The really odd thing about Sommers is that she can be more reasonable. It’s puzzling that she finds it worthwhile or fun to be so belligerent and sneery on Twitter. Ordinarily feminists who disagree with each other disagree with each other as opposed to pissing all over feminism as such. Sommers keeps pissing all over feminism itself.
She tweeted a link to a January article of hers in Reason, so I read it. I don’t agree with it, but it’s not vulgarly insulting the way her Twitter output is.
She’s explaining her book Freedom Feminism in response to a review she says misrepresented it.
Freedom feminism stands for the moral, social, and legal equality of the sexes—and the freedom of women (and men) to employ their equal status to pursue happiness as they choose. Freedom feminism is not at war with femininity or masculinity and it does not view men and women as opposing tribes. Theories of universal patriarchal oppression or the inherent evils of capitalism are not in its founding tablets. Nor are partisan litmus tests: It welcomes women and men from across the political spectrum. Put simply, freedom feminism affirms for women what it affirms for everyone: dignity, opportunity, and personal liberty.
(“Founding tablets” is a little insulting, but only a little; mild compared to her Twitter personality.) The as they choose bit is a warning, because I know she considers preferences to be sacrosanct, and that’s one of the places where I disagree with her.
Freedom feminism shares with egalitarianism an aversion to prescribed gender roles: Women should be free to defect from the stereotypes of femininity if they so choose. At the same time, however, it respects the choices of free and self-determining women—when they choose to embrace conventional feminine roles. Nowhere do I say women should stay in the home or that women who defy convention are “aberrations.” I simply note that, to the consternation of hardline contemporary genderists, many women, when given their full set of Jeffersonian freedoms, continue to give priority to the domestic sphere. Somehow in Presley’s mind “giving priority” means a total rejection of the workplace. Not at all. But many women, especially when they have children at home, do appear to have a strong preference for working part-time.
I’m not really sure what she’s fighting with there. I don’t know of any feminists – however “hardline genderist” they may be – who think women should be forbidden to work part-time, or forced to work full-time. Maybe what she’s fighting with is the thought that if social arrangements were such that both parents could spend more time with their young children than is practical now, then maybe choices would start to change. Is that it? If it is…it doesn’t seem enough to explain her rage at feminists. That’s true not least because surely it could be a good thing for children to spend a lot of time with their fathers as well as their mothers when they’re small? (Once they’re not small they mostly just want to get away, let’s face it.) It could be a good thing for the fathers, too.
In other words the preferences people have now aren’t necessarily the preferences they would have no matter what, so what is so wrong with trying to change conditions so that people can try different possibilities?
That’s article-writing Sommers. Twitter Sommers is just a brawler. (Maybe it’s because Dawkins keeps sharing her tweets? Maybe she’s enjoying the popularity?) Like this from 3 hours ago:
Christina H. Sommers @CHSommers · 3h
Going on Michael Savage Show in few minutes to talk about feminist
Myths and Ms.Information.
See what she did there? Ms. Information? Isn’t that cute? Dawkins retweeted that one.
I don’t know. She claims to be a feminist but she’s devoting all her energies to helping people like Michael Savage piss on feminism. That’s a funny kind of feminism.
It seems pretty clear she wants to sell the idea that feminists who aren’t her are aghast at the thought that a woman might choose not to work full time, because something something Phyllis Schlafly was right. Lying about your opponents is a good racket. It’s the kind of thing that works well with people like Michael Savage.
I wonder why Dawkins isn’t as supportive of S.E. Cupp. Same schtick, after all. I’m one of the good ones, but those others….well, those stories about their
blood libel/wanting to castrate all men/ban Christmas are entirely true.Or am I way off base in intepreting her straw gender feminists?
The “I simply note” is the starting point where it becomes a problem for me. It always seems she and others think that culture doesn’t apply pressure to people. “Whelp, that’s just how it is. I can only simply note how it is. There’s no cause. History totally has no more effect on people today. It’s all free choice and nobody feels any pressure that they’re ‘supposed to’ do anything because of their gender.”
If people really naturally gravitate to these roles, why is it that there’s so much gender role policing in society? If it’s natural, why would there be any social pressure? It would just happen.
The problem with this freedom to defect from the stereotypes of femininity may perhaps be illustrated by actual experience of trying to do it.
At 16, wishing to deflect only slightly by talking politics or going to university, I ran into the women don’t do that / you’ll never get a husband meme. That time in a relatively laid-back, liberal, non-conformist community.
At 72 I never know when I will run into someone who truly believes that his 3 years or so of politics beats my 50+ and that I should sit quietly at his feet and learn (Twitter a couple of days ago) or when someone will pop up somewhere on FtB with the revelation that women’s brains are inherently so different etc that they cannot possibly understand their own experience. And he believes it!
