A surprising number of anti-feminists describe themselves as being pro-choice when they’re attacking feminism. The message of these “I’m pro-choice, but…” messages is I’m-liberal-so-my-eviscerations-of-feminism-are-ever-so-objective.
Christina Hoff Sommers is a good example of this. My friend Cathy Young, too. ((I don’t want to exaggerate my friendship with Cathy. We’ve been friendly adversaries for many years online, but we’ve only met face to face once, that I recall. Still, I think well of Cathy, and I believe she thinks well of me.)) (I’ve also seen this among many anti-feminist bloggers who aren’t as high-profile).
Many of these people are extremely prolific writers who enjoy ripping apart opposition arguments. Yet they’ve never ripped apart pro-life arguments.
I’ve never seen a Christina Hoff Sommers article focused on defending abortion rights, rather than mentioning being pro-choice as part of an anti-feminist attack. I’ve seen Cathy Young take a “pox on both their houses” approach, in which she advocates a pro-life position – defunding Planned Parenthood unless it stops providing abortions – by calling it a “compromise.” I couldn’t find an example of Cathy defending her avowed pro-choice position (although she has written ((If you follow that link and read the comments, you’ll find some comments by me, as well as many excellent comments by Mythago.)) in moderate approval of “choice for men”). In fact, I only know Cathy, Sommers, and their compatriots are pro-choice because they mention being pro-choice as a credential to advance anti-feminist positions. ((Similarly, I only know Christina Hoff Sommers is pro-same-sex marriage because she signed a petition of SSM advocates criticizing SSM supporters on free speech grounds. It’s fine for her to criticize arguments from SSM supporters – but it’s telling that she has never, as far as I can find on google, criticized the arguments of SSM opponents.))
Disclaimer number one: Writers like CHS and Young have collectively written thousands of articles and posts. Although I follow them both, I haven’t read all their work, and google searches are imperfect. So maybe I’ve missed it. ((I asked Cathy directly, and she couldn’t point me to any articles she’s written refuting pro-life arguments, but may have one in progress.)) If defending abortion rights is part of their output, it must be a very small part of it.
Disclaimer number two: They have a right to focus on whatever they want. No one has time to write about every worthy issue in the world. But I’m not criticizing them for not defending choice; I’m criticizing them for not defending choice while repeatedly using their pro-choice views as a credential.
Disclaimer number three: I’m sure all of these writers genuinely think abortion should be legal, at least in the first trimester. So in that sense – a somewhat theoretical sense, for writers as hugely prolific as these – they are pro-choice. End disclaimers.
As a practical matter their pro-choiceness is opportunistic. None of these writers extend their pro-choice views to publicly defending the right to an abortion, even though abortion is in desperate need of defense.
It’s hard to take the “I’m pro-choice, so I have credibility when I say feminists are evil” mantra seriously when saying that appears to be the entire extent of their (public) commitment to reproductive rights. (Apart from reproductive rights for cis men.)
The claim to be pro-choice is especially shaky for professional opinion-writers writers like Sommers and Young, who have devoted huge portions of their careers to discrediting mainstream feminism. As I once pointed out to Cathy, if so-called “equity feminists” (Sommers’ term for libertarian and conservative feminists) have their way and mainstream feminism stops existing, that will effectively end abortion rights in the USA. Pro-lifers are smart, relentless and determined, and feminists are their only effective and consistent opposition.
No matter how bad things get, it would be foolish to look to Sommers, Young and other “equity” feminists to defend reproductive rights. I say this because they’ve had decades to use the considerable strength of their pens to defend choice, decades during with the right to abortion has grown more and more threadbare, and they’ve said and done nothing – even though their voices, respected in many right-wing circles, could reach listeners who ignore what liberals say.
Attacking left-wing and progressive feminists – which is to say, the feminists who have actually done the work of defending choice – is their priority. Defending choice is not and never will be.
Which is, again, their right.
But until they actually make defending abortion rights a priority, it’s opportunistic and disingenuous of them to use the pro-choice label as a shield.
This is a specific instance of something that’s been bugging me a lot in general. It actually makes me extremely suspicious of a lot of people. My impression in these two cases, and quite a few other, similar ones, is that they are unwilling to make a point out of these preferences on the grounds that it might alienate members of the coalitions they’ve joined to focus on issues that are more important to them–in this case, combatting feminism.
