Paul Gottfried recently penned an article for LewRockwell.Com on The Trouble with Feminism which serves, inadvertently, as a good introduction to the problems with traditionalist anti-feminism.

Unlike equity feminism, which argues that women deserve equal rights but is extremely critical of attempts by radical feminists to go beyond that, traditionalist anti-feminism is in large measure opposed entirely to the notion of men and women as roughly equal and able to participate in the public and private sphere on equal terms. For Gottfried the distinction between equity/individualist feminism and radical feminism is a false one — both views are equally radical.

Serious conservative scholars like Allan Carlson and F. Carolyn Graglia have maintained that the change of women?s role, from being primarily mothers to self-defined professionals, has been a social disaster that continues to take its toll on the family. Rather than being the culminating point of Western Christian gentility, the movement of women into commerce and politics may be seen as exactly the opposite, the descent by increasingly disconnected individuals into social chaos.

Even more importantly, the distinction between “moderate” and “radical” feminists, which is basic to [Kenneth] Minogue?s essay, is not a significant difference. That distinction is in fact based on what neocons are willing to absorb of the feminist movement, as opposed to what they dislike, at least for the moment. It is also without historical justification to focus on the sui generis character of the latest phase of feminism and to treat it as discontinuous from what preceded it. The arguments made by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique were pulled from a polemical arsenal that, as Mrs. Graglia demonstrates, went back to feminists of the early twentieth century. Already in the interwar years, female professionals were organizing to push through a predecessor of the ERA. It may be assumed from Minogue?s observations that it was ok for feminists to unite to break down gender barriers and to enlist the state on their side before Betty Friedan came on the scene.

Whereas equity/individualist feminism supports the right of women to enter the workplace (or stay home and take care of children for that matter) but oppose affirmative action and other forms of special treatment for women, for Gottfried the entry of women into the work place itself is a disaster.

The message is driven home through his inclusion of F. Carolyn Graglia as one of the “serious conservative scholars” who opposes feminism. Like Gottfried, Graglia’s Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism argues that feminism has been a disaster because it has encouraged women to enter the public sphere which simultaneously denigrated the traditional homemaker role of women, which Graglia seems to believe is the one true role that best fits women. Her book is filled with claims such as “when a woman lives too much in her mind, she finds it increasingly difficult to live through her body.”

Graglia endorses Andrea Dworkin’s view of heterosexual sex as an act of domination by men of women, with the main difference being that Graglia finds this to be a good thing. She goes so far on this line of thinking as to approve of the goal — though not the method — of genital mutilation in keeping women’s sexual assertiveness in control. When Cathy Young highlighted this tidbit in a review for Reason magazine, Graglia responded in a letter-to-the-editor saying,

My purpose is to suggest that the fact that some cultures felt so threatened by female sexual assertiveness that they would resort to such draconian measures to prevent it should give pause to those feminist sexual revolutionaries who promote such assertiveness as part of their sexual prescription.

In other words, the “serious conservative scholars” are just as bad as the radical feminists at making outrageous, illiberal claims.

Source:

The Trouble with Feminism. LewRockwell.Com,

As I wrote about last week, feminists designated April 3, 2001 as Equal Pay Day to highlight alleged continued differences in pay for men and women. Activists touted claims made by a government study that women who worked on federal contracts made only 72 cents for every dollar a man makes. It turned out, however, that there was very little substance to that claim and the real message of Equal Pay Day should have been that women are, in fact, achieving parity with men in many fields.

It turns out the study that looked at government contracts was an unreleased, unpublished survey that had numerous problems. As an Office of Management and Budget memo noted ,”Spells of not participating in the labor force (such as for child rasiing) are not included. These spells reduce both the experience and the continuity of experience, which can reduce wages.”

Or as Peter Jennings summed it up on ABC News, the study “doesn’t take into account age, experience, hours or even the job itself” when comparing wage rates. Those are some pretty important factors to leave out of any analysis that wants to accurately look at wage rates rather than just serve as political fodder (with this study apparently preferring to perform the latter role).

Meanwhile, a new study by the Employment Policy Foundation highlighted the enormous gains that women have made in the work force over the last decade. The Foundation look at the top ten occupations in which women’s participation increased the most in the last ten years. These included,

veterinarians (female vets have increased from less than 2 percent to 43 percent); top public administrators (37 percent are now women, compared to 4 percent in 1989); math & science teachers (increased 6-fold), chemistry teachers (increased 4-fold); industrial engineers (22 percent are now women, compared to 6 percent in 1989); dentists (increased 4-fold); car salespeople (increased 3-fold); messengers (increased 3-fold); physicians assistants (increased from 20 percent to 58 percent); and members of the clergy (6 percent of clergy members were women in 1989 compared to 18 percent today). Of the 497 occupations tracked by the government, women have increased their representation in 106 job categories.

