(Photo found on the webpage of the Reproductive Rights Action League of Yale College.)
This is just the definition I use; I’m not claiming that I can dictate my definition to anyone else. What I try to do with a definition is to exclude as many clear non-feminists and feminist-bashers as possible, while still maintaining a “big umbrella” definition that can include feminists with wildly disparate views.
A feminist:
- Advocates for the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
- Believes that there is current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism.
- Doesn’t believe that men are the primary victims of inequality and sexism.
Point one is pretty much derived from the standard dictionary definition of feminism.
Point two is intended to exclude folks who don’t see any present need for feminism, because they believe equality has already been achieved. Feminism is an activist, political movement; you can’t be a feminist if you’re not advocating for change, in my opinion.
Point three is intended to exclude men’s rights activists and their fellow travelers. My previous definition excluded the MRAs in a slightly different way, by saying that feminists believe that sexism and inequality “on balance disadvantages women.”
But I now think that excluded too much; although many (perhaps most) feminists think that sexism and inequality primarily oppress women, I know sincere feminists who think that both sexes are significantly oppressed by the gender binary system, and that making a “whose worse off” comparison is not a useful approach. My modified definition no longer excludes those folks, but still excludes MRAs.
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I can buy that definition.
This is just the definition I use; I’m not claiming that I can dictate my definition to anyone else.
Good.
Not that I disagree, necessarily. But rigid creeds have not worked out, in my experience. Especially when such creeds are dictated from above. Even more when such creeds are dictated from above by someone outside the class of persons the creed is intended to protect.
Okay — I like this one a lot. I seem to remember posting a comment a while back somewhere asking for a hash-out of exactly the lines covered by #3.
One of the things absolutely central to my feminism is the idea that women are primary victims of sexist inequality, and men are secondary victims. Articulating this to myself was what allowed me to realize that I must stop being passive about my feminism, and start engaging in the dialogue.
See, I’m gender-neutral-identified and have a lot of trouble with the notion I’ve seen, not here, but on a number of feminist sites: that I may be affected by the problems of sexism, but if I’m not affected in a certain particular way out of the multiple ways that sexism affects people, then I’ve got no right to be speaking up about it.
I’m not talking “OMGZ the womenz are oppressing me.” I’m talking being systematically against rape, systematically against restriction of gender expression, and hearing that apparently my viewpoint is no good because I have to be only against rape and only against restriction of gender expression for women-born-women-identified-women. Frequently with some other hinted qualification, too, of race or sexual orientation.
Because even if these people constitute the majority of those affected by sexism and gender inequality, I’m not here to defend rights only based on whether someone is a member of a particular majority or not. I’m against rape, restriction of gender expression, sexism, and inequality: full stop.
Amp writes: But I now think that excluded too much; although many (perhaps most) feminists think that sexism and inequality primarily oppress women, I know sincere feminists who think that both sexes are significantly oppressed by the gender binary system, and that making a “whose worse off” comparison is not a useful approach. My modified definition no longer excludes those folks, but still excludes MRAs.
Define “significantly”. I don’t think it’s unfair or dishonest to say that men are “oppressed” by patriarchy. But I also don’t think it’s unfair to say that men seem to view the “oppression” they experience as worth it. Some might not like it, but my observation is that by and large they enjoy what they get for the price.
I have no problem with any of that. Women are definitely discriminated against unjustifiably in many areas, and that should be changed. I don’t even have any problem at all with #3.
But I also don’t think it’s unfair to say that men seem to view the “oppression” they experience as worth it. Some might not like it, but my observation is that by and large they enjoy what they get for the price.
I don’t know, that sounds like it could equally well apply to a lot of non-feminist women.
Can someone who believes that a fetus almost to term is a human being ever count as a feminist?
Nick, that’s an excellent point, and it applies to many kinds of oppression.
Huh? I love when men try to define feminism. It’s like getting the warm fuzzies *and*chilling spine tingles all at the same time.
What’s your definition?
1) Amp: I like the definition as much as I imagine I would like any short definition.
2) Andrew: Sure, under that definition one doesn’t need to have any particular belief about abortion. Didn’t you read it? You may have your own definition of feminism (don’t we all…) but the definition above isn’t a single-issue litmus test. Which IMO is a very good thing.