It’s an easy thing to fall into, but I think it’s worth being honest about it with both yourselves and others.
*Trigger warning* *This reply includes common sense and a call to reason.*
1. Abortion is one of the most heavily documented debates of the last half-century. To imply that any woman, let alone a scholar, has to go through a laundry list of why they support the pro-choice movement as a measure of their support is ludicrous. Considering the exposure you acknowledge they receive, the simple fact that they state they are pro-choice to the thousands that respect and emulate their opinion is a significant contribution.
When many feminists are asked, “if feminism is about equity for both men and women, why do you never fight for issues affecting men?” they often say, “while men have problem, women are even-more greatly disadvantaged and I work towards addressing those greater disparities.” or something similar. Perhaps these two ladies think the greater danger is in combating what they see as a vitriolic form of feminism that they are most-equipped to tackle, which brings us to:
2. This mainstream” feminism” is the most vocal and most damaging form, a divergence from the last several waves of feminism and has been disputed by equity feminists like these for decades.
Considering how many advocates abortion has in comparison to equity feminism, I think their time and attention is well-directed and well-spent.
Imagine how much hate-mail they must get already from triggered critics; they don’t need to add to the pile by simultaneously wading deep into the abortion argument, especially when their publicly (and frequently) disclosed position is so easy to understand and contemplate.
At least you recognize you have no clue how often or to what degree they have discussed the issue, and it’s a shame you’ve accepted Google as the sole arbiter of their contribution. If you were to ask me, the most disingenuous activity present is trying to judge these ladies based on your admittedly limited perception of what they haven’t done, as opposed to what they have.
Luckily, equity feminists are quite familiar with the concept of groups being pilloried for things they haven’t done, fuelled by accusations with little or no evidence. I don’t think either lady will need a fainting couch after reading this blog.
Liz:
Thanks for your comment, However, please read the Alas moderation policy if you continue to post comments here. Lines like “*Trigger warning* *This reply includes common sense and a call to reason” don’t add any substance to your arguments, and suggests that you aren’t willing to try and engage respectfully with people you disagree with.
There are many right-wingers who comment on “Alas” regularly – and although she’s not a regular comment-writer, Cathy Young has posted dozens of comments here over the years. But I can’t imagine Cathy opening with a line like that.
Sorry for ignoring the substance of your comment, but I’m taking my nieces to see a show, so I don’t have time tonight. Hopefully I can respond later.
Apologies. While individually both are true (and meant to be funny) I can see how together some would find them mean-spirited. I look forward to your greater response.
This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, and I particularly liked your repeated use of the word “credential” since I’ve been thinking about it in terms of the “moral credentialing” literature in social psychology (as well as Derrick Bell’s notion of enhanced standing).
I think it is clearly worth remarking on that the “pro-choice” position of Sommers et al, stipulated to be sincerely held, is nonetheless only trotted out as a credential rather than anything they feel inclined to pursue independently. And one sees similar moves in other contexts — of course I oppose racism but [insert X, Y, and Z problems that black people are to blame for]; obviously we fight anti-Semitism in all of its forms but [how annoying are all the people who whine about anti-Semitism all the time, amirite?].
It’s worth considering who the audience for this credential is supposed to be. Surely, it’s not the pro-choice feminists — they don’t read Sommers’ pro-choice aside and think “oh, she’s one of us — I’ll listen more carefully.” The credit is issued by her conservative listeners: “See — even one of them agrees with me!” And on the same grounds, it’s worth remembering the limits of the credit. If Sommers tried to cash her chips and write a column for The National Review that said “Listen, you know me, I’m not one of those shrill horrible feminists that are awful and ruin everything. But seriously, opposing reproductive choice does real damage to women’s equality,” the response wouldn’t be “well, normally I’d dismiss this argument but she’s earned her credential so I’ll consider it.” Instantly, she’d be right back to one of those unreliable she-sluts unworthy of time and attention.
