree with. That you have the integrity to avoid easy partisanship is one reason I’ve said you’re the best of the anti-feminist writers.
I agree with you – feminists long ago won the battle for formal legal equality, apart from the military (where feminists have consistently favored formal equality, but without success). But formal legal equality is not the be-all and end-all, as I’m sure you know.
Who, specifically, is demanding this? I don’t think such a demand is widespread within the feminist movement.
What you call a “fact” is refuted by the National Violence Against Women Survey, which is (to my knowledge) the largest and best study that surveyed both lesbians and heterosexuals with a random, representative sample. The NVAW found that both gay men and heterosexual women were twice as likely to have been victimized by a male partner sometime in their lifetime, compared to the odds that straight men or homosexual women had been victimized by a female partner sometime in their lifetime. (See “Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence,” published by NIJ/CDC, page 30.)
More importantly, while there is no single cause of any complex and widespread phenomenon, I think one major cause of intimate partner violence (and also of rape) is the messages we teach kids – but especially boys – about masculinity, entitlement, and violence. A less sexist society would result in fewer men – gay or straight – who batter and rape.
Well, the article you link to is sums up research, but doesn’t describe the research in enough detail for me to be convinced or unconvinced.
However, as a matter of theory, I don’t find it hard to believe that some women are misogynists, nor that women who beat other women are particularly likely to be misogynistic.
Which is great, and says a lot about your integrity. You should be proud of your refusal to give in to such pressure. Again, when I say I think of you as an anti-feminist, that doesn’t mean that I doubt your integrity; it’s just how I describe the political position you’ve taken.
I’m not sure how to respond to this. Logically, if I can quote a definition from a respected dictionary which doesn’t have the meaning you cite, that absolutely proves that the meaning you cite is not the only legitimate dictionary definition.
I’ve already quoted the OED, which is often considered the world’s most authoritative dictionary. That dictionary definition said (emphasis added by me) “One opposed to women OR to feminism”; it did not say that anti-feminists necessarily oppose equality of the sexes.
The dictionary definition you claim for “anti-feminist” does not appear in all respected dictionaries; you can’t reasonably claim it’s the only legitimate dictionary definition out there.
One more comment, and I’m afraid I’m probably going to have to bow out of this thread for lack of time.
Barry’s definition of “feminist” incorporates supporting a movement for equality between men and women.
I have, in fact, repeatedly said that I think we need a gender equality movement. I just don’t think that’s what feminism (by and large), is today.
Good day to you all.
Thanks for taking part in this thread, Cathy.
Cathy, thanks for taking the time to post on this thread, and for being so nice about being the subject of criticism.
Sheelzebub,
the majority of intimate partner violence is perpetrated by men, and the majority of people targeted and injured by these acts are women. To say that’s not a feminist issue, and that it does not point to a serious power imbalance, is ludicrous.
Working backwards from that statement I come up with a definition of a feminist issue as any power imbalance that disadvantages women more often than men. That’s an OK definition. It’s not my definition, but it’s a coherent one and you’re entitled to it. You are entitled to it right up to the point where you treat men and women unequally in the same situation, that is. That would be a departure from feminism. Preferential treatment for women is anti-feminist as I have known and lived feminism.
We women best maintain the power we have worked so hard for by not overreaching. We overreach when we seek preferential treatment, when we frame issues such as violence as woman-centric rather than violence-centric, when we leave out of your definition “inherently, significantly, and remediably” as modifiers for “disadvantages,” and when we convey an attitude of hostility towards men. Those are all self-defeating in the long run, IMO. Women would be better served by feminists avoiding the the false consensus effect and the immoderateness nurtured in the feminist echo chamber exemplified by choosing not to “other” women like Cathy Young .
Since I didn’t see Jesurgislac and Barry’s last posts before mine, I’ll reply.
If you perceive working for equal treatment for women and men as “demanding female privilege”, then you’ll always be anti-feminist, until the equal treatment worked for is achieved, and far enough in the past, that you can perceive it as equality rather than privilege.
Pardon me? I think I can distinguish equality from privilege, thank you very much. You keep trying to ascribe to me a pro-status-quo view, when I actually think that the status quo does, in part, represent female privilege. (And yes, aspects of male privilege still exist as well.)
