IN THE entry on the Democratic Party’s sinister, idiotic and thoroughly baseless allegations of a Republican “War on Women,” I stated that it is actually liberalism that has conducted a war on women for decades. By every conceivable social indicator, with the exception of how much money women earn, females at large – and that includes children – are worse off than they were prior to the 1960s. This is not to exonerate the Republicans, who are typically supporters of feminism too and haven’t the conviction to defend themselves against such claims. My intention is merely to point to the irreversibly warped state of mind behind the Democratic campaign.

To a reader who said liberalism’s freedoms, presumably sexual and economic freedoms, cannot possibly be construed as anti-woman, the reader Jesse Powell, who is a man, responds:

When a man says to a woman “you are free” he is at the same time saying “you are on your own.” Women’s liberation equals male abandonment. From the man’s point of view the purpose of liberating women is precisely to enable and justify abandoning women.

In the natural patriarchal order, men invest in women and women invest in children. This allows the child’s needs to be met, the woman’s needs to be met, and the man’s psychological needs to be met. If the woman breaks the contract by declaring “I am free” the man no longer has a reason or a motivation to invest in the woman. If the woman takes care of herself then the man taking care of the woman is pointless and redundant. If the woman is willful and disobedient then the man’s investment in the woman will be squandered. Either way, women’s independence destroys the man’s motivation to invest in the woman. This is why women’s liberation equals male abandonment.

Men’s abandonment of women equals women’s abandonment of children. When adults steal resources and time from children by not fully investing in children’s welfare this leads to an ongoing process of intergenerational deterioration. This is why in terms of family indicators the next generation is always worse off than the prior generation.

                                  — Comments —

David S. writes:

You seem to be unclear about what the words “liberation” and “liberating”. By suggesting that women are “worse off” than they were prior to the 1960s, you seem to be saying that that constitutes evidence that women have not, in fact, been liberated relative to how they were before that point.

But to liberate someone does not equate to making them better off. The two do not mean the same thing. To liberate someone means to make them free to make their own choices. That’s all that the word entails.

Now, it may be in the back of someone’s mind that if you let someone make their own choices, they’ll tend to act in their own best interests, and hence they’ll be better off, but that’s not part of the core part of what it means to liberate someone. And indeed, sometimes when you give someone more choices, they make the wrong ones more frequently than if the choices were made for them. I’m not saying that’s the case with women’s liberation, but it’s possible.

Regardless, while feminists do also have as a goal that women should actually be better off, they view liberation as an end in itself, and as a much higher priority than any measure that tried to help their circumstances while limiting their choices.

Laura writes:

A Soviet commissar might have said to a citizen who arrived at the gates of a Siberian labor camp: “Comrade, we are here to make you free!” Freedom is to some extent in the mind of the beholder.

David S. contends that feminists cherish freedom. Then why do they insist on imposing hiring restrictions on employers? Why do they support affirmative action? The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is active every day of the week against private businesses who do not comply with feminist regulations. Academic institutions face the threat of litigation too if they do not hire equal numbers of women, even in math and science fields in which they are less qualified than men. “The principle of equal freedom creates a dictatorship of intrusive functionaries to which everyone is forced to submit whether he likes it or not,” wrote James Kalb, in The Tyranny of Liberalism.

Freedom and equality, in the feminist sense, are inherently opposing ideals. Feminism is by its nature tyrannical. It restricts the freedom of the many to choose what is good and denies us all the freedom to live in a society that values excellence. Feminism is devoted to mediocrity.

If feminists value freedom, why do some people who write to websites like this say they do not want their names posted because they are afraid of retaliation. They fear for their jobs. They might be fired if their employers found out they oppose feminism. Look at this sex discrimination suit by a Boston neurosurgeon against a fellow doctor. She won $1.6 million because he allegedly said insulting things about her ability as a female doctor. No woman would be punished for saying similar things about a man. In fact, women publicly say insulting things all the time about men and rarely suffer for it.

Why does Title IX, which has resulted in the disbanding of male collegiate athletic teams, exist? Why is a man who is stronger and more fit for combat than a woman ever passed over by a woman for a position in the military, police or firefighting except by bureaucratic coercion? Why do feminists make all citizens subsidize abortion and contraception? Why do they approve of taxpayer support of unwed mothers and day care? That is not freedom.

