From an argument between Cathy Young and a left-wing feminist:
Feminism is a necessarily statist movement because most of the goals of the broader feminist movement cannot be accomplished with the government's active interference in private life. Women cannot "have it all" without either being exceptionally wealthy, run into the ground by their careers or without the active involvement of the state. Someone has to pay for child care, education and health care, and that usually isn't the women because their career choices tend to make earning a high income on their merits exceptionally difficult. Take away public education, dismantle all of the laws regulating vacation and sick leave, and chop out the welfare safety net, and within a generation the culture war would be over.
It's worth noting too that in order to advance the sexual freedom of women, a key issue for feminists, the government has had to provide a comprehensive welfare safety net for single mothers and make adultery a functionally meaningless offense in court. The welfare safety net not only makes it possible for single women to behave in extremely irresponsible ways without fearing for their finances, but the obliteration of adultery as an issue in family law has helped to make the marriage social contract (and its legal aspects) dangerous to men. It is now legally possible for a woman to cheat on her husband day-in and day-out, then divorce him under a no-fault divorce statute, and see his finances and custody rights devastated.
A very significant portion of what is defined as "women's rights" are positive rights, meaning that they coerce others to behave a certain way. Public education and socialized child care require taxes. "Generous family leave benefits" coerces employers to behave a certain way, and actually affects labor rates for all employees. Socialized health care not only requires a great deal of taxes, but results in decreased choices and rationing of health care services and products. No fault divorces have enabled the destruction of otherwise sound marriages and families without penalty to the divorcing spouse, and without any recourse for the injured spouse and children. As I have said before, marriage is the "black sheep of contracts" because it is the only contract that many libertarians will cheerfully defend any breach or nullification as damn near a civil right and as a public good.
It is time for libertarians and other minarchists to accept the fact that feminism has a rich history of statism, and that today it is deeply statist. Nostalgia for non-statist variations needs to be allowed to die. Core political libertarianism already addresses the "women's rights" that are legitimate rights.
Rather than pulling out the rather musty notion that paternalism, and/or downright patriarchy is what these women and their children need, why not directly open our society's resources to benefit these families? How? Universal healthcare access, generous family leave benefits to workers, better quality free schooling, and family law that recognizes families as they are rather than wishing for what they never were. Because regardless of how much society encourages marriage among parents, women will continue to get pregnant and bear children outside of marriage, just as they have from time immemorial. All the encouragement in the world will not make it go away.I'm sure that Young's sparring partner was completely oblivious to the irony of her argument. Her demand for a more active government is extremely paternalistic. If her description of what she thinks the government should be doing does not amount to the figure of "provider and protector" that was traditionally assigned to a husband, then I don't know what is.
Feminism is a necessarily statist movement because most of the goals of the broader feminist movement cannot be accomplished with the government's active interference in private life. Women cannot "have it all" without either being exceptionally wealthy, run into the ground by their careers or without the active involvement of the state. Someone has to pay for child care, education and health care, and that usually isn't the women because their career choices tend to make earning a high income on their merits exceptionally difficult. Take away public education, dismantle all of the laws regulating vacation and sick leave, and chop out the welfare safety net, and within a generation the culture war would be over.
It's worth noting too that in order to advance the sexual freedom of women, a key issue for feminists, the government has had to provide a comprehensive welfare safety net for single mothers and make adultery a functionally meaningless offense in court. The welfare safety net not only makes it possible for single women to behave in extremely irresponsible ways without fearing for their finances, but the obliteration of adultery as an issue in family law has helped to make the marriage social contract (and its legal aspects) dangerous to men. It is now legally possible for a woman to cheat on her husband day-in and day-out, then divorce him under a no-fault divorce statute, and see his finances and custody rights devastated.
A very significant portion of what is defined as "women's rights" are positive rights, meaning that they coerce others to behave a certain way. Public education and socialized child care require taxes. "Generous family leave benefits" coerces employers to behave a certain way, and actually affects labor rates for all employees. Socialized health care not only requires a great deal of taxes, but results in decreased choices and rationing of health care services and products. No fault divorces have enabled the destruction of otherwise sound marriages and families without penalty to the divorcing spouse, and without any recourse for the injured spouse and children. As I have said before, marriage is the "black sheep of contracts" because it is the only contract that many libertarians will cheerfully defend any breach or nullification as damn near a civil right and as a public good.
