3 ms·

Why is there such a fevered effort to push women into an enterprise that most don't have an interest in?

the_third_wave 3y ago
Blame Simone de Beauvoir [1] who took feminism from 'equal rights for women' to 'women shall be like men' as is made clear by her statement in a 1975 interview [2] with Betty Friedan [3]: “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one… In my opinion, as long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.” [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir [2] http://www.sandrineberges.com/the-home-a-philosophical-project/beauvoir-and-friedan http://www.sandrineberges.com/the-home-a-philosophical-proje... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan
- ratsmack 3y ago
  >myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed That's laughable... I guess this person doesn't believe humans have instincts, just like other animals.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    I don't think it is that people like De Beauvoir do not believe that humans come with built-in behaviour but that they insist it is possible to change such behaviour to create a new human. This has lead and still leads to attempts to create the New Soviet man [1], De Beauvoir's liberated woman, Kendi's anti-racist babies and similarly Lysenkoist attempts at creating 'better' humans. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man
- ratsmack 3y ago
  FYI... link [2] is 404.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    Thanks, fixed now, it was the result of a botched cut/paste from a comment I made yesterday which happened to fit this situation.
    - ratsmack 3y ago
      >Yes, that "we want to be just like men," that is, men as they are today, when in truth we need to change the society itself, men as well as women, to change everything. It is very striking in Betty Friedan: What she wants is for women to have as much power as men do. Obviously, if you are truly on the left, if you reject ideas of power and hierarchy, what you want is equality. Otherwise, it won't work at all. It's too bad that people listen to this tripe... women will never be "just like men".
      - the_third_wave 3y ago
        > women will never be "just like men". They won't as long as you use a 1980's dictionary as a guideline. Use the 2023 Cambridge Dictionary and suddenly a woman is, among other things [1]: - an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth Suddenly 'women' can not only be 'just like men', they can be men. As to the retort that "language evolves, get over it" I'll state that this is certainly true - language evolves - but not applicable here since this is not an example of language evolution but language revolution or revolutionary language. The movement to push these tropes started in the Humanities departments where language is the tool of choice. It is hard to win a battle if your opponent is in control of the armoury so make sure not to allow them this access - do not use revolutionary language. This is why pre-2000's paper copies of dictionaries and encyclopedias are worth keeping around. [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woman https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woman

Blame Simone de Beauvoir [1] who took feminism from 'equal rights for women' to 'women shall be like men' as is made clear by her statement in a 1975 interview [2] with Betty Friedan [3]: “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one… In my opinion, as long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed.” [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir [2] http://www.sandrineberges.com/the-home-a-philosophical-project/beauvoir-and-friedan http://www.sandrineberges.com/the-home-a-philosophical-proje... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan

ratsmack 3y ago
>myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed That's laughable... I guess this person doesn't believe humans have instincts, just like other animals.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  I don't think it is that people like De Beauvoir do not believe that humans come with built-in behaviour but that they insist it is possible to change such behaviour to create a new human. This has lead and still leads to attempts to create the New Soviet man [1], De Beauvoir's liberated woman, Kendi's anti-racist babies and similarly Lysenkoist attempts at creating 'better' humans. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man
ratsmack 3y ago
FYI... link [2] is 404.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  Thanks, fixed now, it was the result of a botched cut/paste from a comment I made yesterday which happened to fit this situation.
  - ratsmack 3y ago
    >Yes, that "we want to be just like men," that is, men as they are today, when in truth we need to change the society itself, men as well as women, to change everything. It is very striking in Betty Friedan: What she wants is for women to have as much power as men do. Obviously, if you are truly on the left, if you reject ideas of power and hierarchy, what you want is equality. Otherwise, it won't work at all. It's too bad that people listen to this tripe... women will never be "just like men".
    - the_third_wave 3y ago
      > women will never be "just like men". They won't as long as you use a 1980's dictionary as a guideline. Use the 2023 Cambridge Dictionary and suddenly a woman is, among other things [1]: - an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth Suddenly 'women' can not only be 'just like men', they can be men. As to the retort that "language evolves, get over it" I'll state that this is certainly true - language evolves - but not applicable here since this is not an example of language evolution but language revolution or revolutionary language. The movement to push these tropes started in the Humanities departments where language is the tool of choice. It is hard to win a battle if your opponent is in control of the armoury so make sure not to allow them this access - do not use revolutionary language. This is why pre-2000's paper copies of dictionaries and encyclopedias are worth keeping around. [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woman https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woman