3) Nick and Barbara: I don’t want to derail but this raises an interesting metaquestion. It seems to follow from your statement that oppression is objective: one can be happy in one’s situation and still oppressed. (if it was subjective, then nobody who didn’t feel oppressed would be.)
How do you make that call? Is a happy woman in a hypothetical super-patriarchal society “oppressed” if she has just what she wants in life, while a “liberated” but unhappy 30 year old in a more equal society is “less oppressed” than she? Is the first woman presumed to not know what she ‘really wants’ or ‘really needs,’ ergo her subjective opinions don’t matter?
This is a confusing issue for me. I understand, obviously, that we can learn to be ‘happy with our lot’ and still be in a pretty shitty situation. But then how do we count happiness in the equation?
(Amp if there’s a better thread for this let me know; I’ll repost or you can move it)
Sailerman,
The unit that is oppressed is classes of people, not individual persons. So while there may be a single slave who, for whatever reason, is happy in his servitude, that doesn’t keep us from saying that the institution of slavery is oppressive to the class of slaves.
Is a happy woman in a hypothetical super-patriarchal society “oppressed” if she has just what she wants in life, while a “liberated” but unhappy 30 year old in a more equal society is “less oppressed” than she?
Yes. There are other things that lead to happiness or unhappiness besides level of oppression.
For those who don’t know, Bean’s referring to the fact that Daran, a more-or-less MRA, has nagged me a lot over this point.
But I’m not interested in disagreement for the sake of disagreement. I think Daran is wrong in 99% of what he says, but if by chance he happens on a point that has some merit, I’m not going to disagree with it merely because Daran said it. And it’s an intellectual weakness to refuse to “cave in,” which in this case is a term meaning “modify your position in any way whatsoever.”
Amp,
You’d be happy to know I used your definition in class today. :)
And about Daran, did you mean you agree with him 99% of the time on gender/feminism/sexism? Because aside from yourself, he is probably the most racially progressive person on CD. As long as he ain’t talking about gender, I find myself agreeing with him. :) Unless he has some hidden agenda that I don’t know about. LOL!!
And it’s an intellectual weakness to refuse to “cave in,” which in this case is a term meaning “modify your position in any way whatsoever.”
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
The unit that is oppressed is classes of people, not individual persons…that doesn’t keep us from saying that the institution of slavery is oppressive to the class of slaves.
The institution of slavery is oppressive to nearly every individual slave, but “the class of slaves” is an abstraction. How do you oppress an abstraction?
All experiences occur at the individual level. Certainly, a group of people can contain a lot of individuals who have been oppressed in a particular way. And certainly, groups of people can have similar or shared experiences of oppression. We can use linguistic shorthand to skip having to spell everything out, and say “slaves are oppressed” in a situation where most slaves experience oppression most of the time.
But the oppression happens one slave at a time. You can say “slavery is oppressive to people who belong to the class of slaves”. But the “class of slaves” can’t be oppressed, because the “class of slaves” is a linguistic construct that we use for rhetorical or analytical convenience, not a reified object that exists in the world.
Re-reading this it seems very pedantic, but linguistic usage is important. It’s very easy to forget the individual humanity of the people whose oppression we pity, and to start thinking of “slaves” instead of “Frank and Jane Smith”. “Slaves” don’t exist; the enslaved people named Frank and Jane do.
Hmm. I like this. I’m one of those sincere feminists that thinks men are opressed by gender. Daran isn’t wrong that men are oppressed, just wrong that they are oppressed significantly by feminism.
Can a libertarian be a feminist under your definition ?
I see nothing in this deffinition of femminism that would prevent libertarians, even right libertarians, from being feminists. This deffinition does not call for ecconomic equality in general, just between the sexes, and presumably that could be interpreted on an individual level. Nore does it call for coersive governemnt action to redress every instance of inequality.
Jamila: Sure they can be, as Decnavda says.
However, according to my definition (which is just my definition), it’s important that feminists be in favor of substantive equality, not just formal legal equality and nothing else. For too many libertarians, formal legal equality is their only concern.
Bean: Sorry I misunderstood you. No, there really wasn’t significant pressure on this subject from MRAs and pseudo-feminists (that I was aware of). Daran was just about it, actually, from non-feminists.
Rachel, regarding you using my definition in class: Neat!
