A New Feminism
... and a new "manliness" to boot! Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield offers up some of the details here. Money quote:
Men and women are not the same, as the gender-neutral society of feminism claims. Nor are men and women merely different. They are both same and different. Formerly society recognized the differences between the sexes, and with laws and customs accentuated those differences. Now society does the opposite: it recognizes the similarities and accentuates them. There is no society without social pressure in one direction or another. Whereas before women were held back from the careers they could have attained, now they are pushed further than they may want to go.
Read the whole thing and tell me what you think.
posted by Joshua @ 10:13 PM
7 Comments:
An interesting article, to be sure, and one I have a lot of problems with. First of all, my apologies to Boudicca for never responding to her post regarding women’s role in society and the balancing of work and family. I found the article fascinating and wanted to respond, but my mind was too full of pre-moving thoughts, and there was a danger that anything I wrote would descend into ‘by the way, Crate and Barrel have these beautiful drop-leaf tables, you simply must add that to your registry.’ My current obsession is wall hangings and candle arrangements, though despite Mr. Mansfield’s thoughts, I consider this to have less to do with my innate womanness and more to do with the fact that I no longer have roommates that will dirty up my beautiful living room.
The feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’ is both true and unfortunate. The Slate article and this one both purport to say what we as separate genders need to do to create harmony as a society. These theories ignore the fact that not everyone is the same, and on the rankings of feminine and masculine, people tend fall on a sliding scale, as opposed to being on two separate and distinct sides. In an ideal world, people would find their own balance of work and family without it being considered a political statement, and without any sort of judgment by societal critics.
Specific to this article, the author makes a lot of statements about what feminism is about, both second wave and today’s feminism. He assumes that all feminists, and feminist theories, are uniform. This is equivalent to saying that all conservatives believe the same thing and have the goals, or perhaps all Democrats. Within any political/social group, there are many branches, and the branch of feminism that believes in the erasing of all gender roles does not purport to speak for everyone. I doubt anyone, feminist or otherwise, would say that we are currently in a gender-neutral society, nor is that kind of society likely to happen in any of our lifetimes. And there are many feminists, myself included, who would not want to see that happen. Men and women have different qualities and tendencies, this is proven fact. We should recognize it and embrace it, but not to the point that it should dictate what activity should be assigned to which gender. The author’s annoyance with earlier feminists’ focus on gender-neutrality ignore the fact that sweeping changes were needed at the time. Betty Friedan despised her role as homemaker and wanted a more gender-neutral society because her role was handed to her – she was a woman, therefore it didn’t matter that she was college educated or wanted to learn more, it was her responsibility to take care of her husband and raise his children. She didn’t hate taking care of her children, she hated the fact that she felt like her life wasn’t her choice.
I’d love to discuss this article more, but I’ve already rambled a bit. I’d just like to point out the one line that pissed me off the most.
He writes “(Feminism) could point out that promiscuity is a man's game that women cannot by nature play on equal terms. Women have three disadvantages: they get pregnant, they contract sexually-transmitted disease more easily and more seriously, and most important, they suffer more from heartache than do men. Men, with their abstractness, their obliviousness, their disregard, are furnished with the mental equipment for an exit strategy from sexual encounters, as women are not. The double standard accommodates this inequality between the sexes and deserves to be reconsidered.”
That to me is incredibly irresponsible and offensive, and I would like to think there’s not a man here that agrees with it. I’m sorry, but if you as a guy have sex with a woman, you are just as equally responsible for any pregnancy, STD’s, or heartbreak that should occur because of it. I realize that that’s not always the case, but to say that men are too oblivious to think about responsibility when it comes to sex in this day and age is doing a disservice to men everywhere.
Anyway, that’s all for now, I’m going to go back to searching for cheap dinette sets online.
I would like to write a lengthy comment in opposition to the prior two, but I am currently on my way out the door. Fear not, I will enter the fray soon. I have much to say.
