4 ms·

The critical flaw in contemporary popular feminism is the inability to acknowledge both that women have agency and that women use that agency to enforce gender

The critical flaw in contemporary popular feminism is the inability to acknowledge both that women have agency and that women use that agency to enforce gender roles. E.g. the pay gap. The pay gap opens up only after marriage and especially children; in the majority of major metropolitan areas today, young single women actually earn more than men. Heterosexual women's mate choice is what drives this: they have a strong preference for a male who makes more over one who earns less. Everyone wants to earn more money, but men have the additional incentive of needing to earn more to attract a mate. Given this incentive structure, it's inevitable that men as a group will outearn women. Most individual women have an easy way to contribute to the pay gap statistic: either by not pairing at all, or by pairing with a man who wants to play a supportive role at home instead of being the "breadwinner." The large majority of women choose the tradeoff that results in the current social structure we see. Men, of course, also use their agency to create this world with restrictive gender roles. But everyone recognizes this; point out that women also bear responsibility for their use of agency to create it and you get, at best, called nasty names.

caslon 4y ago
> The critical flaw in contemporary popular feminism is the inability to acknowledge both that women have agency and that women use that agency to enforce gender roles. [...] point out that women also bear responsibility for their use of agency to create it and you get, at best, called nasty names. This isn't accurate: Contemporary feminism has long been obsessed with this topic; specifically, how some women contribute to their own oppression. Books have been published debating whether or not this is an inherently bad thing. You're conflating feminism and society, but society isn't feminist. Sure, libertarianism exists, but our current governments aren't libertarian, even if they pay lip service to the ideas and ideals; the same applies to feminism.
- scarmig 4y ago
  Contemporary popular feminism treats women as reactive objects; slightly more sophisticated takes grant that women contribute to their own oppression, but usually through the lens of being duped by the patriarchy. And it has frighteningly little to say about how women contribute to oppressive gender roles placed on men, with many variants denying gender based oppression is even a valid category for men.
peter422 4y ago
Finally somebody has had the courage to point out the "critical flaw" in contemporary modern feminism, a philosophy noted for it's static nature and universally shared beliefs! Your thoughts and ideas are reasonable enough but you should have a little more intellectual humility when presenting them. My only counter to what you've said is that I think while you acknowledge the inertia of the status quo makes on current gender dynamics, you are not appreciating how making even the slightest decision against the prevailing culture is incredibly difficult. For example, I have a male, married friend who had a child and they used the mother's last name. This seemingly minor, insignificant little protest has already caused him like 10 problems because nobody can imagine a child not having their father's last name. Going against the status quo is not easy!
- scarmig 4y ago
  Note I said contemporary popular feminism. Obviously feminism contains multitudes, but what dominates the mass and social media is much less sophisticated take that doesn't do justice to the thinkers who conceptualize it.
- deleted 4y ago
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- traverseda 4y ago
  Not normally something I'd get involved in (and I don't necessarily agree with OP), but I think you need to take a hard look at how you interpreted that. When you say sarcastically say "noted for it's static nature" and OP has already added the "contemporary, modern" qualifiers, well you're pretty much straw-manning them. They've already addressed the point that they don't think it's static, that they're pointing to specific ideas at a particular time in the best way they can. So like, OP predicted your argument and tried their best to explain that's not what they meant, and you ran with that interpretation anyway. Unless there's some edit shenanigans going on that I don't see, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out a polite way to say this, but like from where I'm sitting you don't look like you're responding to OP, you look like you're responding to a straw-man that OP went out of their way to explain was not what they were actually saying.

caslon 4y ago

> The critical flaw in contemporary popular feminism is the inability to acknowledge both that women have agency and that women use that agency to enforce gender roles. [...] point out that women also bear responsibility for their use of agency to create it and you get, at best, called nasty names. This isn't accurate: Contemporary feminism has long been obsessed with this topic; specifically, how some women contribute to their own oppression. Books have been published debating whether or not this is an inherently bad thing. You're conflating feminism and society, but society isn't feminist. Sure, libertarianism exists, but our current governments aren't libertarian, even if they pay lip service to the ideas and ideals; the same applies to feminism.

scarmig 4y ago
Contemporary popular feminism treats women as reactive objects; slightly more sophisticated takes grant that women contribute to their own oppression, but usually through the lens of being duped by the patriarchy. And it has frighteningly little to say about how women contribute to oppressive gender roles placed on men, with many variants denying gender based oppression is even a valid category for men.

peter422 4y ago

Finally somebody has had the courage to point out the "critical flaw" in contemporary modern feminism, a philosophy noted for it's static nature and universally shared beliefs! Your thoughts and ideas are reasonable enough but you should have a little more intellectual humility when presenting them. My only counter to what you've said is that I think while you acknowledge the inertia of the status quo makes on current gender dynamics, you are not appreciating how making even the slightest decision against the prevailing culture is incredibly difficult. For example, I have a male, married friend who had a child and they used the mother's last name. This seemingly minor, insignificant little protest has already caused him like 10 problems because nobody can imagine a child not having their father's last name. Going against the status quo is not easy!

scarmig 4y ago
Note I said contemporary popular feminism. Obviously feminism contains multitudes, but what dominates the mass and social media is much less sophisticated take that doesn't do justice to the thinkers who conceptualize it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
traverseda 4y ago
Not normally something I'd get involved in (and I don't necessarily agree with OP), but I think you need to take a hard look at how you interpreted that. When you say sarcastically say "noted for it's static nature" and OP has already added the "contemporary, modern" qualifiers, well you're pretty much straw-manning them. They've already addressed the point that they don't think it's static, that they're pointing to specific ideas at a particular time in the best way they can. So like, OP predicted your argument and tried their best to explain that's not what they meant, and you ran with that interpretation anyway. Unless there's some edit shenanigans going on that I don't see, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out a polite way to say this, but like from where I'm sitting you don't look like you're responding to OP, you look like you're responding to a straw-man that OP went out of their way to explain was not what they were actually saying.