Regarding Daran, it’s true, I agree with most of his opinions regarding non-feminist issues. But the vast majority of his posts are about attacking feminism, and there I disagree with him the vast majority of the time.
I should say that while right libertarianism is perfectly compatible with this propased deffinition of femminism, the failure of the right libertarian movement of the late 20th century to actually be feminist was its most hypocritical and damning failure. Specifically, the right libertarian movement, as a whole, was either absent or actively on the wrong side on the issues of domestic violence and date rape. They tended to views these as the government butting into private conduct, but in reality this was an inexcusable hypocracy. The defining belief of deontological libertarianism is self-ownership, and the body integrity issues at the core of domestic violence and date rape are deffinitionally about self-ownership. Right libertarians did have many significant differences with the organizers of most anti-violence against women activism, but they also had many significant disagreements with the organizers of anti-censorship and drug war resistance activism, but it was always clear to those activists that the right libertarians were on their side and could be counted on to back them up. The lack of such an allaince between right libertarians and feminists is one reason I wish I could find a better word for my current philosophy than “left-libertarian”, since the very word “libertarian” scares away, with good reason, many women who should be allies.
what would exclude a lot of the anti-feminists we might be imgineing as included in this definition is the consequences of the definiton. For instance, if you advocate to overturn Roe v Wade you dont meet #1. You could concievably have a moral opinon against abortion, but advocate for legal access as part of meeting #1. In my opinon.
Actually, by the criteria given, wouldn’t a libertarian have to be a feminist? I thought one of the central tenets of libertarianism was that everyone should have an equal chance to succeed so that the most talented could rise to the top. Sexism and gender inequality are not compatible with that view.
Dianne-
Well, now you are starting to get into the difference between formal legal equality and substantive equality that Amp referred to. The problem for the right libertarians is that they extend self-ownership to ownership of external property, and take the current distribution of property as natural “given”. So while they will oppose any government sexism, they would also oppose attempts to outlaw “private” discrimination. Libertarianism is not about equality or even equality of opportunity, it is about liberty.
In some cases the problems with this view are almost comically obvious: Government charter corporations just as they do municipalities, so what should be the problem with banning any sexism engaged in or supported by corporations? But it also goes deeper into the very notion of private property, which is both necessary for and restrictive of freedom, and which exists only due to the coercive power of the government. A truly non-oppressive libertarianism needs to empower people as individuals economically to the point where they can effectively counter or ignore the sexism of other property holders.
[W]ouldn’t a libertarian have to be a feminist?
What Decnavda said. But to really answer the question we need a definition of libertarian as well as feminist.
I understand libertarians to want to restrict government to the role of promoting autonomy, which typically means protecting people from coercion and fraud. Thus I would expect a libertarian to advocate equality before the law. But I don’t know that I’d expect a libertarian to care if private actors discriminate on the basis of gender. Libertarianism wouldn’t lead me to object to the Catholic church restricting the priesthood to men, or the Boy Scouts restricting membership to boys.
Similarly I wouldn’t expect all libertarians to acknowledge that there is current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism, or to reject the idea that men are the primary victims of inequality and sexism. These strikes me as largely empirical propositions. Nothing in my definition requires libertarians (or liberals or conservatives or communists or capitalists or theist or atheists or …) to be informed.
I see little reason why a person couldn’t espouse both feminism and libertarianism. But I also don’t see any reason to expect that a libertarian would espouse feminism or visa versa.
A feminist:
1) Advocates for the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
YES, naturally
2) Believes that there is current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism.
I don’t believe inequality is equal to sexism
3) Doesn’t believe that men are the primary victims of inequality and sexism.
I don’t think inequality is evil just different. I kinda feel bad for my husband, he has to work and I know where all the cash is.
I’m not a very good feminist.
Sorry.
I think redefining words is a mistake. Everyone can’t have their own individual definition for words otherwise the words are rendered meaningless, It’s true. Ask a rhetorician.
I am a feminist and a Libertarian because my ideals fall comfortably within the definition of each word
Note : Most Libertarians understand that there are ramifications of the many centuries of varying economic and political systems . Libertarians are not a monolithic group. There are just as many nuanced opinions are there are among social democrats and others.