While he doesn’t specifically say that feminism on the whole is bad, a line or so specifying that that he’s referring to the ideas belonging to ‘some’ feminists, or even ‘many’ feminists, if you like, I think would help him out, in that it shows he’s aware that there’s disagreement amongst different groups of feminism, similar to what there is in any group. Linking feminists to conservatives, which I did above, perhaps isn’t the best comparison – I would put it closer to Christians. Anyone here who identifies themselves as Christian I’m sure has gotten some eye-rolls and judgments when they’ve told that to others, due to the vocal minority that Andrew Sullivan refers to as Christianists. Perhaps I’m a little overly sensitive about making those distinctions because of the many, many times I’ve gotten similar eye-rolls when telling people I’m a feminist. I’ve spent one too many conversations explaining to someone that, shockingly, no, being a feminist does not mean you hate men, nor does it mean you can’t ever be a stay-at-home mom. Nor, by the way, do you have to be a woman to be a feminist.
I definitely took issue with the part about women taking charge of the home, which Kantian quoted above. I also found interesting the part where he talks about manly men – “Manly men reproach unmanly men, but merely look down on women, who are excused from manliness. After all, they are women. To accept differences between the sexes is to tolerate this apparently irrational prejudice of men.”
I’m sorry…. What? I’m supposed to forgive men that ‘look down on me’ because I’m a women? Apparently because… guys just doesn’t know any better. What? Am I wrong to think that this article is just as insulting to men as it is to women? In example after example, he basically describes men as you would a toddler – they have their temper tantrums, their irrational needs and desires, their thoughtlessness, but we must accept those characteristics as part of being a man and move on. Sorry men, but I know you, I know you’re generally a good lot, and I know that you can be smart, rational, thoughtful, and in control of bad behavior.
In response to Kantian’s question. It is true that women, in their rise to the top of the career ladder, sometimes feel the need to take on some of the uglier traits that are considered ‘masculine.’ However, I would venture it’s because they feel that’s how a CEO acts. This is the portrayal given to them by the media. I can’t speak from personal experience – my company is mostly run by women, and fairly nice people all around, at that. However, any profile of a major CEO will describe them as difficult, determined, serious, aggressive, and hard on underlings – Rupert Murdoch comes to mind, for one. While the author of these profiles isn’t overtly praising these CEOs, there is a certain amount of respect that comes with these descriptions. Also, when you look at profiles of CEOs, you see very few female faces. There are many reasons for this, but it’s not a far stretch to imagine that if you want to get to the top, you have to follow the footsteps of men like Murdoch – and if that means being an asshole, so be it. Anyway, I’m not sure if this is the definite answer for why these traits have been associated with ‘getting ahead,’ but that’s just one guess.
How dare he claim that women should speak for themselves when many women might not want to be pushed into doing so?
Good thing he at least steps up for all the willfully meek women of the world and puts words in their mouths. They owe him a debt of gtratitude, for sure.
Some thoughts: First, the traits exhibited by successful women are often considered "manly," to be sure. Why? Because until recently, only men were in the position to exhibit these traits. As women have made their presence and talents known in the workplace, the men who felt threatened naturally started calling the women bitches and discrediting them by likening them to lesbians. Shocking, I know, but it turns out that subjugation is adaptable.
Moving on, the feminist movement, "for reasons of it's own," ebraced the sexual revolution? Really, Mansfield? You can't think of any ligitimate reasons why the women of the sixties and beyond might have taken their chance to do away with previous sexual double standards, particularly once they had the tools at their disposal to deal with the higher risks that you mentioned? (I'm not counting the "bigger heartbreak" bit because he obviously made it up, which at least fits the theme of the paper.) I also might take some issue with the idea that one can't reject suxual advances on anything but moral grounds. Like the rest of his claims, Mansfield does nothing to back that one up, but it seems to me that he wishes not so much for a society of greater morals, but one where the madonnas and whores are more clear-cut. Taking morality out of the question doesn't weaken the women's ability to reject men at all. In fact, I'd say it does much to strengthen it. Morals can be wheedled down, as anyone who's ever been a teenager knows, but personal taste is more immutable, and stings the man being rejected enough to probably end the proposition. To be sure, some men are predators. This is why women with common sense take self-defense classes and carry mace with them.