If feminists cherish freedom then why do they support unilateral divorce and the right of a person to strip a spouse of property and full custody of his children? Why do they support the power of government to force spouses who have been stripped of their property and children to pay child support on pain of fines or jail sentences? Why do they deny a fetus unwanted by a mother the freedom to live?

By flooding the labor market with women, feminism has led to the decline in male earning capacity and thus forced many women to work who do not wish to. By valuing sexual freedom, feminists necessarily devalue chastity, restricting the freedom of young women to choose the latter. By valuing masculine ambition, feminists devalue nurturing. By saying motherly care is just one of many options, feminism trivializes motherhood and restricts the freedom of the young to develop. None of us are free in the sense that we judge the possibilities before us entirely on our own. We are shaped by our culture.

By making choice the highest standard in personal relationships, feminism trivilializes loyalty and love. That makes people less free to love and express loyalty.

Inequality is innate. A regime that suppresses this truth denies individuals the freedom to attain self-awareness.

The air of permissiveness that liberalism wears is deceptive. If we are encouraged at every turn to choose selfishness, we are not permitted to be good.

David S. responds:

Everything in Laura’s last post up till paragraph 7 is about the idea that women’s liberation means restrictions for others. I think we can agree that that is a separate issue from the question of whether the feminist movement advocates liberation for women, specifically, as opposed to trying to harm women. Hence I think it’s a topic for a different conversation.

[LAURA WRITES: HOLD ON. I MENTIONED MANY THINGS THAT AFFECT WOMEN AND THAT REPRESENT RESTRICTIONS ON THEIR ACTIVITY. I MENTIONED GOVERNMENT SUITS AGAINST BUSINESSES, MANY OF WHICH EMPLOY WOMEN AND FINANCIALLY SUPPORT WOMEN. I MENTIONED THE VAST TAXPAYER-FUNDED BUREAUCRACIES, SUCH AS THE EEOC AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD, REQUIRED TO ENFORCE FEMINISM. WOMEN ARE TAXPAYERS TOO.  I WROTE OF SUITS AGANST INDIVIDUALS. WHEN A MALE DOCTOR FACES A FINANCIAL CLAIM BECAUSE OF A SEX DISCRIMINATION SUIT BY A FEMALE COWORKER, THE WOMEN WHO DEPEND UPON HIM FOR SUPPORT – HIS WIFE, DAUGHTERS AND EMPLOYEES – ARE NEGATIVELY AFFECTED. I MENTIONED UNILATERAL DIVORCE WHICH HAS BEEN A DISASTER FOR WOMEN WHO HAVE BEEN ABANDONED. I MENTIONED MANDATORY TAXPAYER SUPPORT FOR DAY CARE, ABORTION AND CONTRACEPTION, WHICH IN ADDITION TO COSTING WOMEN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS COLLECTIVELY VIOLATE THE CONSCIENCES OF MANY.  I ALSO ASSUME THAT MANY WOMEN – EXCLUDING FEMINISTS – CARE ABOUT THE WELFARE OF INDIVIDUAL MEN. THEREFORE, HARM TO MEN IS HARM TO THEM. FOR INSTANCE, THE DECLINE OF MALE ATHELETIC TEAMS UNDER TITLE IX MAKES HIGHER EDUCATION LESS APPEALING TO MEN AND THIS IS A LOSS FOR WOMEN.] 