If redefining words is a mistake, how about starting with ‘libertarian’? The word was used to describe anarchist thinkers like Proudhon and Bakunin a full century before it was co-opted to exclusively the propertarian feudalism of Nozick and Hayek.
“Dianne-
Well, now you are starting to get into the difference between formal legal equality and substantive equality that Amp referred to. The problem for the right libertarians is that they extend self-ownership to ownership of external property, and take the current distribution of property as natural “given”. So while they will oppose any government sexism, they would also oppose attempts to outlaw “private” discrimination. Libertarianism is not about equality or even equality of opportunity, it is about liberty.
In some cases the problems with this view are almost comically obvious: Government charter corporations just as they do municipalities, so what should be the problem with banning any sexism engaged in or supported by corporations? But it also goes deeper into the very notion of private property, which is both necessary for and restrictive of freedom, and which exists only due to the coercive power of the government. A truly non-oppressive libertarianism needs to empower people as individuals economically to the point where they can effectively counter or ignore the sexism of other property holders.”
Exactamundo. Private property, meet society. Cart, meet horse. Property is a nested concept within human society, which is why trying to shield the former from the latter is a futile mental exercise. Much right-libertarianism comes down to an odd form of government essentialism. What Americans commonly refer to as the government is a sort of epiphenomal entity that at some magical point – a capital gains tax of 20%, say – becomes Government. They can’t seem to wrap the heads around the fact that the same functions that the government performs would have to be performed (yes, I realize that a great number of government functions are unnecessary and could be done away with entirely. The same is true of many corporate functions. Did we really need New Coke?) by someone else – and that someone else by definition becomes the new government(s). Replacing at the very least a good faith democratic system with an overclass of property owners would change nothing in that regard.
“Specifically, the right libertarian movement, as a whole, was either absent or actively on the wrong side on the issues of domestic violence and date rape. They tended to views these as the government butting into private conduct, but in reality this was an inexcusable hypocracy.”
That’s a problem that has plagued such philosophies from the beginning, and they are no closer to rectifying it as they have ever been. If a truly anarchist or individualist society isn’t to degenerate into a situation where all civil disputes come down to who can field the largest personal army, there has be a collective authority that can mediate and intervene in such matters. What counts as private conduct and what counts as private oppression is purely arbitrary. The South saw forced desegregation as a matter of states’ rights – a position that might have garnered more anarchist support if they weren’t a bunch of buck toothed racist asshats. Right-libertarians saw violence against women as an autonomy issue, and the fact that the entire movement is almost exclusively male probably didn’t hurt in that case.
Amp disagrees with 99% of what I say on gender/feminism/sexism.
Which is odd, because I agree with more than 1% of what he says on the subject.
I am?
I don’t remember saying anything particularly progressive about it.
Compared to other people at CD you’re progressive. I’ve also seen you make good points about social constructionism, which is a progressive position. It has always struck me that you’re views seem so divergent (on race and gender).
Dianne:
Libertarians don’t necessarily meet any of those criteria. For example, a socially conservative libertarian could argue that the government should not stop women from working out of the home, but that it’s best for mothers to stay at home with their children. There’s social equality. There’s a libertarian argument to be made against extending the franchise to women, on the grounds that they tend to vote in less libertarian ways than men (John Lott actually did a study on this topic). There’s political equality.
I don’t think any libertarians support economic equality between the sexes in the way that the folks here do (i.e., government interventions to make sure it happens), and I personally don’t think equality will ever happen without government intervention, as I suspect that there are biological differences between the sexes that make it unlikely.
The other two criteria are purely empirical, and I don’t see any reason why libertarians should necessarily believe them, or even be particularly inclined in that direction.
I apply the same principles to both, but observe a very different factual background. I can see “current, significant, society-wide inequality and” racism which disadvantages POC. There’s no need to insert “on balance” because there’s nothing to balance. That doesn’t mean that I agree with anti-racists on everything, but I don’t see them denying, dismissing, minimising, ignoring, and subordinating society-wide racism suffered by whites, as feminists do to men, because there’s nothing for anti-racists to deny etc.