It’s why I always roll my eyes at the oft-heard claim that “When you cry racism/sexism/anti-Semitism at the drop of the hat, people won’t take the real thing seriously.” Put aside whether such “crying” occurs as often as its alleged. The real falsification is that even the people of color or women or Jews or whomever who are most enthusiastic about reciting that refrain do not, in fact, find that they’re taken any more seriously on the rare occasions when even their distant lines are crossed. The thing about enhanced standing is that it disappears as soon as one tries to cash the check.
David
Your language is incredibly offensive. I do not like being called an “unreliable she-slut unworthy of time and attention”, and think you should consider removing your comment.
It portrays women and feminists in an extremely negative way, and just because you wrap it in a “Oh hey, that’s not what I say, it’s what they say. I’m just repeating it. (Perhaps a little too eagerly.)” doesn’t make it appropriate.
You can discuss pornography without posting pictures.
You can discuss misogyny without inventing your own script to share.
As to the substance of your argument, it sounds like the basis is that you think they don’t spend sufficient time on abortion issues, choosing instead to build their credentials and devote their energy elsewhere, which for you creates a credibility issue (for you). The question for me becomes: so what?
Life is opportunity costs, and they’ve chosen where to spend their energy. It is on topics they clearly feel are important and under-served. That they feel their type of feminism’s message is being squeezed out of the public discourse is deeply-engrained in their writing and presentations.
How simple a tactic to try and derail them from their mission by trying to force them to stop and speak at length about issues they’ve clearly stated a position on, but have no need to show the math?
Let them focus on the important issues they’ve chosen to champion, and you can champion yours. Spending energy trying to deflect them from their life’s work (which forwards feminism) is time you take away from doing the same.
I’m not the blogmaster here, but if I were I’d count that as two strikes against Liz. David’s language may be offensive to some but it was very clearly not intended as such. Responding to him by rhetorically claiming the high ground and banishing him to the sewers seems calculated to provoke, rather than illuminate.
And then the follow-up simply reiterates the “maybe they have other things to think about” idea expressed earlier, without engaging with his point about how much antifeminist “coolness” the antifeminist “cool girls” actually acquire, or how much it is worth.
I don’t count that as a strike against Liz; by my lights, I think it’s just an ordinary misunderstanding.
But Liz, I don’t think David’s comment was calling you anything; rather, he was insulting National Review readers, by implying that they would think of most feminists as “she-sluts.”
But David, since there are a few people who regularly contribute to the Alas comments who are either NR readers or sympathetic to NR, I’d prefer that you had made your point without being insulting to NR readers in that particular way.
But everyone, let’s try not to make this sort of thing into a big deal. As long as people are trying to avoid directly insulting or sneering at the other folks here in the Alas comments, then we’re doing pretty good, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s both try to be polite to each other, but also let’s try to give each other a break.
@Liz:
Of course there are opportunity costs, and the fact is that it calls into question how trustworthy they are if they aren’t willing to pay any of the opportunity costs associated with their pro-choice position in terms of potentially alienating the social conservatives they are trying to court in their crusade against “mainstream feminism”.
If we disagree with them about the merits of “mainstream feminism” vs. “equity feminism”, and further feel that they’re strengthening the hand of social conservative activists as they attack “mainstream feminists”, why shouldn’t we apply pressure on an apparent weak point in the coalition they’re trying to build? Why shouldn’t we question Cathy Young’s commitment to reproductive freedom when the primary way it actually affects the debate is to allow people who oppose reproductive freedom to talk about how, say, even the pro-choice Cathy Young thinks it’s totally reasonable that Planned Parenthood be defunded?
Thank you Ampersand. I know David wasn’t calling me those names personally, and wasn’t trying to imply they reflect his personal feelings. My point was that we can make the case without having to repeat the language, show the pictures, etc. Language has power and repeating it only reinforces it.
I haven’t read the National Review before. Sounds pretty vile if that’s the language they use. Thanks for putting them on my radar. I’ll do some reading there to get a sense of their politics in case they’re quoted here or elsewhere again.
I also wanted to make sure I spoke to David’s real point to make sure it didn’t look like I was trying to avoid or redirect away from it. Which brings me to:
Jameson
This thread isn’t talking about anti-feminists. It’s talking about Christina Hoff Sommers and Cathy Young, who I’m fairly confident have spent more of their life championing our cause than the three of us put together. If you consider a definition of feminism to be “to support equity between women and men”, to label them anti-feminist is incongruous with the body of their work. It’s only when we apply the definition “what I think feminism is” do we gain the ability to exclude them.
