Sometimes comments made on posts are so good that they need to be posts on their own. The following comment by Trish Randall falls in that category. Thank you Trish for your clarity and insight. I have named it Feminist Double Standards. See what you think.
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Richard, I think the place where you and Tom might be missing each other is the way that feminism has no coherent ideology, so feminists are free to make claims that, if juxtaposed, would be clearly incompatible. Feminists claim the sexes are identical. Feminists claim women require special consideration while men, society, workplaces, and schools make special accommodations for women so they could "catch up" to men. Feminists will claim women are identical to men. Feminists will claim women have unique needs. Which claim they make depends on the strategic goals of the moment. Feminism's not-quite-blank slate allows for women to have differences from men, but not evolutionarily-imbedded differences, only strategically and temporarily useful differences.
Women could do any job a man could do. Also, job requirements and workplaces must be changed to accommodate women. Women are as strong as men, but women suffered unique disadvantages due to previous exclusion or lack of accommodation.
Feminists reframed men's tendencies, interests and thought processes as inherently problematic, while women's tendencies, interests and thought processes deserved extra attention and respect in society, schools and workplaces.
While feminist demands are founded in the idea that women are absolutely functionally equal to men (while requiring unique considerations), they managed to suppress understanding of the differences between the sexes. By portraying women as a subset of men who deserve special accommodations because of damage caused by being targets of oppression for merely being women, feminists appear to acknowledge differences between the sexes, they obscure the actual, deep differences between us.
Knowledge and understanding of the natural inclinations of both sexes has been completely suppressed. Women think that women and men think, feel and act the same, while men are aware this isn't the case, but are pressured in schools, workplaces and (often broken) families, to conform their behavior and communications in ways favorable to feminism. Although it's framed as being favorable to women, in reality this conformity is favorable to feminism. (One of the most brilliantly evil moves of mid-20th Century feminism was labeling itself "women's liberation." That way, they appeared to represent all women, not just feminists).
One result is that recent generations of women lack any clue that men think, feel or act differently than men. Men do notice that women's thinking and emotions are very different from theirs, but also know it's dangerous to make their awareness known. Women, meanwhile are pressured to act in ways contrary to our deep biological tendencies, without realizing those tendencies are our true nature - those tendencies are treated as problematic divergence from the norm, like how Hannah Spier's colleagues viewed her desire to stay home.
Because feminism has created such chasms between men and women, I can see why you would be wary of the idea that understanding sex differences is one of the necessary elements in dismantling feminism's malign influence on our families, schools, workplaces and society. But on the other hand, a lot of the damage feminism has wrought has been by promulgating a false image of the differences between the sexes, while obscuring the real biologically-driven. In feminism, the only difference between men and women is that women have been damaged by men not treating women enough like men. Their proposed cure is endless special treatment of women to balance the alleged oppression inflicted on women throughout history.
Thanks, Trish. Everything that you say about feminist hypocrisy is true. I can add to that.
It's true that feminism is not a coherent philosophical worldview or even a coherent political ideology. This is why so many feminists insist that there's no such thing as feminism at all—only a "diverse" yet “inclusive” range of "feminisms" or of "women's voices." And yet there's at least one thing that they all have in common. One of my professors defined feminism as "a movement to make the world a better place." That's not, of course, a definition. After all, every movement makes the same claim. The defining feature feminism is surely that it’s a movement to make the world a better place for women (and if that makes it a worse place for men or even for children, so be it).
As for “sameness” and “difference,” that’s somewhat complicated. The language evolved. Early “second-wave” feminists (especially in America) used the word “equality” as a synonym for “sameness.” That’s how Betty Friedan, for example, could argue that it should be easy to integrate women into the paid workforce. She assumed that most women were, like her, bored and stifled at home. The only obstacle to their “liberation” from what she once called a “comfortable concentration camp” was atavistic disapproval from ignorant or old-fashioned men.
Then, it became clear that women really were different from men in one important way, not the same as men. Apart from anything else, after all, most women wanted children. So the workplace had to adjust schedules to accommodate mothers (a solution that led to the problem of women working shorter hours than men and earning less money than men).
And then, it became clear to a new feminist generation that part-time or flex-time would never be good enough. The real problem was men per se, not schedules. Male co-workers were not only excluding their female colleagues from power lunches and private clubs but harassing and raping these women. Solving that problem, feminists decided, would require extensive legislation. And that, in turn, would require a massive political campaign to influence the legislators. The message was no longer about sexual equality. It was about men and women being not only different from each other but so different—men being inherently evil as oppressors and women inherently good as victims—that only the segregation of women or the incarceration of men would suffice. Taken to its logical conclusion, eventually, this legitimated the vigilantism of MeToo and the abolition of due process for accused men under Obama’s version of Title IX (which is now being reinstated under Biden, albeit with protections for transgender women, after a brief interlude of sexual equality under Trump).
Before concluding, I should add that early feminists tried very hard to prevent scientific or social-scientific studies on differences between men and women. They worried that any differences would favor men, not women. By the 1980s, however, they had changed their minds. Now, feminists began to believe that sexual differences would favor women, not men. They began to insist on research with that in mind.
There is much truth in this but we can add a bit more by asking the question why? Why do feminists behave this way, seeking to obscure sex differences when convenient but not when inconvenient in the first place? It comes down to the sins of envy and pride. Feminist women, like other women, have certain strengths and weaknesses. The petty, back stabbing, group bullying, passive aggressive attack mode of feminist women is very much a trait of how women approach conflict and power generally. That is the opposite of how men approach such issues. The problem is that that form of petty approach to conflict and power tends to give results that are not as personally satisfying and certainly not as decisive and noble as when one guy kicks another's butt in a fight for all to see...or even wins a intellectual battle based on reason and superior arguments. As such feminist women are envious of men in many ways. Feminist women misperceive the reality of men (think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence) as being so much better than their own experience. If you look at Commissions on the Status of Women, for example, they constantly SELECTIVELY compare the status of women to their PERCEPTION of the status of men. They don't try to do a holistic and balanced assessment of the status of each...only in a strategic sense of how they can get more of what men have...but without seeing the costs/responsibilities that the men endure alongside that benefit. For example...we hear about the horrible trauma of having to risk pregnancy and how having to carry and a child to term, wanted or otherwise, is effectively a human rights offense, but not a peep is made about the men who have to risk their lives drafted into war to fight whether they like it or not. Both war and pregnancy are much less risky than they used to be thanks to technological advances, but can anyone really say that women have it worse for having to endure pregnancy than men have when fighting in war? Of course not. The same is true with women wanting equal pay for equal work, but only when the work is completely redefined to suit the woman in a way that is the opposite of equal. Feminist women want to have their cake and eat it too. Most of them, in their hearts, probably yearn to be men...but if they could become one, would be the type of man who bullies others using physical strength and fails to live up to his personal responsibilities. They yearn for what they THINK men have while failing to see and appreciate the benefits of being a woman. This is why we see the most staunch feminists being found amongst the lesbian community...which also is the part of society most prone to committing sexual harassment bar none! Where the pride comes in is the absolute refusal to admit when one is wrong or has faults to be worked on. How much of feminism is about celebrating how wonderful women are and how no woman should ever be criticized for anything...even the exact same conduct and traits that are regularly excoriated in men? Envy and pride are the root of feminism but it plays out in traits that are biologically accentuated in women.