From where I stand, it’s feminists’ conservative views on gender which are divergent from their generally progressive views on race. I don’t see feminists challenging the gender-norming of women as universal victim, men as universal perpetrator, and the media-whitewashing of any facts that don’t fit the norm. Instead, feminists gender-norm and whitewash along with the rest of them, and throw in a bit of victim-blaming for good measure: it’s male violence against women, doncha know?
sylphhead Writes:
February 14th, 2007 at 12:21 am
If redefining words is a mistake, how about starting with ‘libertarian’? The word was used to describe anarchist thinkers like Proudhon and Bakunin a full century before it was co-opted to exclusively the propertarian feudalism of Nozick and Hayek
I already stated, Libertarians are not a monolithic group. As for what is a “feminist”
I am suggesting the Amp is narrowing the definition to exclude many people who fit the subset of people who are feminists. They are just not her kind of feminist.
Brandon Berg wrote: “There’s a libertarian argument to be made against extending the franchise to women, on the grounds that they tend to vote in less libertarian ways than men (John Lott actually did a study on this topic).”
That argument is orders of magnitude more collectivist than anything I have ever heard a liberal say.
Incidentally, in practice, women as a group are probably far, far more libertarian than men as a group. I’m not a libertarian, but I’ve done a fair amount of reading (including at Catallarchy), and isn’t the philosophy grounded in property rights and the Non-Aggression Axiom? Which sex commits more violations against person and property?–that is, more murders, robberies, assaults, and rapes?
Perhaps there’s a “libertarian” argument to be made against extending to men the presumption of innocence in criminal trials, on the grounds that they tend to be more violent then women?
“I already stated, Libertarians are not a monolithic group.”
I don’t need to tell you how many libertarians don’t consider worker’s associations, syndicalism, mutualism, and communitarianism to be consistent with their ideology. The latter, however, preceded the former, and those who equate libertarianism with capitalism are redefining the term. If you’re condemning your right-libertarians who do this, then fine. But if you’re accusing someone else of x, all the while self-identifying with an ideology whose very label is a textbook example of x, then I’m gonna make some mention of it, one way or the other.
“There’s a libertarian argument to be made against extending the franchise to women, on the grounds that they tend to vote in less libertarian ways than men”
Yes, I heard about this, and frankly it scared me. Extreme right-libertarians may find the whole democracy thing a violation of natural property rights, but ideological consistency would entail getting rid of everyone’s voting rights simultaenously. In fact, by manipulating with the electoral system in a manner so that it can wielded to produce a result they want, they are de facto using it themselves, and we know it is initiation of force, because men with guns will come at you and force you to put scrubbers on your stacks. So they’re initiating force, which is the supreme rede of the right-libertarian manifesto.
Daran Wrote:
“From where I stand, it’s feminists’ conservative views on gender which are divergent from their generally progressive views on race. I don’t see feminists challenging the gender-norming of women as universal victim, men as universal perpetrator, and the media-whitewashing of any facts that don’t fit the norm. Instead, feminists gender-norm and whitewash along with the rest of them, and throw in a bit of victim-blaming for good measure: it’s male violence against women, doncha know?”
I don’t really know about other feminists, but I for one will be the first one to tell you that sexism – both personal and institutional – hurts men as well as women. Now, that being said, I’m afraid that I do agree with amp that the degree of harm is different and that in general most women are probably harmed more than most men, but there is substantial harms to both due to rigid gender role expectations. Rachel and I actually often discuss the distinct disadvantage that men face in family court when it comes to getting access to their children. It’s a sh*tty system for men who don’t want to be sperm and $$ donors only but want to actually be FATHERS too.
As much as I am willing to acknowledge the harms that sexism does to men as well as women I will admit I get tired of the “me too” yells whenever there is a discussion about a particular topic. For instance, if we talk about the trouble many single mothers have at getting the fathers to pay child support regularly and on time, there’s always those who chime in with “I have to pay too much” or “I never get to see my kid anyway”. All of that is TRUE – I would never deny it – but it is ALSO true that many women are not getting substantial support from the fathers of their children and the “me too” arguments tend to derail the discussion and drive focus away from the issue at hand. that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t discuss the problems of men who pay a lot in support but don’t have the opportunity to parent their children – it is most certainly worthy of discussion, however it doesn’t mean the initial discussion is any less true. In this case it might be beneficial to discuss the issues hand in hand, since it is the rigid gender role expectation as well as patriarchy that set up the problem for both men and women in the family court system – but there’s also no harm in an in-depth discussion of just the child support issue (or just the visitaion issue).