Yes, it’s the same stereotype! Unless we address why it exists, bring out again all the confirmation that it is unscientific and damaging and work out who the hell keeps passing on this nonsense to the next generation of naive youth then we are probably not feminists at all but mere observers.
The hole which exists between the rights we have on paper and the rights we get to exercise freely is a perfectly proper field of study. The fact that the hole changes shape with variables such as geography, sexuality, race should surely be fascinating to a scholar.
Maureen @3, you left out “age” from your example list. 😉
Off topic sorry, but there’s a poll here that badly needs Pharyngulating if someone could please put it on that blog :
http://www.ninemsn.com.au/?rf=true
Do you believe global warming is man-made?
Currently : Yes = 38,031 vs No = 32,450
[meta + OT]
StevoR, I draw your attention for “The withdrawing room”: The place for everything random and miscellaneous: the land of the off-topic, the haven for gossip and arbitrary questions.
(Look in the sidebar, above the archives)
Put simply, freedom feminism affirms for women what it affirms for everyone: dignity, opportunity, and personal liberty.
…with absolutely no use of state power to enforce what she claims to “affirm.” Standard libertarian bullshit pretending to be “feminist.”
…many women, when given their full set of Jeffersonian freedoms, continue to give priority to the domestic sphere.
And how many women are “given their full set of Jeffersonian freedoms?” And what policies, exactly, does she advocate to ensure that more women have those freedoms?
What a strange person..
I’ve heard this claim of libertarian feminism before. It generally appeals to very few women. It does appeal to misogynistic libertarian men, though. Like most libertarian claims, it completely ignores the reality of problems for the sake of lofty rhetoric about choice and freedom.
The idea fails for the simple reason that most libertarians believe feminism is directly contrary to libertarianism.
I know what libertarians and feminists believe about sex and pregnancy discrimination, but I don’t know what feminist libertarians think about that (because they’re on opposite sides). I know what “fairness” means to libertarians and feminists. But I don’t know what “fairness” means to feminist libertarians.
Here’s an article from 2012 A Feminist Libertarian Dilemma where a feminist libertarian discusses this problem and doesn’t come to any practical conclusion.
Cultural/social environments have no impact on people because shut up. /s
Note, too, that she still seems heavily invested in maintaining normative gender roles* while giving lip service to the ability to defy them** (as one cannot “defect from” them – also note the loaded, tribalist language – unless they exist, advocating for the right to defy gender roles is implicitly arguing for the continuation of those gender roles as normative constructs, as opposed to e.g. arguing for elimination of gender categories entirely). The only way to reconcile those beliefs is if one thinks normative social constructs do not exist – that which is normalized exerts no influence (and certainly no coercive influence) on anyone, hence my opening line. This is fairly obviously wrong, as one can easily demonstrate with transcultural or transhistorical comparisons of social norms and contemporaneous behavior.
Such an attitude suggests a kind of essentialist individualism, of the, “But advertising doesn’t affect me!” variety. My guess is it’s mostly an ego-defense for people whose sense of self is predicated on hyperindividualism, for whom the idea that external forces influence their thinking and behavior is an existential threat (same for the usual denial of any impact of social environment presently common in ‘Libertarian’ circles, hence related ideas like racial essentialism and the victim-blaming of the poor common to such discourses).
*”Freedom feminism is not at war with femininity or masculinity…”
**”Women should be free to defect from the stereotypes of femininity if they so choose.“
This would seem to go with what I was saying a few days ago about veils in Islam. Peer pressure; it’s a real thing. And we seem to forget just how impactfull it is, even though Asch demonstrated this for us years ago. So when Sommers says, “I simply note that, to the consternation of hardline contemporary genderists, many women, when given their full set of Jeffersonian freedoms, continue to give priority to the domestic sphere,” she is wrong because decision making is not simple (and, therefore, one cannot “simply note” anything about decision making). “Jeffersonian freedoms,” from what I can tell, do not take into consideration peer pressure. As you say, “In other words the preferences people have now aren’t necessarily the preferences they would have no matter what.” I’m not sure Sommers is grasping this as she may be failing to consider additional factors like peer pressure.
The existence of ‘free and self-determining women’ is only possible because ‘conventional feminine roles’ are no longer compulsory.
A ‘freely chosen feminine role’ is no longer conventional. The Burka is not a fashion statement.
Maybe she should be called the Bjørn Lomborg of feminism.
That’s what it sounds like to me, too.
I also think she would be quite happy to have the “freedom feminism” frase (phrase) go viral.
When I read “freedom feminism” in the quote, I hear “consider a completely frictionless invisible background culture.” (And, hey, look at the women swimming freely about in that culture, not experiencing any ‘pressure’.)