Feminists Go Low

It's a new year, it's a new world. Donald Trump is president (what the heck?) and feminists are nasty and proud of it. 

Hello, 2017.

It's the nasty woman thing that's on my mind this morning. 

It wasn't too long ago when the slogan of the left was, in response to Mr. Trump's incivil campaign and uncouth persona, "When they go low, we go high." In fact, it was Michelle Obama who introduced the phrase July of last year, speaking at the Democratic National Convention:

Very effective. A devastating rebuke to Trump and his supporters. 

So much for slogans. 

Michelle Obama may have gone high, but her sisters--at least, the sisters at Saturday's Women's March in Washington D.C. and elsewhere around the globe--went low. As in, into the gutter, low. They were as crude and uncouth as the man they condemn.

Way to keep things classy, ladies. 

I did not march on Saturday. 

Not because I march to the tune of my own drummer (though I tend to). 

Not because I don't much like bandwagons (which is true). 

Not because I don't support women's rights (but really, women's rights are not at risk, in spite of the over-the-top rhetoric). 

I didn't march because I'm not in solidarity with the brand of feminism this event represents. These women do not speak for me. These feminists do not represent me. 

Back in the 90's, Christina Hoff Sommers wrote a book called Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. One of the best blurbs on the back of the book is, "Sommers has done something lethally deflating to the pretensions of the shriller sort of feminists: she looked at their evidence and found it lacking." Sommers debunks evidence feminists use related to issues such as domestic violence, rape, wage disparity, and anorexia, to name a few. Her objective is not to minimize the seriousness of these issues but to peel away the hyperbole in order to confront them realistically. She writes: 

"Statistics and studies on such provocative subjects as eating disorders, rape, battery, and wage differentials are used to underscore the plight of women in the oppressive gender system and to help recruit adherents to the gender feminist cause. But if the figures are not true, they almost never serve the interests of the victimized women they concern. Anorexia is a disease; blaming men does nothing to help cure it. Battery and rape are crimes that shatter lives; those who suffer must be cared for, and those who cause their suffering must be kept from doing further harm. But in all we do to help, the most loyal ally is truth. Truth brought to public light recruits the best of us to work for change. On the other hand, even the best intentioned 'noble lie' ultimately discredits the finest cause" (page 189).

Sommers describes herself as an equity feminist, which she contrasts with the gender feminists whose values were expressed during Saturday's march by its most celebrated leaders (for a brief explanation of the distinction between gender feminism and equity feminism, go here). It's Sommers' brand of feminism that I identify with. She rejects the argument of the gender feminists, that "women are trapped in a sex-gender system, that gender roles are arbitrarily defined, and [that] the purpose is to convince women that they are victims." Rather, she embraces the "classical feminism that got us the suffrage, that got us equity in education, that continues to get us equality of opportunity" (I read these comments in an interview, which I linked below). 

Sommers critiques the gender feminists for being anti-man as opposed to being pro-woman. It's an important distinction. The face of Saturday's march was primarily the face of the gender feminist, full of rage and contempt. The rage was ostensibly focused on the new president. But as many have rightly noted, the march was not solely about Donald Trump. He's a convenient target--easy to mock, easy to revile. But what else did this march represent? Which branch of feminism did it champion? Certainly not Christina Hoff Sommers' branch--the gender feminists despise her. Certainly not the New Wave Feminists' branch. Pro-life feminists were prohibited from sponsoring the march. 

Where does that leave women like me? Feminism is a huge, sprawling tree with lots of branches. Where do I fit on this great tree? I was chatting with a friend about all this, sharing some of these thoughts as they were evolving and worrying about going public on this blog. She challenged me to think about what I hoped to contribute to this discussion. "What brand of feminism would represent you," she asked. "Do you feel the need to march with other like-minded women? If so, why?" When I suggested that maybe Christina Hoff Sommers should update her book or even write a new book ("Reclaiming Feminism" would be the title), she said I should write my own book. 

I was chatting with another friend who read these thoughts as they were evolving. "How does someone like you," she asked, "someone who doesn't feel the need to denigrate men but who supports the fundamental principles of the feminist movement, an English teacher with a shy side that steers clear of mobs, how does someone like you get your voice heard? Keep writing, regardless of the negative response it may generate! Use Twitter and Facebook to encourage greater understanding of the difference between gender and equity! And write that book!" 

Well, I'm pretty sure that won't happen. But if I did write a book, I might start with where this blog entry began: When they go low, we go high. The "face of feminism" that was presented to the world in the aftermath of Saturday's march was, to be blunt, vulgar. But, as I said, that face doesn't represent me. And I suspect it doesn't represent a vast majority of women who call themselves feminists. I happen to know many women who marched on Saturday. These women are not vulgar. Quite the opposite. They are kind, loving, honest, intelligent, thoughtful, courageous, decent, classy people. 

I'm sure each of us has different issues we care about. Our politics or ideologies may differ. But if there's a shared commitment among us to show respect for people of different races, genders (including men!), religious views, educational backgrounds, political leanings--in other words, if there's a shared commitment to "go high"--then these are the women I would proudly march alongside on a cold January morning.

I didn't see their faces splashed on the front pages of newspapers or cluttering the news feeds of social media. But this is the face of feminism I'd like to reclaim. 

******** 

The Future of Feminism: An Interview with Christina Hoff Sommers (Scott London)

Recommended Reading: Who Stole Feminism?