 As for paragraph 7, this highlights a fundamental conceptual hurdle that traditionalists can’t seem to cross. It proposes the idea that if women have traditionally had only choice A available, and feminists argue that women should be able to choose either A or B, that feminists necessarily hate choice A. Not true, and an extremely obvious logical error.  [LET’S PUT ASIDE THE EVIDENCE THAT MANY FEMINISTS HAVE ACTIVELY HATED CHOICE B AND THAT MANY PUBLIC STATEMENTS ATTEST TO THAT FACT. LET’S PUT ASIDE THE IDEA THAT WHEN SOCIETY MAKES VITAL DUTIES AND WORK THAT CAN ONLY BE DONE BY WOMEN OPTIONAL IT NECESSARILY TRIVIALIZES THEM. DAVID DID NOT READ WHAT I WROTE. BY INSISTING ON THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF CHOICE B AND THUS ALMOST DOUBLING THE WORKFORCE, FEMINISTS HAVE MADE IT MORE DIFFICULT FOR WOMEN WHO WISH TO PURSUE CHOICE A TO DO SO.] In the interest of avoiding clutter, I’ll point out that every use of the word “freedom” or “permitted” in paragraphs 7-10 misses the point of the terms. [I HAVE TALKED ABOUT FREEDOM AS THE LIBERTY TO PURSUE THE GOOD AS WELL AS IN YOUR MORE LIMITED SENSE OF THE WORD, WHICH IS THE LIBERTY TO ACT UPON INDIVIDUAL DESIRE.] You speak of people being “less free to love and express loyalty”, hiding the fact that you would have them be powerless to do anything else. [REALLY? YOUR POINT SEEMS TO BE THAT I SUPPORT BANNING WOMEN FROM CAREERS. WOMEN CAN EVEN EXPRESS LOYALTY AND LOVE BY WORKING OUTSIDE THE HOME, AS MANY WOMEN WHO ARE FORCED TO WORK DO. I HAVE NEVER SAID THAT WOMEN SHOULD CEASE PURSUING ALL OBJECTIVES EXCEPT MOTHERHOOD IF THAT’S WHAT YOU ARE IMPLYING. I HAVE SAID THAT THE VAST SYSTEM OF ENTITLEMENTS, INCENTIVES AND FEMINIST ATTITUDES THAT HOLDS CAREERISM AS SACRED AND AS THE HIGHEST FEMININE IDEAL SHOULD BE DISMANTLED. I HAVE ADVOCATED CUSTOMARY – NOT LEGAL – DISCRIMINATION IN FAVOR OF MEN IN EMPLOYMENT. BUT I DON’T WISH TO SEE THAT ENFORCED BY GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES IN THE SAME WAY FEMINIST DISCRIMINATION IS ENFORCED NOR DO I WISH OR EXPECT THAT TO RESULT IN ANY BANNING OF WOMEN FROM THE LABOR MARKET JUST AS THE SYSTEM OF CUSTOMARY DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN IN THE 1940s DIDN’T KEEP ALL WOMEN FROM BECOMING LAWYERS, DOCTORS OR SCIENTISTS.]  And your claim that liberals or feminists have ever encouraged anyone to choose selfishness is beyond ludicrous. You’re thinking of Ayn Rand and Donald Trump. [THERE IS NOT A PROMINENT FEMINIST ALIVE WHO HAS NOT SPOKEN APPROVINGLY OF DAY CARE, ABORTION, UNILATERAL DIVORCE, AND AGGRESSIVE CAREERISM FOR MARRIED WOMEN WITH CHILDREN. THESE ALL INVOLVE SELFISHNESS.] 

 Diana writes:

David S. is quite right in saying that the word “liberate” is value-free but he is totally wrong, in fact, mendacious, to say that feminists viewed liberation as merely an “end in itself.” Supply a name of one feminist who ever said that. The only one I can think of is Germaine Greer, and she was a maverick who is generally hated by the sisterhood.

The feminist fantasy that I was continually fed was that feminism would transform a world of brutal competition and hierarchy into paradise. If David wants to dispute me, I am quite prepared to share with the readers of this blog the ridiculous details. I am as they say, “old enough to remember.”

But the proof, as you point out, is in the thorough-going makeover that our society has had in the wake of the second wave of feminism. Root and branch, literally. If feminism was a value free quest for mere liberation, then why change employment law, family law, criminal law — all of which have made over in the image of radical feminism?

When you completely recreate law in the name of an ideology, there isn’t much left over. But wait, there are two more things: the medical profession, and professional sports. We have seen that the medical profession has been perverted to achieve the feminist goals of “gender fluidity” with the mainstreaming of “sex-reassignment surgery” and the creation of new categories of normality (“the transgendered”). At this point, the crazy words “transwoman” and “transman” have become mainstreamed. And what about the normalization (actually, valorization) of homosexuality? This is all the rotten fruit of feminism, and it was all outlined in every feminist book I read in the 70s.

The only escape from this is professional sports. Men have always loved team sports, but I believe the huge explosion in its popularity, especially pro football, a sport that no woman could ever hope to play, is a result of feminist encroachment on everything masculine. Pro sports is the only place men can get away from women.

David S. writes:

For Laura’s first response, most of that harm you describe is so indirect as to be irrelevant to the motivations of feminists, as well  as so unpredictable as to be out of the realm of what you could  possibly blame them for. Yes, if you sue somebody and win, they and  everyone financially dependent on them will be negatively affected. Is that bad? Well, if the person you sued really was responsible, then it  is the view of our society that the lawsuit was just. That goes for  any type of lawsuit: medical malpractice, breach of contract, etc.,  not just sex discrimination. So unless you want to get rid of lawsuits  altogether, you’ll have to live with those consequences, and you can’t argue against sex-discrimination lawsuits on that basis.