I guess Daran, maybe I have had a different exposure to feminism than you have, but I don’t see a whole lot of “women only” discussions (unless you are talking with radical feminists and in that case I’d agree with you, as there’s not a whole lot I agree with from the radical feminist camp). In fact, a few years ago, I taught a women’s studies course titled “Gender in Everyday life” and because the title was Gender and not “women” I specifically required one text that pertained to men’s gender issues (Men’s Lives – it’s a great reader for anyone who is interested) as well as one text that pertained to women’s gender issues. I broke the week up by subject matter and discussed the effects of say “media” on gender – not just on women. So, I don’t necessarily think that all feminists are caught up in talking only about women and women’s issues – I for one am more interested in talking about the problems with patriarchy and institutional sexism and possible solutions (that would help both men and women).
CLARIFICATION: Just to make absolutely sure that things are unequivocally clear (if they weren’t already), the last graf of my comment #37 is rhetorical–a reductio ad absurdum, and not a serious consideration of doing away with the presumption of innocence.
If John Lott did a study showing that the Pacific Ocean is made mostly of salt water, I would consult a proffesor of oceanography before believing it. Even if a study showing that women vote less libertarian than men was done by someone whose respect for scientific rigor was greater than Timothy McVey’s respect for life, I would be extremely skeptical about believing it without analyzing it myself. I would suspect that a big problem would be with what issues are considered “libertarian” and what weight they are given. First, most such studies would probablynot include “women’s” issues such as the domestic violence and date rape that I discussed above, because they are “controversial” within right libertarian circles, despite being deffinitionally about self-ownership. And even within “traditional” right libertarian issues, I would suspect that they fusionist allaince with conservativism would cause an overemphasis on issues like tax reduction and opposition to anti-discrimination laws, and a reduced emphasis on “liberal” issues like tolerence of homosexuality and opposition to war.
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“Can someone who believes that a fetus almost to term is a human being ever count as a feminist? ”
It’s not a relevant question. Feminists insist that women have autonomy over our bodies. Feminists issues are focused on the material conditions of women’s lives.
Feminists seek a peaceful revolution and transformation of all societies towards liberating women which is not limited to simply maximizing women’s freedom in a misogynistic culture, but rather, it’s to dissolve the institutions in this society used to subordinate women as a class of people and thereby benefit from that subordination.
“Actually, by the criteria given, wouldn’t a libertarian have to be a feminist? I thought one of the central tenets of libertarianism was that everyone should have an equal chance to succeed so that the most talented could rise to the top.”
That’s not feminism at all or if it is it’s a very cconstricted view because it doesn’t do anything to address the basic social structures of oppression.
Everyone can have a chance, and you can still have pornography. Everyone can have a chance and you can still have prostitution of women both of which are institutionalized forms of misogyny.
Who is and who is not a “feminist” is clearly in the eye of the beholder. There is no one organization (like, say, the United States) which issues citizenship status in Feminism so we can tell the Feminists from the not-feminists.
Many of the comments on this thread seem to be written by people who would be eager to set themselves up on that throne, to define “Feminist” once and for all, and to determine for sure who qualifies. Sadly perhaps (or, perhaps, fortunately for the rest of us) these people seem to disagree quite a bit amongst themselves, let alone with the rest of the world.
Like all Orthodoxies, the intricacies of the required beliefs become more and more impenetrable to those (few) people who care to try to figure it out.
I certainly don’t qualify as a good Feminist according to some of the people making the definitions here. But that doesn’t really bother me, as I reflect that that is true of nearly everyone. Like the Kingdom of Heaven, only a Very Few make the grade.
Z.M. Davis:
Voting is not an individual right in the sense that, say, the presumption of innocence and property rights are. As long as we get good government, I am not made worse off by not being able to vote.
It is right and proper, from a libertarian perspective, to deny the franchise to groups systematically biased against liberalism, because this is likely to produce a more liberal government. Women are one such group, although their bias is relatively weak. Government employees and welfare recipients tend to be much more strongly biased against liberalism.
I’m not too big on denying the franchise to women, partly because their anti-liberal bias is fairly weak, and partly because it’s political poison. A much better heuristic would be to deny the franchise to those who receive in the year preceeding the election more from the government than they pay in taxes.
