Sunday, May 11, 2008

An attack on nature?

Jennifer Roback Morse thinks so:
The various forms of feminism have tried to teach us that our "real self" exists somehow independently of our gender. According to some feminists, gender differentiation is a cosmic injustice, that demands correction or compensation. More modest forms of feminism hold that gender differentiation is insignificant, or irrelevant to anything important. And the social changes that feminism has inspired have attempted to minimize anything distinctively feminine. The proper goal for a woman, especially an intelligent, promising woman, is to behave exactly as a man her age would.
Hat tip: Evangelical Outpost

2 comments:

mdf356 said...

The feminism movement is old enough now that don't think one can accurately paint it as a single thing. I'm sure this is where some of the feminists would like to see things go.

Personally I self-identify as a feminist, and it's my belief that, even though there are obvious biological differences between men and women (and hormonal differences), that there should be no *legal* differences between them, and also I'd prefer a society where we made no societal assumptions about the roles of men or women. There's enough difference between women and between men, that even though there may be trends because of biology, there's no reason to prevent *a* man or *a* woman from being or doing just about anything they want.

Unknown said...

There is a sense, Matthew, in which, compared to say, the 50s, we're all feminists now. But men and women ARE different, as you acknowledge, and I think our laws and customs should not pretend that they aren't, any more than they should treat men as superior.

For example, we shouldn't "prevent" (your word) a woman from becoming a mathematician, but neither should we require any employer to make sure that 50% of their mathematicians are women.