Laura writes:

I suggest David look to actual statements of feminists, harking all the way back to the words of Mary Wollstonecraft in the late eighteenth century. They speak frankly of the desire to do harm, harm to men and harm to the traditional roles of the sexes. In 1980, the feminist Janet Richards wrote, “Feminism is in its nature radical .. It is the social institutions of which we complain primarily … If you consider the past there is no doubt at all that the whole structure of society was designed to keep women entirely int he power of men. This no doubt sounds like pure feminist rant, but it is not.”

Whether that is the intention of feminists or not is beside the point, which was that fundamentally feminism does not in the aggregate bring greater freedom.

David writes:

Well, if the person you sued really was responsible, then it  is the view of our society that the lawsuit was just.

Sex discrimination suits are not just, ever. It is entirely reasonable to discriminate on the basis of sex. Lawsuits against threatening behavior should never punish the act of merely differentiating someone on the basis of  sex. They should punish acts of aggression if unlawful, but not discrimination on the basis of sex.

David S. continues his comment above:

And how does more women in the workforce make it difficult for other  women not to do so? By making it harder for men to get jobs, I  remember. Well, for one thing, that’s disputable. Just like men, many  women may have been creating jobs with the ingenuity they bring to the  workplace, thus making it easier for men to get jobs.

Laura writes:

Most ingenuity in science, medicine, law, construction, to name a few fields, has been the work of men. That’s nothing for women to be ashamed of. Women have encouraged and delighted in this male initiative.

David continues:

To Diana: 1st paragraph: I didn’t say that feminists said liberation was merely an end in itself, but that it was an end in itself as well as leading to the bettering of their interests. I think they  would all argue though that even if liberation led to worse material  circumstances for the average women, it would still have value,

I will admit that I am not that familiar on the canon of feminist literature. I don’t think it’s necessary to be, since “feminist”   doesn’t just mean refer to published authors or prolific political  activists. Nor do all feminists agree on everything. They just agree  that women are the moral and developmental equals of men, and  therefore should be the political and legal equals of men too (except,  yes, the minority of female supremacists, and unfortunate overreaction. I myself am a feminist, and so consider myself as much  an authority on what feminists, or some feminists, think as anyone  else.

Laura writes:

It is a clever ploy to support a theory and then when challenged say, well, that theory is not what its published authors and most visible leaders say it is, it is really what I say it is.

Nevertheless, despite David’s disavowal of radical feminism, he accepts the very premises upon which it is based. He says he wishes women to be moral and intellectual equals of men, and in saying this he means that in the past women have not been the moral and intellectual equals of men. But how could this be except by the conscious collective hostility by men that all feminists – radical and moderate – contend existed? If men are capable of this historic oppression of women, then they are not the moral and intellectual equals of women. It is for this reason that feminists consistently maintain that women are morally superior to men — and David does too.

In addition, his comments show immense hostility toward women of the past, toward his grandmother, great grandmother, great-great grandmother, etc., whom he all views as victims, too stupid and infantile to stick up for themselves, too confined to be stimulated or take part in the important affairs of the world from their position at home. They also show a total lack of concern for the needs and interests of children. In that, David is indeed a typical feminist, as radical as they come. To assert that women do not find intellectual and moral fulfillment in the work of rearing human beings, who are both moral and intellectual, is a radical statement, one that presumes the vast majority of women in the past were doing something fundamentally contrary to their nature.

Diana writes:

I’m very amused by David’s response to you. When challenged on specifics, he resorts to hot air. He gets very theoretical. I’m familiar with the line of argumentation and I’m not the slightest intimidated by it. Getting involved in his trickery is a waste of time. Let’s return to basics.

I challenge David to produce the name of two feminists who ever said that liberation for women meant the equal opportunity to fail.  (I can name one: Germaine Greer – but she was the only one.)

Nope, feminism was sold to an entire generation of women (and men) as casting off of age-old shackles, which were all bad all the time. Feminism could never agree on whether the proper goal was joining the male world or destroying it. They are still arguing over this in women’s studies departments. They’ll keep arguing until the country goes bankrupt, and they have to find real jobs.