Just finished Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women, by Christina Hoff Sommers (1994). Back in the 90's, Sommers (Hoff Sommers?) was an associate professor of philosophy at Clark University who specialized in contemporary moral theory. She now is a resident scholar at American Institute Enterprise (AEI). Her bio says she earned her Ph.D. at Brandeis University, and her research areas are Morality in American Society, Feminism and American Culture, and American Adolescents. Besides Who Stole Feminism?, she wrote The War Against Boys, (2001, but she's now updating), a college textbook on ethics called Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, and The Science on Women and Science (2009).

So we're dealing with an academic here.

Sommers describes herself as an equity feminist, which she says is different from a gender feminist. Put simply, the equity feminists are continuing their crusade in the spirit of the so-called First Wave of feminism, the chief objective of which was (and is) equity, especially, Sommers writes, in the arenas of politics and education: "A First Wave, 'mainstream,' or 'equity' feminist wants for women what she wants for everyone: fair treatment, without discrimination." This is what was at the heart of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. And Sommers believes that "by any reasonable measure, equity feminism has turned out to be a great American success story."

The gender feminists (aka Second Wave) disagree. According to Sommers, these women espouse a more radical doctrine, "that women, even modern American women, are in thrall to a system of male dominance." 

It's actually kind of bizarre. Here's how it's explained in the book:

"According to one feminist theorist, the sex/gender system is 'that complex process whereby bi-sexual infants are transformed into male and female gender personalities, the one destined to command, the other to obey.' Sex/gender feminism ('gender feminism,' for short) is the prevailing ideology among contemporary feminist philosophers and leaders."

In its early days, this ideology lacked a grass roots constituency, but it has since spread like crabgrass (to build on that metaphor) and is now deeply rooted in society, particularly in academia, and, not incidentally, our political and social landscape. Like crabgrass, their ideology is so firmly entrenched in our way of thinking that it's virtually impossible to root out.

It's the gender feminists and their agenda that Sommers takes on in this book; hence, the "controversy" mentioned on the front cover. She tackles head on many of the now-accepted myths that the gender feminists propagated and which a compliant or intimidated media never challenged.

I love Christina Hoff Sommers. I love how she does her homework. She doesn’t blithely accept claims made by gender feminists at face value simply because they say so. The media didn't question their data. The politicians (useful idiots?) meekly went along with the gender feminists' demands for change, based on their data. Universities stepped aside and allowed the gender feminists to take over every aspect of academia, including hiring and tenure.

But not Christina. There she is, not only ensconced in her ivory tower, examining the studies, reading the original research reports (some of which were difficult to access), doing her own analysis of the numbers and discovering that the numbers didn't add up, but also attending gender feminist conferences, debating gender feminists in formal settings, calling people whom no one else bothered to call, speaking with the original researchers who were often surprised to see their data misinterpreted.

The result of all this is this remarkable book. One by one, she debunks their claims. As one book reviewer wrote, "Christina Hoff Sommers has done something lethally deflating to the pretensions of the shriller sort of feminists: she looked at their evidence, and found it lacking. . . Sommers has painstakingly tracked down the sources of many often-quoted (but untrue) stories used in feminist scriptures to prove to the naive and credulous that American women as a class are oppressed and miserable" (Linda Seebach, June 5, 1994). Some of the myths Sommers debunks (in no particular order):

• Adolescent girls suffer from low self-esteem
• Teachers pay more attention to boys than they do to girls
• One in four women will be raped
• More women are abused on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day in the year
• The "rule of thumb" measure 
• The wage disparity between men and women

Though slightly dated, this book reveals a disturbing trend that seems to be continuing even today: Truth doesn’t matter. Data are irrelevant. More important than facts is the message. In other words, “It’s the narrative, stupid.” 

Christina Hoff Sommers is a feminist, but she's also a scholar. More than that, she's intellectually honest. Of course she cares about women. She cares about girls who suffer from anorexia. She cares about victims of domestic violence. She cares about wage disparity. She cares about rape. But it's truth she's after, not hyped, exaggerated, or misinterpreted data. Here's what she wrote in a chapter called "Noble Lies":

"But if the figures are not true, they almost never serve the interests of the victimized women they concern. Anorexia is a disease; blaming men does nothing to help cure it. Battery and rape are crimes that shatter lives; those who suffer must be cared for, and those who cause their suffering must be kept from doing further harm. But in all we do to help, the most loyal ally is truth. Truth brought to public light recruits the best of us to work for change. On the other hand, even the best intentioned ‘noble lie’ ultimately discredits the finest cause."

I love how she concludes the book. In trying to find some common ground with the gender feminists, who maligned her personally and tried to discredit her professionally, she writes:

". . . I do like the the features they share with classical feminism: a concern for women and a determination to see them fairly treated. We very much need that concern and energy, but we decidedly do not need their militant gynocentrism and misandrism. It's too bad that in the case of the gender feminists we can't have the concern without the rest of the baggage. I believe, however, that once their ideology becomes unfashionable, many a gender feminist will quietly divest herself of the sex/gender lens through which she now views social reality and join the equity feminist mainstream. I do not think this will happen tomorrow, but I am convinced it will happen. Credos and intellectual fashions come and go but feminism itself--the pure and wholesome article first displayed at Seneca Falls in 1848--is as American as apple pie, and it will stay."

Sommers wrote those optimistic words in 1994. Have things changed? I'm not so sure. I just read an article that she wrote November 4, 2012. It was called "Wage Gap Myth Exposed--by Feminists." She cites the same organization that she wrote about in Who Stole Feminism? They're still promoting their false narrative. 

So I'm not sure much has changed. But I'm glad Christina Hoff Sommers is still doing her homework.

Good book.