A new feminism?
Echidne of the Snakes points out this Harvard professor’s speech on women and gender.
“We need a new feminism,†said Mansfield, the Kenan professor of government, “because we have a new way of life.â€
According to Mansfield, this change in traditional society has grown out of women’s desire to achieve success in the workplace and at home. In his lecture, entitled, “Feminism and The Autonomy of Womenâ€, the professor identified this problem as one arising from “radical feminism†which sought to “lower women to the level of men†in terms of sexual behavior.
Because, you know, radical feminists are all about men’s sexual behavior being perfect, and women just needing to adjust to it. That’s why Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon have gotten so much flack; everyone can see that they’re letting men off the hook big time.
Regarding that behavior, Mansfield wondered if “hook ups,†which he initially referred to as “polymorphous promiscuity†are good for women.
“Hook ups,†the perennially-dapper professor said, “will get you in a bad habit that is very hard to get rid of.â€
“By the age of 30, you see men,†he cautioned, “who are used to getting free samples†and will not enter into loyal, reliable relationships. Citing evolutionary biology research, Mansfield said that “men are interested in quantity, and women are interested in quality.â€
Wait a second. Do we women like promiscuity, or don’t we? Because, if we’re just naturally not interested in quantity, I don’t see why we should find it so horrendously difficult to lose the hook up habit. At least, assuming we’re willing to actually speak up for what we want, and that men will listen to us. But of course, radical feminists like Dworkin and MacKinnon are entirely against women speaking up, and don’t think men listening is such a good idea either.
Seriously, Maggie Gallagher does much better at the “hook ups are bad for women” argument than this guy. As in, she doesn’t wind up sounding, when she makes the argument, as if the problem with hook ups is that women are going to like them too much.
“Women play the men’s game, which they are bound to lose. Without modesty, there is no romance—it isn’t so attractive or so erotic,†said the professor.
Oddly enough, men gave me different feedback about what was erotic, back when I was in college.
Tracing the roots of “radical feminism†to the writings of the 20th-century French writer Simon De Beauvoir, Mansfield argued that the questions and confusion facing feminists arise from their attempt at achieving “autonomy†and asserting that “men and women have no distinct nature.â€
Mansfield appeared most comfortable when answering questions from the audience. He emphasized the role that nature plays in gender behavior and the necessity of the traditional family structure. Audience members questioned the professor on the validity of both contentions.
Snarkiness aside, a lot of the problem in this kind of argument is that “traditional family” has various meanings, so you may be able to slide from one meaning to another. How good is a “traditional family structure”? Good, I would say, if “traditional family structure” means that mothers and fathers both take responsibility and stand by their children. Less good, if “traditional family structure” means that husbands and wives had better stick to their God-given roles (even if a particular couple is better suited to order their lives differently), or that women really need to be sure to have their kids by the age of 25, and screw worrying about education and career (or being any too choosy about a husband), or that boys should have every “girly” toy taken away when they reach the age of five.
Same thing with the role nature plays in gender behavior. Does nature play a role in gender behavior? Sure, probably. Will we ever know how much of a role, relative to nurture? Not likely; we’re not ever going to live in the world where our environment is exactly the same. Should I get to be an engineer anyway, given that I can do the job as well as a man, and nothing in my chromosomes or anatomy precludes my doing it? Hell, yes.
And it doesn’t seem to me that we need a new feminism to allow women to want marriage and kids as well as jobs; the regular old feminism that I grew up with already allows for that.
October 21st, 2005 at 6:47 pm
I think what the good professor is saying, in the end, is that he feels the need to define a “new feminism” for his own comfort level. And that very generous of him, don’t you think? We should be thankful to be offered his guidance.
October 22nd, 2005 at 10:56 pm
I too would be willing to accept a “new feminism.” It’s not like there can be only one. I imagine I’d select someone other than an unimaginative, rather unexperienced evolutionary biologist to define it, however.
(Note: I am *not* casting aspersions on entire academic fields but I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a male sociobiologist or evolutionary psychologist specializing in human sexuality who didn’t also seem to be a beta male trying to justify why he couldn’t get laid in college.)
As I incautiously ranted in my own blog the other day, the social models of chastity proposed by the likes of Professor Mansfield or Bioethics chairman Leon Kass are barkingly inadequate. My first observation would be that I’m just barely old enough to remember that young women weren’t terribly autonomous before the sexual revolution and the advent of hookups either. Mansfield, who graduated in 1953, is old enough to remember this perfectly well. My second observation would be that, as you point out, Lynn, is that virtually all the young, highly non-chaste women who coupled with me with abandon have matured into stable, largely monogamous, socially and economically productive, and entirely moral (though not at all Moral Majority) partners, parents, and citizens. (As, I might add, have I!)
Perhaps some of those women, when the hectic years of childrearing and career establishment are behind them, will take the time to define a new “Feminism and the Autonomy of Women.” Neither Mansfield nor I are appropriate, nor competent, to do so for them.
A couple of other points:
- Claiming that hook-up culture “lowers women to the level of men” sounds remarkably like implicit pedestal-putting. It also sounds, as I’ve ranted about previously, as if Mansfield hates men if he imagines we’re naturally somehow lower than women instead of equal to them.
- Mansfield, Kass, and other men’s insistance that women behave more chastely than they’re naturally inclined to do amounts to delegation rather than autonomy. In addition, imposing gate-keeping, schoolmarmish chastity on women in turn allows men to behave like deplorable, rebellious school boys. In schoolyard terms this is like boys insisting that girls sit upright and forward on the see-saw so that they may in turn lean back. Yes, this puts the girls on the high end and the boys on the low end but this is an artifical balance that puts girls in a precarious position where they must scream for the boys to control themselves and the boys comfortably close to the ground where they need simply roll over to send the girl plunging.
- If Mansfield imagines that without modesty there is no romance then he needs to increase his sample size beyond his immediate, contemporary conspecifics. Furthermore it’s not at all clear to me how authentically romantic men can be if their ultimate motivation is the opportunity to peek up girl’s skirts. One also needs to consider the relative nature of modesty. Coeds at the very conservative Bob Jones university still dress in a manner that would shock the sensibilities of, for instance, Coptic Christians in Egypt yet they evidently find romance none the less. Where, exactly does one draw the line? To briefly disenter Karl Marx, “in the manner to which one is accustomed.” I’m perfectly prepared to believe that people who push or otherwise exceed their local, contemporary mores are more likely to become alienated and ostracised, but once the bar is moved in either direction (say, when Walmart begins to sell more g-strings than granny-panties or, alternately, when Victoria’s Secrets begins to sell more chadors than chimises) then individuals in the fat part of the behavioral Bell curve will find romance with no more or less difficulty than at any other time.
%&#!$*
Thanks, Lynn,
figleaf