On Feminism

[AHunter3]

Feminism, at least the form that caught on starting in the late 1960s, started out as a “fairness and equality” consideration that also contained the observation, right from the start, that the unfairness and inequality that was in evidence everywhere around us at that time mostly disempowered and oppressed women.

Before the start of the 1980s, radical feminism (in particular) had gone far beyond simply seeking parity between men and women in an otherwise-unchanging world. Instead, the world itself, its social structures and institutions and whatnot, came to be seen and understood as interwoven with sexual inequality, as either based on or as actually built for the purpose of enforcing women’s oppression. But I’m digressing: the basic twin forks remained, side by side, in feminist thinking, that

a) feminism is about the empowerment of women, because women are oppressed in the current social system; and

b) feminism is about removing sexual inequality and sexist restrictions and polarizations, including various social institutions that are build on them or enforce them, because they are not fair
To many people, statements a and b do not even appear to be saying two separate things. (How else would you empower women except by addressing sexual inequalities and getting rid of sex polarization in our structures and institutions? How else could addressing sexual inequality take place except as a process that empowers women?)

But if feminism is about empowering women regardless of whether they identify as feminist then in practice if not in (feminist) theory it comes to operate as an “identity politics”, what some would call a “special interest group”, favoring whatever is to the advantage of women.

On the other hand, if feminism is about opposing and dismantling patriarchy and eliminating sexual polarizations etc, then its participants and its goals, both short-term and extrapolated, are (at least potentially) going to involve males who also wish to eliminate those social systems.
None of this makes feminism “untrue to its original goals” or “inconsistent with its stated belief” or anything like that. It’s just that the twin goals make things complicated, especially when they appear (especially in consideration of short-term consequences) to be in conflict:

• A woman rises in stature within an academic department. She’s a dues-paying member of the Heritage Foundation and a harsh critic of feminism, a sex-role traditionalist, a social conservative. Her name is being bandied around for appointment to a committee that will address “women’s issues” on campus. She claims to be concerned about women’s issues, she want to protect women on campus from cultural messages that will lead them into self-destructive behaviors (such as sex-inappropriate interests, immoral sexual behaviors that will exploit them, adopting styles of dress that turn them into objects of men’s lusts) and she wants to change men’s attitudes towards women as well (resurrect chivalry, put women back on the pedestal as objects of respect, etc). Well, she’s a woman, so by what definition of feminism do feminists work against her instead of for her?

• A male professor writes several articles and books about patriarchy and feminism and feminist theory, building upon things already part of feminist theory, adding new research and making interesting new theoretical observations and claims. His ideas are useful tools for other feminists to use in their own analyses. The Women’s Studies Consortium meets to choose feminist theory textbooks that will constitute the backbone for the new Feminist Studies major. They also need to pick some professors who will set policy for the department. Well, he’s doing feminist theory, any reason not to include his books? How about naming him to the policy committee? OK, if we do that, sooner or later he will be arguing for an opinion or viewpoint that no one else on the committee agrees with, simply because sooner or later anyone on the committee will be in that position. Do we then hold it to be reasonably true that the male person in the room should be telling the others, women, what is the best course of action for feminism to take?

[LinusK]

JimmyChitwood: I apologize. I wrote post #179 at a time when I should have been asleep, and I spent more time on it than I should have. Anyway: the point is, some of it came out sounding hostile, and I apologize for that.

I really just meant to ask: how and when did you get the impression that “many many” fathers were bad fathers?

And to argue that whether or not that’s true - that many fathers are bad fathers - individual fathers should still be judged as individuals, not as members of a group. Doing otherwise is bad not just for fathers, but more importantly, for their children.

For a child, whether there are other bad fathers out there really doesn’t matter, if you’re fortunate enough to have a good one, and you’d be better off if your primary residence was with him, rather than your mom.

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

No worries. Thanks for that. To answer your questions: first of all, one of my central points here is that it’s not stereotyping that’s going on. It’s individual decisions in individual cases, which form an actual trend. I would be repeating that in response to almost all of your questions, so I’ll say it up front.

3.) Have you seen a handful of custody trials? If you have, is that enough evidence (for you) to decide that’s the “state of the game” - that men are bad fathers?

More than a handful, yes. “Men are bad fathers” is on you; I didn’t say men are bad fathers. I said in the vast majority of custody cases, the most reasonable decision is for mom to be the primary custodian, and so the fact that moms “win” primary custody more often doesn’t persuade me that there’s discrimination going on. I think, like the author of the thing you were talking about, that the statistics show something other than an unthinking bias against men.

4.) If the stereotype was “black men commit more crimes,” would you support store security following ALL black men around, to make sure they don’t commit crimes? Would the stereotype justify following ANY black man around?
5.) Would you tell black men “if a solution is needed, it IS [black] men changing the stereotype”?

No. No.
No.

6.) The question of whether custody or getting paid more is a question of values, isn’t it? Specifically, whether you value money more or less than your relationship with your child?

Yes, but that isn’t what I said. I said it’s a less significant problem. That’s because I haven’t seen any evidence of a systemic bias against fathers whereby good parents are deemed poor parents by virtue of being men. I don’t buy into the equivalence in the first place.

What do you consider the “vast, vast majority of households”? If your conclusion comes from watching custody hearings, can I ask why you were there, and what you were doing there? If it comes from somewhere else, where does it come from?

80% plus. I was there because I’m a lawyer. I was sitting at a table trying not to make faces at anyone and thinking about noodles, mostly.

If we’re talking about cases where “they’re both reasonably decent parents” why is “not a tough call”? If both are "reasonably decent parents, shouldn’t it be a tough call?

Custody is zero sum. You can’t say both mom and dad get gold stars, and they both get to have primary custody. You don’t have to be a bad person or a bad parent for it to make sense that the children should remain, the majority of the time, with the person who has done the majority of the parenting for the first four or eight or ten years of their lives. If the judge gives 4 nights a week to mom and 3 nights a week to dad, because they’re both reasonably decent parents (or comparably shitty ones, even) on the grounds that mom has been there for and been with the kids for most of their lives (which, grossly simplified, is what the law in every jurisdiction would call for), then dad “lost” that custody trial. And that case justifies this horseshit narrative about bias against men because they’re “bad fathers,” despite the absolute fact that ain’t nobody said anything like that about the actual person behind the statistic.

What it sounds like you’re saying is that if other fathers are bad fathers, good fathers should be punished too. What is the logic behind that?

It didn’t sound like that to me when I said it.

Also, I need to ask: you haven’t said anything about bad mothers. Are there any bad mothers out there?

Mhm.

I need to ask what “many many” means. I mean, I know there are some. My father was one. But what is the ratio? is it 100:1? 99:1? How do you know? Is it just “what’s out there”?

10 to 1, very conservatively speaking. It is not rare for a dad to have nothing to do with his kids while mom has a great deal to do with them. The inverse is quite rare by comparison. Personal observation. (Mine too, for whatever that’s worth.)

When you say “It’s just what’s out there,” it makes it sound like you’re talking about a bias, or stereotype. Do you know any good fathers? If you’re a man, and a father yourself, are you one?

I am not talking about a bias or a stereotype. I am talking about what you will see if you go sit in a family courtroom for a month and count every single father as one data point, and every single mother as one data point. I know some good fathers. I know some great ones. I don’t have kids, but I don’t anticipate being a terrible father by misfortune of my sex. There’s nothing about anything that I believe that requires me to be bad at parenting because I’m a man.