But even then, if I was to cede the right to define feminism for me to anyone, I trust their professional and personal judgement on a level equal to anyone else I can think of.
So I guess my response to you is that I chose to stay true to the original topic of the blog and not go down a road discussing anti-feminists or parties that pander to any specific groups of media because I don’t think anyone fitting that description is being discussed or taking part in the discussion. Fair?
I just wanted to point out that I’m Canadian, and it’s a number of trials and articles here that have intensified my interest on these types of topics both here and abroad. I find myself worried that there is a lot being done under the flag of feminism that doesn’t match my ideas of due process, freedom of speech, or the search for true equity.
While most events that happen down there will get some coverage up here, I might not know a lot about some media sources or less-televised events being discussed, and appreciate whenever you mention them. Stay with me while I catch up on the American side of things, and feel free to throw any recommended sources my way.
Cheers,
Liz
@Pillsy
If we disagree with them about the merits of “mainstream feminism” vs.
I’m socially conservative and still believe in equity between the sexes. Maybe there’s a difference in how those terms are used between countries, but even then I still don’t see them being mutually exclusive unless you’re referring to a specific group.
How about because, for the last forty years, we’ve been fighting for the right when we say “this is my body” or “this is what was done to me” to not hear “prove it”? How do you propose Cathy prove her support to your satisfaction? Donate $100,000 to an abortion clinic? Get pregnant and have an abortion? Perform one on someone else?
How about, whenever asked, she simply states “I am pro-choice”. Find me anyone in North America that doesn’t know what that means. Find me anyone who cares about the issue that doesn’t immediately put you into a specific camp with that statement.
Also, I can’t find any sources to back your claim Cathy said she wanted PP defunded. I’ve found some where she expresses dismay over an extremely sexist cartoon they retweeted, but not what you’re accusing her of above. Once again, I don’t know all the popular sources in the US and Google seems to have failed me. If you can provide me a link I’d appreciate it.
Thanks,
Liz
I’m socially conservative and still believe in equity between the sexes. Maybe there’s a difference in how those terms are used between countries, but even then I still don’t see them being mutually exclusive unless you’re referring to a specific group.
In the US, it’s mostly oriented towards opposing equal rights for LGBT people, especially same-sex marriage and really any sort of rights for trans people, and placing onerous legal restrictions on abortion. It also is avowedly anti-feminist, and warmly embraced by most conservative media outlets and Republican political candidates and officeholders. The National Review is one such media outlet.
How do you propose Cathy prove her support to your satisfaction?
By making highly public statements that would tend to hinder her ability to appeal to anti-abortion social conservatives as part of her political coalition. Simply directing the sort of rhetoric at anti-abortion activists that she routinely directs at “mainstream feminists” in, say, every tenth column would likely do the trick.
Also, I can’t find any sources to back your claim Cathy said she wanted PP defunded. I’ve found some where she expresses dismay over an extremely sexist cartoon they retweeted, but not what you’re accusing her of above.
See the coda of this column, which Amp linked to above:
Note that she also proposes new legal limits on second-trimester abortion while getting rid of many of the clinics that currently provide them. In practice, this would do nothing but make it much harder for women to obtain legal abortions.
Note that she suggests all this in the name of a “compromise” where pro-choice activists are supposed to give up a great deal in return for, apparently, absolutely nothing. Is it any wonder other pro-choice people might be less than trusting?
This sort of thing is as old as politics. Republicans have RINOs. In fact, everybody has their own -INO. It would be weird if there was a political movement that didn’t contain factions attempting to define other factions out of the movement. “We need you to self-identify as one of us to listen to you at all, but we can revoke your card at any time if we don’t like what you say” is a very, very common theme.
Most feminists who lack a separate identity politics shield have been or will be subject to purges if they stick around long enough. See Firestone, Bindel and Greer.
(whistles “Circle of Life”)
Sommers began her career as a philosophy professor, and got dragged into the pop feminism in the late 80s when she started disagreeing with extreme feminist philosophers who wanted to destroy the family and reshape society to resemble a hippy commune.