Also, has it ever occurred to you that political movements tend to self-perpetuate and that for people whose identity is wrapped up being a feminist, there is always going to be some elusive measure of equality that has not yet been achieved?
So, if you’re for there being cultural changes in employment and in male status that would enable men to take equal responsibility for child care, that would enable fathers on divorce to ask for equal custody, then you are indeed in line with the current feminist movement – I’m not sure why you would think you weren’t.
Really? Is that why the National Organization for Women passed a resolution a few years ago comparing men who seek custody of their children to batterers? Is that why, any time there’s a high-profile case of a successful career woman losing custody of her children, there is a howl of feminist outrage about women being “punished” for career success?
Equally, if you’re for the cultural changes required that would let men being readier to admit that they are being abused and need help, and for men getting involved in helping male survivors of domestic violence, then again, you’re in line with the current feminist movement – and certainly, moving against the status quo.
We must be looking at two different feminist movements, then. Are you aware that two years ago, the staff of a domestic violence shelter walked on on the meeting of the Family Violence Council in Cecil County, MD to protest the showing of a video about men abused by women?
As for your question to me: If you want to read more of my work, you’re welcome to look around my website (www.cathyyoung.net). I have written more than once about the need for society to facilitate male involvement with children. Have I done so “without attacking feminists”? Well, in this article, for instance, I have good things to say about some feminists and bad things to say about others. As I have said, I think that the women’s movement in its current form is part of the problem, so my solution is going to include criticism of “feminists” from a pro-equality point of view. Sorry if that isn’t to your liking.
Barry, re feminists demanding that women who commit domestic assault be treated differently from men: I think we had this discussion recently on my blog. Obviously, we disagree about some pretty basic definitional issues. You think they are trying to keep battered women who use violence in self-defense from being treated as abusers. I think they’re trying to ensure that women who use violence are presumptively treated as victims whether they are or not.
About the NWSA and gay/lesbian violence: as I recall, the sample of gays and lesbians in the NWSA was pretty small, probably too small to make any statistically significant conclusions. Studies with comparable samples of lesbians and straight women have found that lesbians are at least as likely to be abused.
Finally, returning once again to the term “anti-feminist.” I object to it because it lumps me together with people who favor traditional gender roles and oppose gender equality (which is its most commonly used meaning). If you had called me a “critic of feminism,” I would not have batted an eye.
And sorry, this really has to be it for now. I apologize if the tone of my last post was somewhat snarky toward Jesurgislac. Barry, thanks for the discussion (and Karen, great post!).
I think I can distinguish equality from privilege, thank you very much. You keep trying to ascribe to me a pro-status-quo view, when I actually think that the status quo does, in part, represent female privilege.
Well, that would argue that you not only can’t distinguish equality from privilege, you also perceive male privilege and female disprivilege as female privilege.
But, as you’ve already said you wanted to leave this discussion, I’ll refrain from engaging your other points.
Samantha, thanks for the correction. I quoted without thinking, and I’m frankly embarrassed that I didn’t notice the error, because I used to know this stuff.
I agree that Canadian customs was always homophobic, etc. Butler merely gave them more excuses to censor what they wanted to censor.
In the US, the federal statute that attempted to enact a private right of action was called the Pornography Victims’ Compensation Act. (You probably know all this, but) it was introduced by that right-winger Mitch McConnell in the wake of the Meese Commission, but never passed. I’m not sure what position Dworkin or MacKinnon took on it. I read the bill during the years when it was a live issue, and I remember thinking that the real goal was to put forward church members who had standing to stop the production of BDSM-related material and to chill further production. So, I re-read the bill, which I found here. I was troubled by this:
coupled with this:
And that’s before we get to the definitions:
So, by definition, a man or woman with a dildo inside him or her is violent.
Also, material depicting bondage is violent.
