CAN THERE BE A DECENT FEMINISM?: (Inspired, of course, by Michael Walzer’s “Can There Be a Decent Left?“) This was initially going to be installment #2 of The Politics of Dancing–my ramblings about rock lyrics–but it outgrew its limitations.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine mentioned the idea that feminism is primarily “an unsuccessful attempt to tame male lust.” That rings really true to me, and I’m going to blog a bit about what feminism has accomplished and why it ultimately fails.

First, the accomplishments. There are some obvious good works of feminism, mostly to do with rape and battering: Rape crisis centers, marital rape laws, police rape training, battered women’s shelters, and so on.

Feminism has also taught many women to a) reject some of the truly poisonous self-hate they grew up with, and b) forgive. It’s especially helped many women forgive their mothers. Our ties to our mothers are so close, so intimate–for women the mother is often like another self–and so betrayal, abuse, abandonment by one’s mother causes some of the greatest damage to the psyche. Forgiving a mother who has betrayed you takes immense strength and mortification of the desires for revenge, separation, or hate. Feminists are often allergic to the word forgiveness, because so often women have been told to forgive their abusers while the abusers were not challenged to stop the abuse–for example, women were told that God loves the abuser but not that He hates the abuse. (This doesn’t just happen to women, of course–I don’t suppose I really need to cite the priesthood scandals as an example.) This allergy to the word “forgiveness” has some good consequences and some awful ones. The good part is that “forgiveness” has become something of a cheap-grace word anyway; the image has been rubbed off the coin, the edges have been sanded down. “Forgiveness” has been used too often as an easy out. Avoiding the word “forgiveness” can actually prepare the way for the act of forgiveness. The problem is that we must forgive; to obscure or deny that is misleading. And avoiding the word simply surrenders it to the Hallmark-writers of the world. We should demand a more challenging, rough-edged, compassionate (“suffering with” the one who forgives), hardcore forgiveness. (This does not mean that it’s always best to continue attempting a relationship with a deeply abusive mother. Sometimes–very rarely, but sometimes–the shock of separation is best for mother and child alike. Sorry for digression but I didn’t want to give the impression that abusers who refuse to change should be rewarded.)

So yeah, feminism (by which I mean 1970s-and-later feminism, not Susan B. Anthony) has done some important good in the world. I don’t want to reel off the list of awfulnesses it’s promoted or made easier–abortion, the divorce rate, add your own suggestions–but I do want to point out a few reasons feminism has not succeeded at taming men or truly empowering women.

Probably the most important, underlying problem is the fact that the main disjunction in feminism is between those who value sexual equality most and those who value sexual liberty most. The problem is not solely that one of these schools of thought is wrong–the problem is that neither can really address the causes of the harm done to women.

By “equality feminists” I mean women who believe that the power relationships between men and women should be as equal as possible, and that this is best done by focusing on “equality of outcome” rather than formal equity. I know this may be confusing, since there’s a group of people (think Wendy McElroy) who refer to themselves as “equity feminists”–but what they actually mean is formal equity, equality before the law, not actual equal outcomes. The equality feminists I’ll be talking about, in general, recognize that both biology and culture mean that formal equity will not lead to equal outcomes for men and women. Andrea Dworkin would be a good example of an equality feminist. Sexual-liberation feminism is, frankly, easier to dismiss–it’s the sunny Susie Bright stuff, the “erotica” brigade.

Here are some reasons that neither faction effectively tames male lust. First, both kinds of feminism deal with some of the most personal relationships there are. And people don’t want freedom or equality in their personal relationships. Someone in love is subordinate; someone in love is not free. (For defenses of that position, click here and here.)