So you can find her engaging in abortion debates before she ever became involved with feminism. This for example is a philosophy textbook she wrote in 1984, note this is serious academic work – not blogging and journalism. She is engaging with this stuff at a level beyond pop feminist debates.
https://books.google.com/books?id=xCQvXg7GkwMC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=abortion
You also have to realise the abortion debate is dead. I know plebs argue about it. But the actual philosophical debate was won by the pro-choice side ages ago, there’s nothing to add. Take this from 1985 where she discusses a book on Abortion & Infanticide, now she’s focusing on infanticide – but that’s because at this point abortion was academically passe.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3560522
There’s nothing wrong with arguing minority positions which might change minds (and feminism is the academic establishment). Abortion debates are done, what’s left is basically theology, philosophy isn’t going to change minds.
No. Opportunistic would be I dunno… a blogger who’s trying to score points and can’t be bothered to do a proper literature review attacking a professional philosopher who’s done actual academic work on abortion ethics.
@Pillsy
I saw that article, but that’s what I get for scanning. Thanks for linking/quoting.
As a Canadian, I can get an abortion anytime, and for any reason (including no reason) up until 24 weeks. At that point, while not against the law, no doctor will perform an abortion past that point unless the mother’s or baby’s health is in danger. This is covered as part of my universal health care. The thought of it being defunded is anathema to our system, and many provinces are even adding artificial insemination to the list of services being offered. Real progress is being made on all fronts of reproductive choice.
I don’t agree with Cathy’s opinion at all that PP needs to stop funding abortions to receive federal funding. Abortion is legal. Full stop. Anywhere they’ve gerrymandered laws to try and obstruct it, those laws will prevent PP from funding abortions, so there is in reality no illegal activity happening.
We pay a lot of taxes here, for a lot of government services. I think most of us have accepted some of those taxes will go for stuff we won’t use or straight out don’t agree with. Such is life in society.
Sounds like she’s sitting atop a fence that shouldn’t make either side of the debate happy. She’s all for abortion, but not for government funding of groups that have anything to do with it. Seems like she’s trying to *cough* split the baby on this one, and it does come off disingenuous. If a health service is legal and in demand, the government should support accessibility. (Canadian in me coming out again.)
Her suggestions don’t seem like they’d lead to reconciliation. Nor in line with a country that moves closer and closer to government playing a direct and leading role in providing health care to the people.
[This comment was cross-posted with Liz’s comment directly below it.]
I’d disagree, but let’s put that aside, and instead call them “conservative and libertarian feminists,” or CAL feminists for short.
Part of the point of my post is that CAL feminism as a whole – CHS and Cathy Young certainly aren’t the only examples – consistently describe themselves as pro-choice, but have rarely or never argued against pro-life positions, and in Cathy’s case has argued for a “compromise” that involves pro-lifers giving up nothing at all while pro-choicers give up a lot. Meanwhile, both of them – and, again, this seems typical of CAL feminists – suggest that modern “gender feminism” (which is CHS’s somewhat insulting term for, in effect, feminism that is not conservative or libertarian) is worthless and should be done away with, although virtually 100% of the people actually defending reproductive choice are “gender feminists.”
And they do this while repeatedly saying that they’re pro-choice. But they never say that as part of criticizing pro-life positions, only to criticize “gender” feminism.
It seems pretty clear that, despite their identification of pro-choice, if they got their way then that would be the end of abortion rights in the USA. (I don’t know about Canada). How is this not something that can legitimately be criticized?
I agree with this. As I said in the original post – for instance, this part:
It’s fine with me that they never defend reproductive rights (except for cis men). But I think it’s problematic to do that while also using being pro-choice as a credential.
I recognize that I don’t have perfect knowledge; I don’t agree that means I don’t have a clue. It seems to me essentially impossible that an author as prominent as CHS could have been consistently publishing articles refuting pro-life arguments, but not a sign of that in a google search.
But that said, I think you missed the footnote where I mentioned asking Cathy directly for examples of her refuting pro-life arguments; all Cathy could come up with was her a-pox-on-both-sides posts about the Planned Parenthood videos. (Although she did also say she’s working on a blog post.) I also asked CHS on twitter, but (not unreasonably, I’m sure she’s very busy) got no response.
I imagine they get a ton of hate mail, and that sucks. I certainly agree that if arguing for pro-choice generates large amounts of hate-mail for them (and that certainly seems plausible), that would be a good reason to avoid the topic.
