{"id":18966,"date":"2014-08-11T12:07:22","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T19:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=18966"},"modified":"2014-08-11T12:07:22","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T19:07:22","slug":"theres-more-to-being-a-feminist-than-favoring-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=18966","title":{"rendered":"There’s More To Being A Feminist Than Favoring Equality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cartoonist MariNaomi<\/a>, who I’ve been anthologized with<\/a>, makes an argument that’s popular among feminists.<\/p>\n

\"MariNaomi-feminist-cartoon\"<\/p>\n

I think we should stop making this argument, because it’s kind of a cheap shot, and it’s not really true. Scott Alexander, in his pre-Star-Slate-Codex blog, makes a persuasive argument<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Here, let me draw a handy table.<\/p>\n

Obviously Reasonable Feminist Beliefs<\/strong>
\n– Women are not doormats.
\n– Women should not be forced to stand around in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.
\n– Women deserve equal civil rights including the right to vote.
\n– Rape is bad, the victims must be helped, and the perpetrators must be punished.
\n– Domestic violence is bad, the victims must be helped, and the perpetrators must be punished.
\n– Women should have equal opportunities and earn equal pay for equal work.
\n– Etc.<\/p>\n

Feminist Beliefs Currently Controversial In Our Society<\/strong>
\n– Abortion rights are important and need stronger protection.
\n– Current pay gaps are mostly the result of discrimination and should be met with government action.
\n– Women need better access to contraception, possibly with government support.
\n– There are no significant biological differences between male and female brains.
\n– Gender roles are not biologically determined.
\n– Incidents that look like male oppression of women should be punished more severely, and we should be less willing to accept male excuses that it was innocently-intentioned or misinterpreted.
\n– Etc.<\/p>\n

Obviously Unreasonable Feminist Beliefs<\/strong>
\n– Men are all without exception horrible people.
\n– Women are biologically superior to men.
\n– Men can absolutely never be the victims in cases of intersex conflict.
\n– Everything men do is about rape or phalluses or the patriarchy.
\n– It is acceptable to use violence to pursue feminist ideals<\/p>\n

Some people might classify one statement or another under a different heading, but my point is less that everyone must agree with my definition of “obviously” than that some feminist beliefs are much more socially palatable than others.<\/p>\n

Which of these three groups most genuinely represents real <\/em>feminism? Although the correct <\/em>answer is that the question is meaningless, the practical <\/em>answer is that the Feminist Beliefs Currently Controversial In Our Society group is what most discussions of feminism are actually about<\/em>. There aren’t many people arguing for <\/em>the Obviously Unreasonable Beliefs, there aren’t enough people arguing against <\/em>the Obviously Reasonable Beliefs, at least not out loud where people can hear them, so most arguments between the people who identify as feminist and the people who don’t are about the Controversial Beliefs – and those are also where feminists are putting the most effort into changing our society. […]<\/p>\n

In other words, opponents of feminism use straw men to make feminism look wrong beyond any possibility of controversy. Proponents of feminism use straw men to make feminists look right beyond any possibility of controversy. But they’re both straw-manning the other side and in reality feminism is controversial.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t agree with all the details of Scott’s chart (in particular, “Incidents that look like male oppression of women should be punished more severely” seems like an odd argument that I’m not sure many actual feminists make), but his general argument seems correct to me. If feminism stood for nothing but the abstract principle of equality, then feminism wouldn’t be very controversial, at least in the U.S.. But as Richard <\/a>pointed out in comments, the policy stances implied by equality, in the feminist view, are a lot more controversial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cartoonist MariNaomi, who I’ve been anthologized with, makes an argument that’s popular among feminists. I think we should stop making this argument, because it’s kind of a cheap shot, and it’s not really true. Scott Alexander, in his pre-Star-Slate-Codex blog, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18968,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18966\/revisions\/18968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}