Jesse Powell writes:

David said:

“Regardless, while feminists do also have as a goal that women should actually be better off, they view liberation as an end in itself, and as a much higher priority than any measure that tried to help their circumstances while limiting their choices.”

This to me seems to be the fundamental basis of David’s argument in favor of feminism; that mere freedom by itself has “a much higher priority” than the large number of harms caused by women’s freedom. In other words freedom is valued above all regardless of the harm that freedom causes. This is an interesting moral position to uphold. Of course, this position cannot be upheld on a universal or consistent basis as people will always desire the “freedom” to engage in some behavior or to commit some act that is harmful to others. What about the “freedom” to shoplift? What about the “freedom” to commit adultery? What about the “freedom” of a woman to put her child in daycare? All of these proposed “freedoms” involve someone committing a harmful act against someone else for their own selfish benefit. This is exactly what is wrong with feminism. All of the “freedoms” that feminism bestows upon women are simply licenses for the woman to engage in some kind of selfish and harmful act against others for her own benefit. The “freedom” of feminism is predatory; this is exactly why feminism is wrong.

Now I would suppose that David would claim that the “collateral damage” of women’s liberation is less important than the “intended benefits” of women’s liberation. I would argue the precise opposite; that the “collateral damage” of feminism is of much greater importance than the “intended benefits”. I would furthermore argue that the “intended benefits” of feminism in reality have no moral legitimacy at all since all of the “intended benefits” of feminism are based on the woman violating her responsibilities towards others and are therefore morally corrupted.

The system of patriarchy was developed precisely for the purpose of imposing on men the duties that men owe towards others and imposing on women the duties that women owe towards others. Patriarchy involved balance and reciprocity between the sexes while providing for the needs of children in a way that honored the respective strengths of men and women. Feminism, being a violation of the patriarchal social system that was already established, by definition meant women violating their duties towards others making it morally corrupted from the outset.

One more issue I wish to address. David said:

“It proposes the idea that if women have traditionally had only choice A available, and feminists argue that women should be able to choose either A or B, that feminists necessarily hate choice A. Not true, and an extremely obvious logical error.”

In David’s above statement David is implying that there is no meaningful difference between “Choice A” and “Choice B”. Let us say that in the past women were only allowed to eat Vanilla ice cream, Vanilla ice cream being “Choice A”. Then feminists came along and said “No. Women should be allowed to also eat Chocolate ice cream if they so choose. Women should have the right to eat either Chocolate ice cream or Vanilla ice cream, whichever they prefer.” In such a hypothetical then it would indeed make sense to say that feminists advocating the option of Chocolate ice cream are not implying a hatred of Vanilla ice cream. Indeed to make such an assumption would be ridiculous, as David is saying. In my hypothetical Chocolate ice cream and Vanilla ice cream are indeed interchangeable goods morally equivalent to each other where preference of one over the other is simply a matter of taste.

Choice A and Choice B however in the situation we are actually talking about is not morally neutral at all and the two choices are not at all similar to each other in terms of how they affect others. In David’s example Choice A represents being a stay at home mother while Choice B represents being a career woman. In the past Choice A was clearly favored over Choice B and then feminists came along saying “Women should be allowed to engage in either Choice A or Choice B, whatever is their preference.” Does such an assertion by feminists imply a hatred and condemnation of Choice A; being a stay at home mother? The answer is yes precisely because Choice A and Choice B are not morally equivalent to each other. Since the prior preference was clearly Choice A to then assert a moral equivalence between Choices A and B is to downgrade the valuation of Choice A compared to early times. In addition Choice A involves a sacrifice by another party, the man, while Choice B does not. To claim that Choice A and Choice B are equivalent to each other is then to necessarily claim that Choice B is preferable since Choice B; being a career woman; does not involve a sacrifice on the part of the man while Choice A; being a stay at home mother; does. Surely if Choice A and Choice B are equivalent in their own right then if only one of the choices requires sacrifices by others that makes the choice requiring the sacrifice inferior.

There is of course the additional factor that if a woman chooses to be a career woman instead of a stay at home mother she will then necessarily seek to denigrate the stay at home mother simply because the stay at home mother did not make the same decision that she made. The career woman implicitly believes that being a career woman is better than being a stay at home mother. If she did not believe this then she would be a stay at home mother herself. Since there is no moral equivalence between being a career woman and a stay at home mother this means that either one option is better or the other option is better. This makes it a necessity for the career woman to denigrate the stay at home mother in order for the career woman to morally justify herself.

Please follow and like us: