We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day “If feminism ever succeeds in making men and women full-fledged equals (for what else might?), we will be able to stop talking about whether women genuinely belong to the literary canon. Maybe there will even come a time when we can speak of Jane Austen without thinking of her as a female. Then comments like Naipaul’s will be universally mocked as the sexist “tosh” they so obviously are. Whenever this comes about, Jane Austen will still be a great author.”
– Audrey Bilger.
She is having a go at VS Naipaul, and even though I dislike aspects of feminism, I think her argument deserves respect. An interesting piece.
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“If feminism ever succeeds in making men and women full-fledged equals (for what else might?)…”
Durr… I dunno… capitalism?
(Link)
Feminism is Marxist class-warfare in drag – the feminists merely substitute arguments on “class” for arguments on “gender” – and Marxism is finished.
Religion is the main threat to the West though the feminists(Link) are too stupid to realise that.
I thought feminism promoted the idea that women are superior to men. Well, one variety does – the type that controls most feminist movements.
Alan K. Henderson,
I see what you’re getting at, but I think your statement is misleading. Feminism can be understood as a vain attempt to mold women into men via cultural pressures.
By measuring the achievements of women according to how they compare with the achievements of men in traditionally masculine pursuits, feminists devalue femininity by implying that masculine pursuits are more worthy than feminine pursuits.
So feminists actually think men are superior to women, but they wish this weren’t so. In a way, feminists want women to be better than men at being men.
Now, so-called moderate feminists want women to simply have the opportunities men have traditionally had. There are three key problems with this:
1. They can only achieve this through the use of force via government laws. This a problem of morality.
2. As comedian Bill Burr has put it, “they look at a man’s life as a buffet”. For instance, they want women more evenly represented among doctors, lawyers, CEOs, and politicians, but they don’t seem to focus too heavily on women being more evenly represented among janitors, coal miners, soldiers, and truck drivers. This is a problem of principle.
3. They overlook the harmful consequences of feminism by disregarding the well-documented effects of fatherless families, for example. Enter: the breakdown of the traditional family and falling birth rates. The is a problem of utility.
I have to take exception to Austen as “sentimental.” She certainly holds her characters in some affection (as opposed to Dickens, who works his with the loving-kindness of a Nineteenth Century mill owner), but she is absolutely clear about their failings; and, Aunt to the World that she is, she is endlessly tolerant of them.
But sentimental? Not a bit.
“There is no female Mozart for the same reason there is no female Jack The Ripper.” — Camille Paglia
…and Austen will still be a great author.
Did she write some military science fiction that I am unaware of?
I’m no Austen fan so take my comments with a pinch of salt but whilst her works arguable should be considered on the same level of men, it would probably be a mistake to ignore that she’s a woman when considering her works.
One can only hope that feminism will never succeed in making women equivalent to men. Jane Austen is a great author, and only a fool or a bigot would exclude her from the “literary canon”. But any serious consideration of her work must consider her gender.
Heck, even if in some ultra-feminist dystopian future, men and women were made equivalent, Jane Austen would still have been a woman in her time and when she wrote, and importantly different from her male contemporaries in that respect.
Sanity Inspector; Nothing to be proud of but, http://www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2011/10-infamous-female-serial-killers/ As for Paglia, pah.
Similarly: “Stop talking about it!“
In logic “equals” means “the same in all respects as”.
If all these discussions had instead used the word “parity”, meaning “of the same value” we would have been spared decades of pointless claptrap.
Indeed, Mike.
If we were all the same, or equal, or equivalent, or what have you, human society could not have existed: we need each other and interact with each other because we are all different, and gender is just one of the myriad other differences that makes us useful to each other. To me, any demand for equality other than that before the law, is pure evil.
Feminism has been discredited in the last few decades by radical nutjobs, but, along with the contraceptive pill, its been the crux of the development modern society. Try living in a society that hasn’t had a feminism movement and you’ll get culture shock
The traditional role of a female is basically a life- contract prostitute. Thatcher said she owed nothing to feminism, she was wrong (a rare occurrence). All too often you think of feminists as these batsh&t insane lefties but in reality a feminist just believes in the intellectual equality of women. Feminism defined modern social structures and Europe/North America is a much better place for it
ManikMonkee, I’m not sure that the early proponents of equal treatment of women before the law (such as the suffragettes) can be properly labeled as ‘feminists’ in the contemporary sense. I’m guessing that maybe that was what Thatcher had in mind.