And biology keeps getting in the way. Only women get pregnant; only women can be absolutely certain that their children are their own; only women miscarry; only women need to recuperate from pregnancy; only women suffer postpartum depression. Those facts shape all heterosexual relationships. They cannot be gotten around. (Even women who learn that they are infertile have grown up without that knowledge. Their stories are different, for sure, but the more commonplace stories of womanhood still affected them.) No matter how much latex you use, no matter how many hormones you jerk your body around with, still these facts remain. Anatomy isn’t destiny, but it ain’t chopped liver either. Even Dworkin, who is often eloquent in her furious recognition of women’s difference from men, has found it virtually impossible to articulate what a truly equal sexuality would look like. She has resorted to metaphors of fluidity, for example; but in the end neither Swedish social-welfare programs nor consciousness-raising can actually make heterosexual relationships equal. Women just risk more. Sex-lib feminists deny this fact, and thereby encourage naivete and terribly wrong choices in young women; equality feminists resort to utopian scenarios of the World Without Patriarchy, or else they become solely negative in their approach, knowing only what they’re fighting against and not what they’re fighting for.

And an emphasis on liberation and equality often leads us to devalue, or simply ignore, those who are dependent and unequal. Awe, which is an experience of submission, can barely be discussed in this framework. Love, as I said earlier, becomes equally hard to talk about; or else it is redefined as a negotiation between competing egos. And childhood–the time when all of us are dependent and unequal–becomes especially hard to value. (Both Martha Nussbaum and Alisdair MacIntyre have apparently done interesting philosophical work about humans as “dependent rational animals”–I’d tell you more about that, but I’ve just told you all I know….) This is not a rational consequence of feminism, but it is, I think, a temptation due to both feminist factions’ inability to value dependence or submission.

Finally, feminism–especially, but not only, equality feminism–has major problems with men. (“Well, duh…”) There’s a strong and theoretically-justified (that is, justified by theory) overlay of “us vs. them.” Within feminism, women’s narratives are privileged and men’s discounted. (And if anything is judged too “male,” like logic, science, or analysis, it too is discarded.) Feminism aims at “patriarchy” but it hits men. And often the men it hits are its closest allies–precisely because they’re closest, expectations are higher for them, and they actually care what feminists think. (The “learned weakness” I mentioned in the DC punk post comes into play here, too, sometimes.)

Feminists might reply, “Why should we care what men think? They caused the problem!” But the solution can’t be found without them. You can’t just ask men to “shut up for a few centuries” to make up for all the women who were silenced in the past–you can’t practice affirmative action in whom you believe, whom you listen to, and whom you love–without hurting your friends and family (either men or those who love them) and warping your own analytical and empathetic abilities.

The concept of “patriarchy” causes a score of problems. First, it encourages the retreat into utopianism and rage: Since there’s never been a society that equality feminists would consider non-patriarchal, there’s not a lot of hope there, except in those pockets of Dianic moon-crap where people claim that the “matriarchy” was displaced in some far-off prehistoric time. (As far as I know, all of these theories are utter bull.)

And finally, patriarchy theory tempts feminists to deny women’s responsibility for our actions. Feminism can often help women take responsibility for their lives; it can free them from the fatalistic sense that their abuse is inevitable and deserved. It can shatter conformity and force profound self-examination. But it also gives the Patriarchy total power. If a woman screws up, Blame Patriarchy. If a woman disagrees with you, Blame Patriarchy. Your abusive mother: Victim of Patriarchy. Your alcoholic best friend: VOP. There’s often a shard of truth here (people’s problems don’t often spring out of nowhere…), but much more falsehood and danger–the danger of emphasizing conditioning to the point that both free will and grace disappear.

So that’s my take. I doubt that many feminists read my site, but I imagine I have some readers who at least sympathize with some aspects of feminism (as do I, it should be clear). And if this is helpful in discussions with feminist friends, I’ll consider my time well spent.

So can there be a decent feminism? Not really, in my opinion–the word “feminism” has been taken by the two factions described above. A feminist friend (who accepted elements of both equality and sex-lib feminism) read my copy of Maggie Gallagher’s Enemies of Eros, and returned it with the comment, “Wow–she’s a true feminist.” I think enough feminists would choke at that statement that it’s not worth trying to reclaim the word; but if there were a decent feminism, yeah, Maggie would be it.