Hi Keith,
One problem that I have always had with reading your blog is your views on gender differences, but I have begun to see your position in a much clearer light. I have been thinking about this issue a lot lately, and have been incorporating debate questions into my lectures to see what my students have to say. I am now thoroughly convinced of the irrationality of feminism.
I have always been attracted to feminism because I thought it was about exposing the social limits that society has placed on women and providing women with the rights they deserve in society. But now I realize that you do not need to be a feminist to believe this. Feminist are not interested in civil liberties for women, they are interested mostly in degrading the traditional role women have played in society. Instead of arguing that women should have the right to be in the workforce or stay at home if they choose, they argue that the latter is somehow degrading and inferior and unfit for a life of enjoyment. Instead of arguing that women should have the same options as men in our society, they argue that women must have the same options. Not all women are the same, and I think feminists try to make them out to be.
Women have been repressed in our society for a long time, but that does not mean we have to continue to create new sources of conflict between the sexes when there is not one! I think women today are fully able to participate in our society the way men do. When we say that women and men are equal, I also thought that meant that women and men should have the same civil liberties. Somewhere down the line these two notions got mixed up. When progressives hear conservatives say that men and women are not equal, they assume that conservatives are arguing that women and men should not have the same civil liberties. They make no distinction between the two, and this realization on my part is why my mind has been changed. I used to feel this way. I used to think that conservatives had an agenda when they argue that women and men are not equal. I used to think that conservatives were trying to repress women and keep the traditional family intact because they believed that women's place in society was reserved for that role. While I do still think that a good portion of conservatives think this way, I no longer feel it is a necessary condition of conservatism.
Note from KBJ: I don't think any conservative believes that men and women are unequal. My own view is that men and women are equal but different. The differences are ultimately biological. Feminists think that difference entails inequality. It does not. You are correct that feminism was about giving women choices. Somewhere along the line a particular choice—being a wife and a mother—became unacceptable. Women who desire these things are said to be laboring under a false consciousness, which is insulting to them. Is it any wonder that so many young women refuse to describe themselves as feminists? They view feminism itself as oppressive (which is ironic, since feminism was supposed to be liberating).
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 