But it’s sort of ironic that you’re arguing that it’s reasonable for them to avoid taking public pro-choice stands in order to avoid hate mail, since both of them are voracious defenders of Gamergate, and don’t appear to have much sympathy for woman driven off the web by gaming-related hate mail. (But, to be fair, I doubt that either Cathy or CHS would themselves cite the hate-mail problem as the reason they don’t refute pro-life arguments.)
“By making highly public statements that would tend to hinder her ability to appeal to anti-abortion social conservatives as part of her political coalition. Simply directing the sort of rhetoric at anti-abortion activists that she routinely directs at “mainstream feminists” in, say, every tenth column would likely do the trick.”
Ugh, this is why we can’t have useful politics in the United States. Everyone wants their pet issue to be the do or die where anyone who doesn’t advocate for it just as strongly as they do needs to abandon everything else AND actively alienate everyone else who might help on any other issue. Maybe they think that the thing that is important enough to them to focus on is worth communicating even to people who aren’t initially “on their side”.
“As a Canadian, I can get an abortion anytime, and for any reason (including no reason) up until 24 weeks. At that point, while not against the law, no doctor will perform an abortion past that point unless the mother’s or baby’s health is in danger. ”
Liz, it is important to note that the NARAL position (the biggest pro-choice advocates in the US) is that a woman should have a wholly elective choice to abort even completely healthy children all the way up to moments before birth (and last we talked quite a few on this blog supported that position). Vocal sections of the pro-life advocacy want to ban abortions from the very moment of conception. The extremes completely dominate the debate, while anyone who wants they typical abortion policy of Europe (early abortions easy to obtain, late abortions strictly outlawed except in very limited circumstances verified by multiple doctors not giving the abortion) gets shouted down.
Which may well be why pro-choice or pro-life moderates aren’t eager to get into the discussion.
@Sebastian H:
Oh, horseshit. That’s not even close to what I said. If she doesn’t want to advocate for reproductive rights, she is absolutely free not to. However, she seems to not only want to build her coalition with social conservatives to carry on her obviously essential crusade against “mainstream feminists”, she wants to provide their flagrantly dishonest campaign against Planned Parenthood with political cover while saying she’s pro-choice and arguing that giving in to them on it a “compromise”.
But we’re supposed to let that slide because it’s not fair for anybody on the left to recognize that abortion is a wedge issue. We’re just supposed sit back while conservatives endlessly use it as a weapon against our attempts to build political coalitions, and never, ever think about turning it back on them, right?
I decided that thread drift here (which I participated in) had gotten truly ridiculous, so I moved a huge chunk of discussion to the open thread. Please continue the off-topic discussion there, and hopefully this thread can get back on topic (or at least, closer to topic).
Little bits of on-topic discussion got moved to the open thread, when they were parts of comments with lots of an off-topic discussion I didn’t want to split off from its sibling comments. I’m sorry about that; I did my best.
To be fair, are these people really saying “Hey, I’m a pro-choice activist, I’m really passionate about it,” or are they just saying “listen, I’m pro-choice, so don’t mistake my position on whether abortion should or should not be legal (e.g. pro-choicers who disagree with me, you don’t need to argue that abortion should be legal, and pro-lifers, don’t assume I’m one of you).
I’m not certain why it would be important for them to focus on abortion rights unless they specifically presented themselves as pro-choice activists (as opposed to just mentioning it as a clarification).
And to be fair, the major legal issue has been resolved fairly decisively, so they may not see much to defend.
It’s like noting that most gay rights activists only mention that they aren’t trying to force pastors to perform same-sex weddings when they write against the RFRA and similar laws, but haven’t written an entire article in opposition to making pastors perform them. Does that mean they only bring it up to make themselves out to be more credible? Or do they simply want to make their position clear and wish to avoid defending against something they don’t see as realistically happening (pastors being forced to perform same-sex weddings and abortion being made illegal being seen as being similarly unlikely).
I don’t think those two scenarios can realistically be seen as similarly likely, MJJ. There is a rather large coalition of people in American politics who are trying to outlaw abortion. There is no similar coalition of people, of any size, trying to force pastors into performing same sex marriages.