It is time for libertarians and other minarchists to accept the fact that feminism has a rich history of statism, and that today it is deeply statist. Nostalgia for non-statist variations needs to be allowed to die. Core political libertarianism already addresses the "women's rights" that are legitimate rights.
"Core political libertarianism already addresses the "women's rights" that are legitimate rights."
Exactly correct: any protests to the contrary are entirely without merit. The two philosophies are inherently and completely incompatible.
AMERICA’S NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY!
It’s official. America and the World are now in a GLOBAL PANDEMIC. A World EPIDEMIC with potential catastrophic consequences for ALL of the American people. The first PANDEMIC in 41 years. And WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES will have to face this PANDEMIC with the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed World.
STAND READY AMERICA TO SEIZE CONTROL OF YOUR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.
We spend over twice as much of our GDP on healthcare as any other country in the World. And Individual American spend about ten times as much out of pocket on healthcare as any other people in the World. All because of GREED! And the PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare system in America.
And while all this is going on, some members of congress seem mostly concern about how to protect the corporate PROFITS! of our GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT NATIONAL DISGRACE. A PRIVATE FOR PROFIT DISGRACE that is in fact, totally valueless to the public health. And a detriment to national security, public safety, and the public health.
Progressive democrats and others should stand firm in their demand for a robust public option for all Americans, with all of the minimum requirements progressive democrats demanded. If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and demand that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).
Coverage can begin immediately through our current medicare system. With immediate expansion through recruitment of displaced workers from the canceled private sector insurance industry. Funding can also begin immediately by substitution of payroll deductions for private insurance plans with payroll deductions for the national healthcare plan. This is what the vast majority of the American people want. And this is what all objective experts unanimously agree would be the best, and most cost effective for the American people and our economy.
In Mexico on average people who received medical care for A-H1N1 (Swine Flu) with in 3 days survived. People who did not receive medical care until 7 days or more died. This has been the same results in the US. But 50 million Americans don’t even have any healthcare coverage. And at least 200 million of you with insurance could not get in to see your private insurance plans doctors in 2 or 3 days, even if your life depended on it. WHICH IT DOES!
Contact congress and your representatives NOW! AND SPREAD THE WORD!
God Bless You
Jacksmith – WORKING CLASS
Jack, you're insane. Only an idiot would trust the government with his health. Go visit your local VA hospital - that is what you're advocating for all of us.
The system may suck as it is, but it could still be much worse. Under Obama, it will be.
This is an excellent article. You have hit the nail on the head.
"Women cannot "have it all" without either being exceptionally wealthy, run into the ground by their careers or without the active involvement of the state. "
I can attest to this, as a woman. I know plenty who are burned out to the max from 4 years of academics, and a demanding job. It is a route that I want to steer clear of. It is stressful enough to attend school and endure the feminist college professors and all their propaganda. Then dealing with issues in the workplace infidelity, sexual harrassment, etc. Many women lack the realization that is costs money to go to work. The commuting, maintenance, insurance costs, food, career clothes, day care, etc.
The out-of-wedlock birthrate is at 40 percent in the United States. Many women of my generation may be morally misguided but are not stupid and have learned how to tap in the the welfare state. Policies that are highly in favor of single female parents, such as WIC basically encourage the continuation of the poverty cycle. As it is well known that married, two parent families experience less poverty and are therefore not dependent on the state for assistance.
I recall hearing somewhere that if we assigned industry standard wage values to all the common tasks a woman does within the home, the value would amount to around $143,000 per annum.
I did the math on my own lazy, freewheeling methods of homemaking and came up with a bare minimum of $80,000. Didn't bother trying to include "on-call counselling" or "sex worker" factors, nor the hidden per-child value of public education (ours are homeschooled, which would be more equivalent to private tutoring anyway).
It's pretty unrealistic to say that any significant percentage of working women are going to make enough to compensate economically for the value of removing themselves from home, never mind the social and emotional benefits to the family unit. Most men don't make that salary either.
Then there's cost-to-work, as Shannon outlines above.
As someone raised on feminist activism, who now rejects its ideology, I believe the key flaw of feminist sexual politics was in assuming that *men* have a "right" to sexual irresponsibility, and that therefore so should women.
One of the biggest logic fark-ups in the history of North American culture.