Feminism is Dead
To Be Presented on September 17, 2000
9:00 Am Sunday at the
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
By William S Jamison
I will be working in the metanarrative that includes an interpretation of Darwinian evolution as correct. Specifically, I will use the view referred to as evolutionary psychology (Buss). The main purpose in life is to procreate and pass on our genes and culture (Daly and Wilson).
My argument: Contemporary feminists are too radical for most women. Classical feminism was good and achieved the goal of political equality. Women’s Rights are issues of continuing importance and should be judged according to the merits of each case. “Feminism” is now associated with a radical male bashing troop of elite women that demand more than most women consider acceptable and as a result most women do not call themselves feminists. Feminism is dead.
In answer to the question, “Are women and men different?” The answer today is:
Yes, but some men are more like women than some women and some women are more
like men than some men. You may view this difference as “the glass is half full
or half empty” difference. Some of us will want to insist on certain features
being more important than other features and argue all persons are mostly alike,
or take the contrary position and say men are from one planet while women are
from another. All persons want and need very much the same sort of things. You
do not get what you want in life, you may not even get what you need, but you
will certainly get it in the end. I will stress the view that men and women are
different in this discussion.
What makes them different? We talk about male/ female and those that are in
between. Genetically we describe female and male bodies. The victorious
spermatozoon that breaches the fortress of the ovum determines what sex the
gamete will be. During development at about six weeks the interplay between the
mother and fetus will determine how much estrogen and testosterone will be
present at various times. This ongoing biochemical mix will determine how the
specific male and female characteristics of the fetus will be hard-wired into an
individual. This appears to have special effect on brain development from moment
to moment. The brain is our largest sexual organ. Just as our bodies can be
called genetically female or male our brains can be described as male or female.
Characteristics of male brains: they are more aggressive and competitive and
better at skills that require spatial ability and mathematical reasoning. Female
brains are more sensitive to nuances of expression and gesture, more adept at
judging character. Women, it seems, are more people-oriented than men, who are
more interested in things. (Moir)
Are men the dominant sex? Prehistoric families of human beings (or contemporary
technological
primitives) appear to be only different from other primates in the amount of
complexity resulting from our having opposable thumbs and knees that let us walk
better than other primates. In primate societies we talk of dominant males and
dominant females. In this sense dominance refers to competition for mates and
resources with others of the same sex. The sex roles are different. While males
are typically larger than females this is not a positive thing for individual
survival of males. Large males have shorter lives. It is of procreational value
since the large males win dominance over other males and are more likely to pass
on their genes. This in turn tends to make males larger. Females compete with
other females for mates with status and resources to assist them in successfully
raising young. In this it seems that social competitive patterns are developed
in order to and as a result of successful procreation.
As environmental factors changed and human beings became urban social patterns
changed. It seems correct to describe males as the dominant sex in history. This
also seems to be because history is a male enterprise. Males competed using
increasingly sophisticated technology and used “history” as a means of passing
on successful behaviors to the next generation of males. History is first the
oral and later the written tool that enabled males to pass on successful traits.
Survival of the fittest traits is what we have as a result. Since this is
primarily a concern for males in competition with other males, females appear to
be a subjugated second sex. Two or more males today talking together about
females with or without status among females will still sound as though females
are a subjugated second sex. Men wrote history. Most of the history we have in
our libraries was written by old, white, and now, dead males. This history can
be rewritten and reinterpreted to show that females are dominant through
herstory. Many such books are being written even though “herstory” is still not
a word recognized by spell checkers.
The classical feminist movement accomplished what was central to the movement.
It redefined women giving them a competitive position in previously male
dominated status systems. Technological advances also gave women more control
over their own reproductive systems. Both of these changes resulted in
relatively fast restructuring of male and female relationships in so-called
first world societies. This restructuring has resulted in a growing female
presence and even dominance among males in what had been a predominantly male
competition for status to win the best females (Tiger).
The prize is still the same. Winning means procreational success. Passing on
genes and accumulated winning behavioral and cultural traits is the prize.
The social organism, or the organic structures of society, is also competing for
survival. Genes make use of the socially constructed norms to react to
environmental changes in their bid to ensure the environment remains healthy for
succeeding generations. Just as bacteria create toxins that prevent
overpopulation at the expense of future survival so our social structure creates
social toxins that prevent human overpopulation. Selfishness or self-centered
metanarratives seem to be one way our genes decrease procreativity to protect
against overpopulation. Selfish individuals view children as competitive users
of personal resources and so fewer or no children result. First world societies
have reached zero population growth not counting emigration and children of
those relatively poor in resources.
Classical feminism introduced women into competition with males for male status.