Decnavda:
The specific measure which Lott used was government spending at the state level, and how much it increased in states which extended the franchise to women prior to the 19th Amendment.
I think it’s fairly obvious that women (or at least single women) tend not to be as liberal as men on economic issues, but even on the issue of abortion, which is generally considered a “women’s issue,” every poll I’ve seen on the topic suggests that men are slightly more pro-choice than women are.
It is right and proper, from a libertarian perspective, to deny the franchise to groups systematically biased against liberalism, because this is likely to produce a more liberal government. Women are one such group, although their bias is relatively weak. Government employees and welfare recipients tend to be much more strongly biased against liberalism.
Hmmm….
I understand libertarians band together in common cause to ward off the forces of those who would intrude upon their autonomy. They call this common cause “government.” Alas, governments can be every bit as oppressive as the outsiders the libertarians seek to resist. What’s a libertarian to do? “Our salvation is the Equal Protection Clause, which requires the democratic majority to accept for themselves and their loved ones what they impose on you and me.” (Justice Antonin Scalia, Cruzan v. Missouri Dept. of Health, 1990). “There is no more effective practical guarantee against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.” (Justice Robert Jackson, concurring, REA vs. NY, 1949).
In short, I expect libertarians to advocate broad voting rights as a means of ensuring that their own voting rights would not be suspended. As Martin Niemoeller observed, “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.” I would expect real libertarians to be among the first to speak up.
A much better heuristic would be to deny the franchise to those who receive in the year preceding the election more from the government than they pay in taxes.
An interesting idea. But how to measure what people receive from government? Clearly among the biggest recipients of the government’s largess under the current administration are the wealthy: they get huge tax cuts as the government deficit explodes. But you can only measure that benefit relative to some earlier version of the tax code. Which version would be the right version from which to measure?
More generally, which of us do NOT receive more benefit than we pay in taxes? If you ever doubt the value of your citizenship, just take a cab somewhere and ask the driver where he’s from. I read the occasional report of some professional who paid a fortune to be smuggled out of, say, China and into the US. This individual loses his identify, his professional credentials, his family, all to enjoy the remaining fraction of his life struggling to understand a foreign tongue and foreign culture, constantly hiding from the INS – all to enjoy breathing American air. My US citizenship has afforded me vastly more benefit at vastly lower cost, but because I received it as a birthright I simply take it for granted.
If there were a free market for US citizenship, what price do you think citizenship would command? And would you sell? If not, then I conclude that you are receiving full payment for your tax dollars.
Thus, by my analysis of Brandon Berg’s standard, there’s be pretty much no one left to vote!
Thus, by my analysis of Brandon Berg’s standard, there’s be pretty much no one left to vote!
Awesome! We can thus dispense with the democratic formality of voting “rights” and get down to allocating the franchise on some rational basis. I suggest that I should hold the vote, and can assign additional votes to people whom I approve of, on the rational basis that this will serve my interests admirably.
I so totally agree. I think the franchise should be denied to everyone who disagrees with Me.
Decnavda:
“The lack of such an alliance between right libertarians and feminists is one reason I wish I could find a better word for my current philosophy than “left-libertarian”, since the very word “libertarian” scares away, with good reason, many women who should be allies.”
Some of us are comfortable with the term anarcha-feminist. Don’t know you well enough to know if that fits you, but folks like emma goldman voltarine decleyre lucy parsons carol erlich carol moore had a lot to say about the state is a patriarchy that oppresses woman and other people. I agree with your points that the libertarian movement tended to be pretty obtuse about gender aspects of the struggle for liberty.
Honest question: do you differentiate between “mra”, and “fra”, and if so how? Can there be a discussion of gender based courtroom policies that may lead to a conclusion that fathers are discriminated against?
I think of FRAs and MRAs as groups which are distinct, but which have large areas of overlap. But certainly I could imagine someone being an FRA but not an MRA. For example, someone who thinks that all the core MRA issues except child custody issues are nonsense might be an FRA but not an MRA.
Sure, why not? (But I’m not saying I’d agree with that conclusion; I think the reality is much more complex. Some fathers are discriminated against, but so also are some mothers. And not all courtrooms are alike.)
Brandon Berg-
First, based on what I know of his other research, I do not trust Lott’s numbers unless confirmed by other researchers.