Lastly, and this is really just my own musings, but from what I've seen, the juggling of home-life and worklife hasn't made women less capable at either, but rather MORE capable at both, investing them with a focus and sense of time-management and problem solving that they may not have gleaned otherwise. Of course, many women will choose to stay home after having kids (as will many men, for that matter) which is their right, but I've never heard of those women being considered traitors to the sisterhood for choosing that.
Ultimately, Mansfield is just brushing off an old favorite of "Intellectuals Against Equal Rights," and it's a fallacious one at that. He takes the first idea, "Group X should have the right to do Y," and presents a subset of group X which doesn't want to do Y as if it's a counterfactual. It isn't. Having the right to do something isn't equal to doing it. This same argument was used against abolitionists in the mid-1800's, and is still being used now against gay-marraige proponents. It was wrong then, it's wrong now, and it's certainly wrong coming from Mansfield who, as mentioned, is apparently just making it up as he goes along. The beauty of the current system is that by legally aceentuating the similarities between the sexes (and races, etc.) the freedom exists for the differences to play out naturally.
And here I am.
I wonder which Mansfield article I was reading, since the one everyone else read seemed to consign women to housework. The relevant quote, as Kantian noted, being the following:
"...a woman should want to be in charge and take responsibility for the home, for to give her husband an equal responsibility would be to lose her sovereignty over the whole."
This is decidely not the same thing as saying women should content themselves to staying at home! He's saying that control of the operations of the domestic sphere should fall to women, because men (on the whole - he's not speaking in universals here, by the way - just generalities) are less skilled. Now, read that again - control of the domestic sphere. That could result in any number of permutations, from the stay-at-home mother who feels her primary responsibility is to cook warm meals and do laundry, to the working woman who leaves a list of chores for her husband/partner to do while she's away. Note that, in the second case, the man plays the role of domestic laborer: and yet this is still consistent with the woman having 'domestic control.' Mansfield in no way straight-jackets either gender here; he's merely saying that he thinks it works best a certain way.
As for the sexual issues, specifically those regarding reproduction.
Kelly, you say Mansfield's sexual ideas are "incredibly irresponsible and offensive, and I would like to think there's not a man here that agrees with it." What man would dare disagree, since you put it that way (If I may digress, what sort of assumptions are you making about men who do disagree? On what standard are we determining 'offensive?' I would assert that offensive to one is stunningly perceptive to another)?
And yet I am that man! Mansfield is saying that the societal results stemming from changed sexual mores have been harmful. This, I would think, is a fairly NON-controversial statement, and one need only look at historical illegitimacy rates, the number of so-called 'dead-beat dads,' and STD rates to see that. Again, he's not saying it's time to pull out the burkas! He's saying the absence of any prevailing societal sexual morality (double standard or no) has hurt us.
In that same vein, he notes that men, left to their own devices and absent any prevailing morality, will be able to escape the consequences of promiscuity far easier. What is to dispute in that? Is it unfair and unfortunate? Yes, of course it is, but that doesn't make it factually wrong. And why reject off-hand the notion that women on the whole are the ones who suffer heartbreak more often in these cases? Is that such an outlandish idea that it couldn't possibly be true?
All right, that's enough for now. More to follow if opportunity suits.