Hit ‘post’ too soon…In any case, what I am certain about is that the left has hijacked that early movement and its terminology, just as it did with the civil-rights movement.
ManikMonkee-
There are feminists and then there are feminists.
I had an instructor in college once, who claimed there to be a distinction between “liberal” feminists and “radical” feminists. One was just interested in equal legal legal status for women, said as though he thought it to be a bad thing. The other only used that for an intermediate step on the way to a whole leftard agenda. He seemed very proud of being the latter.
The instructor self-described as a Marxist, so I spent the semester alternating between picking as many fights as I could and still getting a D, and cutting class to go fishing, so there may have been a subtlety that I missed while in pursuit of Ictaluridae in all their gloriously-tasty forms.
I’ll be happy to see a world in which women are equal to men, but can women really take at much degradation?
ErisGuy: flattery can only take you so far:-)
For whatever reasons, different careers and positions in society will attract different levels of admiration, and lets face it: envy.
Women have traditionally been in positions in society that have attracted the least envy. Many men are also in positions that do not attract envy.
So the situation of inequality could be changed by:
1) redefining what constitutes an enviable position in society.
In my view, many of those positions held by men that attract envy, such as politicians, CEOs, and businessmen generally, do not deserve being envied. At least holding these positions should not be seen as indicative of worth (of course you might still envy the salaries that go with them), as these positions are largely obtained by luck, bluster and sharp elbows. It would be a better world if it was engineers that were the most envied. I am painfully aware that a poor economics graduate such as myself would have to hunt squirrels for food if it were not for them.
A strong indicator of to which extent a society has achieved equality of perception of worth of the sexes, is likely to be the extent to which general equality between people has been achieved. I.e. the extent to which society is ‘flat’. I certainly think this is a fair observation with respect to the Scandinavian societies.
Please note that I am not advocating anything here, although I do think it would be a very good thing if the mystique around ‘men of power’ such as CEOs and politicians were to disappear.
2) Living with the current value framework of society, but getting more women into those occupations that are envied.
I have some sympathy for those who would impose male/female quotas on the boards of public companies and other high profile positions in society. At this level you tend to operate as a generalist; doing reasonably well amounts to not screwing up (and god knows this is true of politicians). Surely there are plenty of women capable of this? (I jest). Of course, such interference is an unacceptable infringement of liberty. In practical terms though, I don’t think the infringement of liberty would be very severe.
Ultimately of course, as a libertarian I do not believe that ‘something must be done’, but I would prefer to live in a society that does not envy positions the obtainment of which requires a certain amount of psychopath(y?).
I think the best way forward is for women to play a much greater role in writing the narrative of society. This should be much simpler now, when most people, in the west at least, do not doubt the intellectual equality of men and women. Hopefully this would over time move society’s value framework to one which does not envy positions obtainable mostly only through male aggressive traits.
“I have some sympathy for those who would impose male/female quotas on the boards of public companies and other high profile positions in society.”
Not I. I see lots of companies’ annual reports, and usually read the bios of the directors I am being asked to vote on. An extremely large percentage of the women directors (and you’d be hard pressed to find any major corporation without some) are clearly there solely because of their gender; there is nothing in their background which evinces any basis for assuming that they bring anything of value to the boardroom. Most are from nonprofit organizations or academia, neither of which has much relevance to business. My bet is that in actual board meetings their contribution is close to nil.
People should be promoted and selected for board memberships solely on the basis of competence and relevant experience, nothing more. Sex (or, for that matter, other irrelevant attributes such as race) shouldn’t enter into it. Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear that demonstrable merit is not among the selection criteria for many women directors, and it does not benefit their companies in the slightest.
PeterT,
ManikMonkee,
Ah, yes, the intellectual equality of the sexes – the modern equivalent of believing the sun revolves around the earth, despite all empirical evidence suggesting otherwise.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm
http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/women_and_minorities_in_science.htm
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/29/news/mn-39684
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/SexDifferences.aspx
I was smited, yet again. A rephrase:
PeterT,
ManikMonkee,
The thing about the intellectual equality of the sexes is that it doesn’t exist. Believing it does exist is the modern equivalent of believing the sun revolves around the earth, despite all empirical evidence suggesting otherwise.
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/29/news/mn-39684 is 1 of thousands of links proving my view.