Further, the statute is gender-neutral. I’ve been open on this blog that I’m a sodomasochist, and that I’m mostly a bottom. So, suppose my wife and I do a scene where she tells me to kneel in front of her, naked, and kicks me in the testicles. If we take some video and put it on the web, and some right-wing activist comes forward to say that he was forced (perhaps by a male partner before he was “cured”) to kneel naked and kicked in the testicles, then he can sue my wife and I — even if we posted the material to a BDSM forum intending that it be viewed by folks who do consensual BDSM. Even if we did it for no money, just to give something to the community. And his evidence might just be the similarity. Now, I don’t think that’s all that similar, but remember that this gets tried to a jury in, what, West Memphis? Littleton, Colorado? Provo, Utah? The jurors don’t know anything about BDSM, so to them any BDSM is essentially similar; and anyway they may not care — to them, I’m obviously some kind of pervert who is going to hell.
The pornography problem is one of commercialization of the female body — the cultural push of the sense of entitlement to sexual access to women by men. The San Fernando Valley fungible porn picture harms women more than BDSM by and for the community ever will. The problem is certainly regulation and censorship will be used by people at the margins and not the core of the industry, which is the opposite of the result I want; but even the private right of action will be used that way. Under that ordinance, a feminist lawyer would not have a case against mainstream companies for most of their material; but the right-wing fringies and the anti-BDSM feminists would have a powerful tool against photographers like Barbara Nitke who chronicle the BDSM community.
I’ve seen various versions of the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance, and there are some good ideas in there, but I recall thinking there were a lot of problems with it too — first of all, IIRC, there’s no clear way the a producer of sexually explicity material could prove the consent of the participants. Second, I seem to recall a similar attack on BDSM.
It could be that I’m misremembering how those ordinances were drafted, though. I’ve had my facts wrong before.
From reading this thread, it has made more clear the reasons why I choose to be anti-feminist.
It is the whole “Your either with us or against us” attitude.
Feminism is a social theory, and a lot of the issues that are discussed within feminism are based on theorys that are not proven fact.
This means it leaves room for people to question and critisise the movement.
Also I find feminism is not self critical enough, and this has been shown in this thread. It seems unwilling to look at it self in a critical light.
This is clear when someone in the media makes mad statements in the name of feminism, but does not get condemed by other feminists for what they said, all you get is “well that’s not my idea of feminism” with a reluctance to condem what was said.
I can be against feminism but for female equality, feminism is just one idea about how it will be achived but not the only idea.
For feminism to state that it is about equality for all is a joke, it is about women and women only, why not admit this?
As statement like this make it clear that this is what it means to many feminists
Jesurgislac Writes:
“Today’s feminist movement certainly is not opposed to men becoming more willing to acknowledge themselves as victims of domestic violence, nor opposed to men setting up domestic violence shelters for male victims.”
This is the reply men who are concerned with the lack of support for male DV victims get “Well go build it yourself” this does not take into the account the amount of time and money these things take and how much work and effort this is for men to convince politician and funders to part with case to achive this.
Why cant feminist help out and give backing to this, and advice and support on how they went about doing it? If you are truely about equality for all.
And by the way the shelters we have for women, were not just set up and built by feminists, many men and women were involved in these projects, it is not something that feminists can claim as a sole success of theirs! Men helped women when they needed it, why is it not being reciprocated? That is what gets some men so angry!!
Well thats my bit, I thought I should let you know why I choose to be anti-femisit but pro woman.
Wookie
We women best maintain the power we have worked so hard for by not overreaching. We overreach when we seek preferential treatment, when we frame issues such as violence as woman-centric rather than violence-centric, when we leave out of your definition “inherently, significantly, and remediably” as modifiers for “disadvantages,” and when we convey an attitude of hostility towards men. Those are all self-defeating in the long run, IMO.
When the vast majority of people assaulted by their partners is women, and the vast majority of the abusers are men, it’s a gender problem, not just a violence problem. It is an imbalance of power and bespeaks some very serious entitlement. That even pointing this out is being seen as hostile to men is ludicrous.
You’ll just have to forgive me if I’m not sweating some random guy’s injured feelings when he hears that his gender has more privilige.
Women would be better served by feminists avoiding the the false consensus effect and the immoderateness nurtured in the feminist echo chamber exemplified by choosing not to “other” women like Cathy Young.