“Societal results stemming from changed sexual mores have been harmful.” I actually don’t entirely agree with that one. The sexual revolution has had some detriments, to be sure. The rise in illegitimacy is unfortunate, as is the rapid pace in which AIDS spread around the globe. However, I would say as a woman, it’s nice to know that if I were to make a mistake and become pregnant out of wedlock, I would not be shunned and looked down upon by society. I also wouldn’t be held to the ‘why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free’ belief that our idyllic society used to have. Only for women, by the way, men could have all the premarital sex they wanted and would just be considered to be young and stupid. This, by the way, was a belief carried to the extent that many women didn’t report being raped because they didn’t want to announce that they were ‘used goods.’ Also, let’s not forget that sex was considered dirty, and sex education was non-existent before the sexual revolution – a lot of unwanted pregnancies stemmed from the fact that people didn’t know that was how one became pregnant. Yes, there should be a prevailing morality about sex, and how to have sex responsibly, but the fact that we can even talk about it at all is due in large part to the sexual revolution.
I said irresponsible and offensive, and I stand by that. Why? Because Mansfield believes we should bring the double-standard back when if comes to sexuality. “The double standard accommodates this inequality between the sexes and deserves to be reconsidered.” To me, that paragraph of his translates as men will sleep with anything that moves, and are not equipped with the though-process to realize that sex has risks, and that they take on those risks when they sleep with someone. The ‘boys will be boys’ attitude, if you will. Apparently, according to Mansfield, women are the only ones who can realize they might get pregnant if they have sex with someone, and so they should have the responsibility to consider this pre-coitus. Men, apparently, can’t be blamed for not thinking, since they are dumb animals who are naturally promiscuous. If you follow this train of thought, if a woman gets pregnant from irresponsible sex, it is her fault for not stopping the man, it’s not his. Same goes for STDs, even though they received them from the diseased man.
Furthermore, Mansfield doesn’t seem to be saying that ‘society’ should bring back sexual morals, he’s saying that it is women’s job, and women alone, to have sexual morals. Morals have slipped because women don’t want to take sole responsibility for them anymore. Because men are ‘naturally promiscuous,’ and ‘oblivious,’ women should take on the morality for both sexes. As men, do you feel this is true? Do you feel that you cannot control your base instincts, and so it the job of the female to do that for you? I will agree that men will more often push for sex earlier than women, but I don’t think they’re incapable of behaving responsibly when it comes to sex. The point of the feminist sexual revolution is that both sexes should be held accountable for stopping and thinking before sex. Also, a woman should not be punished if she wants to have sex, if she doesn’t feel like being moral and angelic, and if – God forbid – she admits that she actually ENJOYS sex. I’m sorry if I don’t think these are terrible thoughts to have.
I will (somewhat) agree with him on one thing – “The result of abolishing the double standard has been to do away with any standard.” However, Mansfield feels that we can fix this problem by having women, and just women, take on the responsibility of morality. Is it too much to ask that perhaps we can meet halfway? That we can teach both sexes morals and expect them to abide by them?
"The rise in illegitimacy is unfortunate."
I think this soft-pedals the problem by a few degrees (as well as gets to the heart of our disagreement, perhaps). The rise in illegitimacy isn't simply a marginal side-effect of promiscuity; the two are mirror images. If a man has grown up in a house without a strong male presence defining, as it were, "what it means to be man," he faces a much greater challenge.
In that absence, from where is he going to get his cues on masculinity? The culture, his male friends, corporate America, and the like, all of which - at least at a young age - are not emphasizing restrained behavior.
For this reason, Mansfield is saying women should take the lead in saying "no." As a conservative, his argument is fairly straight-forward: 'problem X was less severe when we used to do Y. Let's go back to doing Y.' Simplistic? Yes. But again, not necessarily wrong.
He's not saying women shouldn't enjoy sex or admit to the same. He's saying that women should use the obvious power they have over men to a moral end: "Of course I enjoy sex, but only under the following circumstances." How would this fail to have positive effects on male behavior? If the men have already been raised right, they will need less of this counterbalance (whence your critique that he is condemning all men can, I think, be refuted), of course, but Mansfield is assuming that men are no longer all raised right. I tend to agree.
However, we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Sexual education and the availability of birth control have enormous benefits and should be extended wherever possible.
I think we would all be on the same team on the following: restrained morality + sex education + birth control = fewer abortions and lower illegitimacy rates.
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