The F-word by MaryH10000

accordingtohoyt

Sep 5

The F-word by MaryH10000

I used to think feminism was a synonym for women's rights. I don't any more. Many people still do.

According to Wikipedia, "Most western feminist historians contend that all movements working to obtain women's rights should be considered feminist movements, even when they did not (or do not) apply the term to themselves." [emphasis mine]

Of course feminist historians do. They don't care whether I consider myself a feminist or not. No one is against giving women the vote. But by calling that a "feminist achievement," it can be framed as "winning rights" from "male oppressors," whether or not the people at the time saw it in those terms, or even whether people today see it in those terms.

But there is a different way to see the improvement in women's rights. We could see it as the result of the natural alliance between men and women to create and protect children. And personally, I also see it as having been greatly enabled by the increased health and wealth brought about by the industrial revolution.

Why does this matter?

First of all, because someone advocating for women's rights as a feminist will normally miss important factors of the particular "women's issue" they are discussing. For example, why shouldn't we have women on Seal Teams? To a feminist, the only reason someone would be against this is because men or "the patriarchy" want to oppress women. The actual reason is that women aren't strong enough.

It's amazing (and actually dangerous) how many women, and especially how many young girls, think that women are a match for men in a close-in physical fight, without weapons or some other "equalizer." And no, martial arts alone will not make a woman the equal of a man. Sorry, Cobra Kai.

Secondly, by framing everything in terms of "oppression," it misses the real purpose behind some of the differences in the treatment of women. What this means is that when the difference in treatment is removed, the real purposes they served are also removed, which can actually lead to more harm being done to women.

I'll use one common example. Women have historically been more severely judged for sexual promiscuity than men. That is not only a difference in treatment. I would agree that it is also, to some extent, unjust.

The feminist answer is simply to normalize sexual promiscuity for women as well as for men, because in the feminist point of view, any difference in the treatment of women springs from the oppression of women by men. Which, by the way, is why the male is always used as the baseline by feminists. Whatever the oppressor has or does is always superior to what the oppressed has or does.

The problem is that sexual promiscuity is, in fact, worse for women than for men. The sexual double standard is based on actual, meaningful biological differences between men and women. Because, of course, the primary dangers of sexual promiscuity for women and their children was, and still is, the danger of becoming pregnant without the adequate support of a family.

So how do we handle the injustice of the sexual double standard? The answer in the middle ages was to apply the female standard to men. No, it wasn't perfectly enforced. But it was, actually, the goal or standard of the Christian west.

Then it became an issue again, after the industrial revolution destabilized the primary reproductive and economic contributions of women. And actually, come to think of it, those of men as well.

The level of wealth increased so dramatically, for everyone, that the maternal death rate, even for poor women, was lowered drastically. Women were healthy enough to get pregnant earlier and more easily, they were more likely to survive childbirth, and their children were more likely to survive infancy. This lead to many more children being born, and surviving, by women of all classes. It's not hard to see how the increase of children got spun into the Malthusian fear of overpopulation leading to disaster. Which is where we still are today, even as demographics show that the problem is not overpopulation but rather the opposite.

What do we do?

The feminist framing sees "many more children" as a matter of the oppression of women, as opposed to a pretty great problem to have. So the answer to "many more children" is to kill the extras while still in their mother's womb, and to use whatever medical means are necessary, including hormonal disruption of the female reproductive system, to keep women from conceiving. The end result, of course, is to see the most uniquely feminine ability, the ability to create new people from her own flesh and blood, as an inherent matter of oppression.

A pro-woman viewpoint, in alliance with men, would first of all frame the issue as returning to a more normal level of child spacing, to improve the ability of the family to care for their children. This might still lead to average family sizes of four to seven children (not sure of my statistics there). They would simply be the result of only four to seven pregnancies, rather than constant pregnancy and high infant mortality.

Secondly, the female reproductive system would not be framed as an enemy to be overcome, as most current child spacing methods do. The idea would be to work with the reproductive systems of both men and women. This might actually include hormonal therapies to improve the health and predictability of the incredibly complex female reproductive system,to come up with non-destructive methods of child spacing. And part of the solution would still be to discourage promiscuous sex for both men and women, because it would still put women and children at greater risk.

That's just one example. And it doesn't deal with the economic issues of a family of that size, or how the labor to support and care for such a family should be allocated. But it does describe the basic methodology in dealing with such issues.

So no, I'm not a feminist.

Because of the co-option of the term "feminist" to mean anyone who promotes women's rights, I will not automatically assume that someone who uses that term is against women's rights. I will, however, assume that she or he does buy into the "oppressor vs oppressed" narrative, and therefore is likely to promote solutions that hurt women. In general, if you call yourself a feminist, you must demonstrate to me that you are NOT using this frame before I will consider your solutions.