Next, state spending, by itself, is a horrid measure of degree of libertarianism, one heavily influenced by the fusionism I meantioned earlier. You could spend X amount of money preventing worker from crossing the border or paying beuracrats to administer wage and price controls. Or you could spend X amount of money on parks or libraries that individuals can use as they please. And did you get $X from a progressive individual income tax, a wage tax, a head tax, a sin tax, a food tax, a luxury tax, a land value tax, a progressive corporate tax, or toll fees? You could help the poor through a Land Value Tax whose proceeds are distributed as a basic income, or you could help the poor by raising the minimum wage. The rent-sharing scheme would show up as state spending while the minimum wage would not, but which is more freedom-oriented? Censorship laws are pretty cheap, too. You simply cannot say, as I have seen some libertarians say, that an overall 40% tax rate equals 60% freedom. The extent to which the method of tax collection compels work and the extent to which the way the money is spent extends or constricts freedom is important as well. In the years before adoption of the 19th Amendment, I would bet that the states that had extended the vote to women had on average, far fewer Jim Crow laws designed to keep blacks in de facto servitude and far fewer lynchings of anti-Jim Crow dissedents with implict state approval. But Jim Crow laws and privatised lynchings are pretty cheap from the state’s point of view, and do not make much of a dent on the state’s ledgers.
arbitraryaardvark-
Emma Goldman is on my “Heroes” list, but I must disagree with her here. Anarcy is a contradiction in fact. With anarchy, there is nothing to prevent local or “private” tyranies of force. When states fail, when there is REAL anarchy, the result, regardless of time or place, is warlordism, which is hardly good for most women. When the attorneys that work in the domestic violence unit of my legal aid firm take on a client, we WANT the state to impose its will – AGAINST the abuser. Anarchy ALLOWS men’s homes to become their castles with them as the kings. (As long as they can defend it against invaders on their own.)
“Can there be a discussion of gender based courtroom policies that may lead to a conclusion that fathers are discriminated against?”
Of course. But I agree with Amp, it depends on the guy. I think largely, lower income men are raked across the coals more than higher income men – especially when it comes to % of income that goes to child support. But that’s a whole other discussion. And there is also discrimination against women, but I will go out on a limb (without any research or stats to back me up) and say by and large, I do have the impression that men who want and expect to be involved parents get shafted big time by the family court system in the US. In general, the family court system is pretty broken…
Intersections of inequality matter in any discussion, and the father’s rights in child custody/child support cases are no different. However, I would argue that it is the rigid gender role expectations that create this bias against fathers – the rigid gender role expectations that in so many other ways benefit men (they are better paid, more respected in the public eye, free from many mundane childcare and housework tasks, etc). These expectations bite ANY man in the ass if what he truly wants is to be an involved parent in his child’s life. (whether divorced or not, consider the crap my husband went through when he was a SAHD – stay at home dad – there were not Mommy and Me classes he could really attend because people are suspect of a man attending those with his child and really, it wouldn’t be the socially benficial experience it would be for another woman… the teasing he took from friends and family, the way my own family treated him because he wasn’t “providing” for his family – it was awful and had the roles been reversed it would not have happened to me at all).
Ultimately, I think it’s really hard for men to be involved fathers – they have an uphill battle – but it’s also highly rewarding. I really recommend “No Man’s Land” by… Karen…? Sorry, her name has left my mind, but the title is accurate – it’s an excellent bit of qualitative research on mostly middle class white men and their parenting styles. The reason that being an involved father is such an uphill battle though is largely due to the sexism and patriarchy that *usually* benefits men.
I wish more blogs had such reasonable views and debates like this one. Stumbled across this one at http://siberianow.wordpress.com and it’s sickening to see what some people can try and promote.
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Minor quibble:
Priesthood to men who vow to remain celibate and are in good standing with the church, who have not transitioned from female to male.
Boy Scouts restricting membership to boys and men not known to be gay or bisexual. *
Spoofed in “Chuck and Larry” where one of them (the father of two) gets told “we won’t need you anymore, we’re full”, and the point is pushed to say that it is indeed his alleged homosexuality that’s the issue, and it wasn’t an issue before Chuck and Larry got married.
*I don’t know if the equivalent for girls also restricts it to straight girls or women only.