The main flaw of feminism
Widespread acceptance of feminism’s central thesis has had far reaching effects on modern society
If you were to open up a dictionary to look for the meaning of “feminism”, you would probably find some benign definition such as the following:
belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes expressed especially through organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests
Based on this definition, you might think, “Who wouldn’t want to be a feminist?!” But when we witness how feminist movements of the past century have poisoned public discourse and Western culture at large, it’s hard to get excited about them.
While most Westerners’ personal beliefs align with the dictionary definition of feminism, that same proportion of people would not identify as feminists. As Bryan Caplan notes, that’s because we generally perceive feminism as being the belief that women are generally treated more unfairly than men.
I would go a step further than Caplan and say that the central thesis of feminism is that women have been systemically oppressed by men.
Now before you go on saying that, well, only modern radical feminists really believe this, it’s worth quoting (again) from The Subjugation of Women by John Stuart Mill, arguably the most influential English speaking philosopher of the 19th century:
From the dawn of human society every woman was in a state of bondage to some man, because she was of value to him and she had less muscular strength than he did.
The feminist thesis, or the proposition that women have been systemically oppressed by men, has been fundamental to the feminist movement since it’s earliest days in the 19th century. In accepting this thesis, feminists believe that the system is rigged against women. Every instance of gender inequality is evidence that women are treated more unfairly than men. Therefore, in order to free women from oppression, the “system”, i.e., the interconnected network of socially cooperating individuals that make up civilization, needs to be significantly altered or even overhauled completely.
Now, wanting to make changes to society is a completely understandable position. There are plenty of unjust laws and backward customs, and history is filled with examples of people who abandoned old traditions in favor of new ones. The societies that became more peaceful and prosperous were the ones that abolished unjust laws which infringed on private property rights.
Also, women have of course been treated unfairly to some degree. Several women’s rights activists have rightfully petitioned to abolish laws which granted privileges or imposed restrictions based on gender.
But in the West, where such privileges and restrictions have largely been abolished, the mainstream feminists are not satisfied. There are other parts of the “system” that require a makeover.
This is where the feminist thesis starts to look problematic.
The foundational building blocks of civilization are families, which for all of human history had been established by men and women who entered into marital relations and assumed traditional roles in order to successfully raise the next generation. In a previous post, I presented a theory of how marriage and traditional gender roles are not arbitrary constructions, but are instead the results of thousands of years of social and biological evolution. Their presence throughout practically all of human history indicates that they have been key to the buildup of human civilization. Over thousands of years, humans developed social codes, norms, restrictions, and responsibilities in order to increase the chances of cultivating successful marriages and stronger communities. As people abided by these standards of behavior, they were able to build up communities of trustworthy members and more easily facilitate social cooperation.
Following the logic of the feminist thesis, since women are systemically oppressed, and women form an integral part of each building block in the “system”, then it follows that the buildings blocks themselves are fundamental instruments of oppression. The social norms, traditional responsibilities, and moral constraints which keep the blocks intact are oppressive cages which restrict women from reaching their full potential.
Taking the thesis to the logical extreme, mainstream feminists seeks more than justice in a mere legal sense. They seek a type of social justice, a radical tearing down of the social norms and moral standards that have prevailed in human societies for thousands of years.
We have seen how their quest for social justice has influenced public opinion. Traditional gender roles have been framed as oppressive and old-fashioned. Promiscuity has been glorified as “freedom” from social constraints. Men have been portrayed as an oppressive cancer on society. Marriage has been perceived as a contractual relationship to be ended at leisure.
These ideas have gained significant traction, particularly in the West, and this has translated into actions.
Since the start of the counter-culture revolution in the 1960’s, there has been a significant increase in divorce rates, illegitimate births, and households without a father. Consequently, many communities with broken families experience higher rates of violence and social unrest. Nowadays, fewer people strive to get married and have children.
Could it be that all this is at least in part due to belittling traditional values and encouraging people to indulge in promiscuous behavior?
But how does one gauge the level of oppression in the “system”? For the feminists, the metric of choice has been “inequality”, meaning the measure of differences between the sexes. Therefore, to truly achieve social justice, inequality must be eliminated.
This is why feminists point to more than just infringement of property rights as evidence that women are treated more unfairly than men. Any sort of socioeconomic inequality is regarded as a smoking gun.
Men making more money than women? Oppression!
More male CEO’s, scientists, or legislators? Glass ceiling!
More men dying in wars, performing dangerous jobs, or occupying prisons?
Eh…er…hmmm…
The effort to minimize the differences between men and women of course has cultural implications, which are on full display today. Among the supposed allies of the feminists is the woke mob with the never ending acronym, whose members earnestly promote the mutilation of children and the dismantling of women’s sports, among other things. Though many liberals may privately oppose the radical demands of the transgender mob, they largely remain silent. Nathanael Blake gives a great explanation why:
This liberal hesitance arises from more than just the intimidation wielded by the trans movement. Rather, discussing any limits on gender or sexuality opens an awkward can of worms for them. Acknowledging that human embodiment and sexual dimorphism require restraining desire and claims of subjective identity could roll back a lot more than Lia Thomas’s swim career.
For instance, if the differences between men and women are real and important, that might suggest that having two daddies is not interchangeable with having a mother and a father. If the differences between men and women matter, then an economic system that sees men and women as interchangeable units of labor is deeply flawed and anti-human. If the differences between men and women matter, then how they are united matters, which means that a sexual culture ordered toward the indulgence of desire may not be ordered toward human flourishing.
Ironically, in their efforts to harpoon the mythical great white patriarchy, the feminists have helped create a new monster, one seemingly intent on taking down the ship. This is in no small part thanks to the evangelizing of the feminist thesis. By convincing so many that system is oppressive, and that the differences between men and women highlight the oppression, there arose a great campaign to erase those differences. The more radical ideologues have taken up the baton from the feminists and are running with it to not only erase the differences between men and women, but to also erase biology, culture, and morality as well.
When acted upon, ideas lead to consequences, and popular ideas lead to societal consequences. The idea that women have been systemically oppressed is one that has tainted our society and contributed to widespread degenerate behavior throughout Western civilization. It is an idea that distracts from true social problems, such as infringement on private property, and it deserves to be questioned. By refuting the thesis, perhaps we can better understand how men and women worked together in the past to build up civilization, and perhaps we can learn how to continue working together to build up an even more peaceful, prosperous society.
Aaron Russo, producer of the film Trading Places and friends with a prominent Rockefeller, said the Rockefeller bragged about how they pushed women's liberation as a way to break up the nuclear family and increase the country's tax basis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtdidL2MQo
In 1897 Robert Lewis Dabney, the Chief of Staff to and biographer of Stonewall Jackson, bitterly wrote about "conservatives" and his description of their psychology applies just as much now as it did then:
"It may be inferred again that the present movement for women's rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. . . . Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its bark is worse than its bite, and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it in wind, and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women's suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position."