You obviously have no idea what the feminist movement is like. It’s hardly an echo chamber, although it is far from the Victorian tea party you’d like it to be. Susie Bright, Andrea Dworkin, Katha Pollitt, Bell Hooks, and Urvashi Vaid are all pretty strong feminists with very divergent points of view. The thing is, none of them tiptoed around the facts, nor did they ignore the facts, which Young and her anti-feminist cohorts do.
Sorry if this is a double-post, but I’m not seeing it go through:
I’d be curious to hear the “Feminist” response to Linda Hirshman’s “Feminist” article in The American Prospect about the failure of “Choice Feminism.”
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10659
I don’t know if it qualifies as feminism or not, but it’s certainly in a left-wing magazine. It seems, however, to contain many of the tropes that anti-feminists criticize feminists for using:
A woman who chooses to stay home by her own volition is a moron:
“This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust. To paraphrase, as Mark Twain said, “A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.””
She is making a bad choice for himself and for women everywhere:
“Finally, these choices are bad for women individually. A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one’s capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one’s own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives. ”
The decision to have two children is a bad choice.
“If these prescriptions sound less than family-friendly, here’s the last rule: Have a baby. Just don’t have two.”
Go to college to get a career, and become a capitalist:
“It is shocking to think that girls cut off their options for a public life of work as early as college. But they do. The first pitfall is the liberal-arts curriculum, which women are good at, graduating in higher numbers than men. Although many really successful people start out studying liberal arts, the purpose of a liberal education is not, with the exception of a miniscul
e number of academic positions, job preparation.”
Wookie: This is the reply men who are concerned with the lack of support for male DV victims get “Well go build it yourself” this does not take into the account the amount of time and money these things take and how much work and effort this is for men to convince politician and funders to part with case to achive this.
Actually, it does. That’s rather the point. If men want support for male domestic violence victims, rather than demanding it from women – demanding women’s time, money, work, and effort – men should put their own time, money, work, and effort into building support for male domestic violence victims. In general, men seem unwilling to do this, but very willing to complain that women aren’t doing it either.
Why cant feminist help out and give backing to this, and advice and support on how they went about doing it? If you are truely about equality for all.
I imagine that if a men’s group was interested in setting up support for male victims of domestic violence, and politely asked an existing support group for female victims how they did it, they’d get advice: that’s free. But until men are willing to act, demanding that feminists “help out” is in fact demanding that women do the work that men are not willing to do. What have you done, Wookie, to help male victims of domestic violence?
Men helped women when they needed it, why is it not being reciprocated?
Maybe it will be, if men ever get together and start working on it. But until they do, what is it that women are supposed to do about it?
Jesurgislac, voting is a legal right, not a cultural norm. It is still matter of the enforcement of the law. I agree with the idea of allowing everyone to vote because I agree with the premise that we are all equal. That is to say you are entitled to no more than I am entitled to. Feminism has nothing to do with that. Non-biased views are not exclusive to feminism.
As for feminism as a revolutionary movement, you began from the beginning of the movement, from the 1800s, so I started with Christianity from the point where it began to coalesce, which was sometime around 100 A.D. And you cannot honestly claim that feminism has not resulted in brainwashing, death, or harm to people. No movement is beyond such things, and as I said, there are plenty of people who are living proof of that.
With regards to men and child custody, children tend to be awarded to the mother even in cases where the father is the primary caregiver. I do not think we can honestly discuss the family court situation if we are unwilling to address the bias that “children are better off with their mothers”. And so far, virtually every attempt to level the field by starting from the position that both parents are good parents and should have equal time and custody with their child(ren) is often dismissed by feminists.
Likewise, having been involved with male survivor groups for the past few years, I can attest that the feminist movement has on many occasions opposed the creation of men’s shelters (often because there is this unrealistic fear that the shelters would be built with “their” money) and have offered more dismissal and criticism rather than consideration and support to male victims of any form of abuse. The stigmas that are faced by male victims, whether it be that he is a ‘wimp’, a ‘sissy’, ‘gay’, a ‘rapist’, a ‘pedophile’ or some sort of ‘deviant’, have not been addressed by feminism. In fact, they have been maintained by feminism by perpetuating the myth of female = victim, male = abuser. The negative male stigmas work in feminism’s favor.