The interesting thing for the issue of pay equity, however, was how much women in those fields, on average made. For women aged 23 to 35, the average weekly earnings was $823 per week, while for men 23 to 35, the average weekly earnings was $813. Women actually earned an average of 101 percent of what men did. The additional earnings were, of course, statistically insignificant, but a testimony to the fact that men and women with similar qualifications and similar experiences do in fact earn similar wages.

Looking at older men and women, women 35-44 earned only 80 percent of what mend di, and women aged 45-54 earned only 75 percent of what men earned per week, but this was accounted for because older women worked fewer hours, on average, than older men. When the wages of older male and female workers are compared on an hourly basis, men and women in these ten fields earned the same amount of money at every age level.

EPF vice president DJ Nordquist summed up the finidngs by saying,

Women are clearly making great strides in the workplace. Women are consciously deciding to go into fields traditionally dominated by men and they are proving that their work contributions are just as valuable — as can be evidenced by equal paychecks. Any type of pay disparity in these groups can be accounted for simply by the hours of work women put in compared to men, which may be attributable to non-work commitments, such as family. Overall, the news for working women is good. Biology is not and should not be a factor in occupational choice.

Some very good news for Equal Pay Day.

Sources:

Equal Pay Day Report a Bust. National Center for Policy Analysis, April 5, 2001.

Women Breaking Through Male-Dominated Fields. Employment Policy Foundation, Press Release, April 3, 2001.

Occasionally some newspaper or television stations runs a story about antiquated laws. These are typically laws passed early in the 19th century which make it illegal to do any number of things that make contemporary Americans wonder what our ancestors were thinking. Such laws are often used for amusement purposes, but there’s an important reason to purge them from the books — occasionally judges decide to enforce them.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carl Horn, for example, is busy enforcing a North Carolina law passed in 1805 which makes it illegal for residents of that state to cohabitate. Typically Horn enforces the law during bail hearings that come before him. One of the questions he asks those seeking to be released on bond is whether or not they are living with a member of the opposite sex. If they are, but are not married, Horn denies the bond request until the two marry or stop living together.

A story in The Charlotte Observer seemed to find this situation amusing, but it’s a little absurd to have the federal government dictating living arrangements in this way. Some of the folks faced with staying in jail or getting married choose to get married, which Horn seems to see as a success. One has to wonder, however, how many of these quickie marriages done to satisfy a bail requirement really last.

Such laws need to be vacated by the legislature.

Source:

Halt cohabitating or no bail, judge tells defendants. Eric Frazier and Gary L. Wright, The Charlotte Observer, April 5, 2001.

Marjorie Williams recently angered some feminist organizations with a Washington Post column charging that the reason feminists aren’t more prominent in the fight against smoking is that they have been bought out by tobacco companies who donate large amounts of money to some women’s groups.

According to Williams, although a recent Surgeon General’s report, “Women and Smoking,” found that 30 percent of high school senior girls are smokers, women’s groups are busy fighting more amorphous, if trendy, issues. She complains,

The Feminist Majority Foundation’s Web site is all over the issue of gender apartheid in Afghanistan. The National Organization for Women is eager to apprise Web surfers of the state of political parity in French city councils. But you’ll search long and hard among the sites of the leading women’s organizations to find the news that 27,000 more women died of lung cancer than of breast cancer last year. The Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues listed 30 measures related to women’s health on its agenda for the last session of Congress, ranging from breast feeding rights to research on lupus, but smoking — the leading cause of preventable death among women — appeared nowhere on its list.

Okay, Williams does have a point about the excessively narrow focus that women’s groups have on breast cancer, but for the most part it is hard to agree with her analysis. First, as several women’s groups — included the Feminist Majority Foundation — pointed out in reply to Williams, they are active in anti-smoking efforts.

Second, is feminist involvement in anti-smoking efforts really going to make any difference? Is there any American alive today, including high school seniors, who isn’t aware that smoking dramatically increases the risk of lung cancer? Williams could have just as easily pointed to the various men’s movement organizations, none of whom to my knowledge has made lung cancer a pressing issue even though, as Williams acknowledges, more men still die from the disease than women. But why should they get involved? The risks of smoking are well-publicized in other venues.

Williams seems to think there is something particularly wretched about the fact that Phillip Morris, through donations it makes, includes an item in its annual report that it is the largest private source of money for battered women’s programs.

I’m not sure why feminists should feel guilty for accepting donations from a legal industry unless Williams agrees with the radical feminists that women simply are not moral actors and cannot make choices in their personal lives such as whether or not to smoke.

Source:

This kills women. Do feminist groups even care? Marjorie Williams, The Washington Post, April 11, 2001.