Contemporary Gender feminists, or radical feminists are viewed by some as having
stolen feminism. Extreme examples of this movement consider sex as violence to
women. Descriptions, such as that of Andrea Dworkin’s book
Intercourse seem almost to describe heterosexual relations as though it were
males forcing sex on other males where the violence is a form of warfare to
destroy the status of weaker males. Even less extreme examples, such as
Betty Friedan, describe themselves as though they had male brains. Since a
female body can have a male brain, this might be a result of hardwiring at six
weeks on. Stresses on pregnant women may very well be the way the socially
constructed reality interacts to affect the developing fetus and prepare it for
the type of behavior required for social survival. Other contemporary women,
such as
Cybill Shepherd act like males with high status to mate with as many
partners of high (or low) status as possible, since chemicals can be used to
fake monthly pregnancies and control fertility. As Cybill says, she was a very,
very bad girl.
Christina Hoff Sommers argues that classical feminism achieved its goals but
contemporary radical feminists have stolen the movement and turned it into a
male bashing hate filled small clique. “Most American feminists, unwilling to be
identified as part of a cause they find alien, have renounced the label and have
left the field to the resenters.” (p.49)
While
Sommers feels that males and females are actually doing well despite the
hype (The
War Against Boys), there a others like
Lionel Tiger who argue that males are in decline as a result of direct
competition with females in female environments. This has been especially a
result of medical technology that gives females control over reproduction.
Robert Bly feels it is important that young males be able to follow the
stories that enable them to become men harking back to traditional male roles.
It is here that Sommers argues the movement to treat boys more like girls makes
them more violent instead of less. The disciplined, competitive but teamwork
military style of raising boys is the method that creates the best men. We
should stop the radical feminists from having such an impact on boys education
to correct the academic slide that we see boys experiencing compared to girls.
Notes:
“Over thousands of generations, a preference for men who showed signs of being willing and able to commit to them evolved in women”
During interviews conducted for the book, Dr. Segerstrale said, she discovered that some moral philosophers were outraged by sociobiology's adoption of the word "altruism" as a technical term. In that usage, it refers to an organism's sacrifice of itself to ensure that elements of its genome will be propagated by relatives -- hardly the version of Good Samaritanism that the word evokes for most people.
Steinem: Remember the '50s and '60s? Then, women were supposed to marry what we wanted to become--as in, "Marry a doctor, don't be one." In the '70s and '80s, some women started to say, "We are becoming the men we wanted to marry." But in the '90s, more men must become the women they wanted to marry.
Link to an interesting picture: http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/rousseau/rousseau.dream.jpg
Bibliography: (these are links to amazon.com)
Iron John: A Book About Men by Robert Bly
The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating by David M. Buss
Homicide (Foundations of Human Behavior) by Martin Daly, Margo Wilson. Hardcover (January 1988)
The Feeling of What Happens: Body
and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
by
Antonio R. Damasio
Life So Far, A Memoir by Betty Friedan
The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order by Francis Fukuyama (Paperback - June 2000)
In a Different Voice: Psychological
Theory and Women's Development
by
Carol Gilligan
Brain Sex by Anne Moir, David Jessel
From Kirkus Reviews,
April 15, 1991
If men and women are equal, why have males been the dominant sex
virtually throughout history? Here, geneticist Moir and BBC- TV writer-producer
Jessel argue convincingly that the answer lies in the difference between the
male and female brain. Writing with clarity and style, and documenting their
data every step of the way, Moir and Jessel explain how the embryonic brain is
shaped as either male or female at about six weeks, when the male fetus begins
producing hormones that organize its brain's neural networks into a male
pattern; in their absence, the brain will be female. Not surprisingly, there are
endless variations in degree of maleness, and mishaps can lead to a male brain
in a female body and vice versa. Moir and Jessel include a brain sex test that
lets the reader discover just how masculine or feminine his (or her) brain is.
For the nonscientist, they translate considerable research into the structural
and organizational differences between male and female brains, demonstrating how
these differences make men more aggressive and competitive and better at skills
that require spatial ability and mathematical reasoning, and women more
sensitive to nuances of expression and gesture, more adept at judging character.
Women, it seems, are more people-oriented than men, who are more interested in
things. Moir and Jessel assert that it is necessary to ``accept who we are
before arguing about what we should be,'' and that denying gender differences
means ignoring their value. A literate, entertaining, and, for some, surely
wrath- provoking presentation of scientific data about the differences between
the sexes.
Cybill Disobedience: How I Survived
Beauty Pageants, Elvis, Sex, Bruce Willis, Lies, Marriage, Motherhood,
Hollywood, and the Irrepressible Urge to Say What I Think
by
Cybill Shepherd,
Aimee Lee Ball (Contributor)
Who Stole Feminism? : How Women
Have Betrayed Women
by
Christina Hoff Sommers
The War Against Boys: How Misguided
Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men
by
Christina Hoff Sommers
Moving Beyond Words/Age, Rage, Sex,
Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking the Boundaries of Gender
by
Gloria Steinem
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem: Her Passions,
Politics, and Mystique
by
Sydney Ladensohn Stern
The Decline of Males by Lionel Tiger