Enforcing feminism
Since we're on the topic, here's an example of what I would define as radical feminism. Be sure to click through to the source link: Homeward Bound Here are a few highlights followed by a commentary by Dr. Veith (thanks for the link!)
Here’s the feminist moral analysis that choice avoided: The family -- with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks -- is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust. To paraphrase, as Mark Twain said, “A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.†Women who want to have sex and children with men as well as good work in interesting jobs where they may occasionally wield real social power need guidance, and they need it early. Step one is simply to begin talking about flourishing. In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots. This may anger some, but it should sound the alarm before the next generation winds up in the same situation. Next, feminists will have to start offering young women not choices and not utopian dreams but solutions they can enact on their own. Prying women out of their traditional roles is not going to be easy. It will require rules -- rules like those in the widely derided book The Rules, which was never about dating but about behavior modification. There are three rules: Prepare yourself to qualify for good work, treat work seriously, and don’t put yourself in a position of unequal resources when you marry. The preparation stage begins with college. It is shocking to think that girls cut off their options for a public life of work as early as college. But they do. The first pitfall is the liberal-arts curriculum, which women are good at, graduating in higher numbers than men. Although many really successful people start out studying liberal arts, the purpose of a liberal education is not, with the exception of a miniscule number of academic positions, job preparation. So the first rule is to use your college education with an eye to career goals. Feminist organizations should produce each year a survey of the most common job opportunities for people with college degrees, along with the average lifetime earnings from each job category and the characteristics such jobs require. The point here is to help women see that yes, you can study art history, but only with the realistic understanding that one day soon you will need to use your arts education to support yourself and your family. The survey would ask young women to select what they are best suited for and give guidance on the appropriate course of study. Like the rule about accepting no dates for Saturday after Wednesday night, the survey would set realistic courses for women, helping would-be curators who are not artistic geniuses avoid career frustration and avoid solving their job problems with marriage. The best way to treat work seriously is to find the money. Money is the marker of success in a market economy; it usually accompanies power, and it enables the bearer to wield power, including within the family. Almost without exception, the brides who opted out graduated with roughly the same degrees as their husbands. Yet somewhere along the way the women made decisions in the direction of less money. Part of the problem was idealism; idealism on the career trail usually leads to volunteer work, or indentured servitude in social-service jobs, which is nice but doesn’t get you to money. Another big mistake involved changing jobs excessively. Without exception, the brides who eventually went home had much more job turnover than the grooms did. There’s no such thing as a perfect job. Condoleezza Rice actually wanted to be a pianist, and Gary Graffman didn’t want to give concerts. If you are good at work you are in a position to address the third undertaking: the reproductive household. The rule here is to avoid taking on more than a fair share of the second shift. If this seems coldhearted, consider the survey by the Center for Work-Life Policy. Fully 40 percent of highly qualified women with spouses felt that their husbands create more work around the house than they perform. According to Phyllis Moen and Patricia Roehling’s Career Mystique, “When couples marry, the amount of time that a woman spends doing housework increases by approximately 17 percent, while a man’s decreases by 33 percent.†Not a single Times groom was a stay-at-home dad. Several of them could hardly wait for Monday morning to come. None of my Times grooms took even brief paternity leave when his children were born. How to avoid this kind of rut? You can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality. Taking the easier path first, marry down. Don’t think of this as brutally strategic. If you are devoted to your career goals and would like a man who will support that, you’re just doing what men throughout the ages have done: placing a safe bet. In her 1995 book, Kidding Ourselves: Babies, Breadwinning and Bargaining Power, Rhona Mahoney recommended finding a sharing spouse by marrying younger or poorer, or someone in a dependent status, like a starving artist. Because money is such a marker of status and power, it’s hard to persuade women to marry poorer. So here’s an easier rule: Marry young or marry much older. Younger men are potential high-status companions. Much older men are sufficiently established so that they don’t have to work so hard, and they often have enough money to provide unlimited household help. By contrast, slightly older men with bigger incomes are the most dangerous, but even a pure counterpart is risky. If you both are going through the elite-job hazing rituals simultaneously while having children, someone is going to have to give. Even the most devoted lawyers with the hardest-working nannies are going to have weeks when no one can get home other than to sleep. The odds are that when this happens, the woman is going to give up her ambitions and professional potential. It is possible that marrying a liberal might be the better course. After all, conservatives justified the unequal family in two modes: “God ordained it†and “biology is destiny.†Most men (and most women), including the liberals, think women are responsible for the home. But at least the liberal men should feel squeamish about it.I get it! Men are evil. Somehow though I don't know of men who prevent women from doing above said things. Women chose to do it. Some do so ignorantly just like men often are ignorant. (maybe more often than not if I read Ms. Hirshman properly.)
Enforcing feminism
Enforcing feminism Feminism is floundering, says Linda Hirshman in the American Prospect, and so must move into a new phase. Before, the ideology was for women to "choose." If they chose a career, fine; if they chose an abortion, fine; and if they chose to get married and have children, that was fine too. But the problem is, most women are still choosing marriage and children. Ms. Hirshman has found that among "elite" women--the wealthy and well-educated--as many as 85% "do not work outside the home," which to Ms. Hirshman does not count. She says that feminists must eliminate all of this "whatever you choose is fine" nonsense. She says that just as earlier feminism took on the workplace, today feminists must take on the institution of the family. Ms. Hirshman grudgingly and with great reluctance acknowledges the necessity of reproduction. But she offers a series of "rules" (none of those optional "choices," but "rules") for women to follow. Among them: Do not be a liberal arts major. Yes, women are better in liberal arts fields, but if you go to college, major in something that will get you a good job and make you a lot of money. Also, if you must have a baby, only have one. But here is my favorite: Women should "marry down." That is, they should get married to a man who is of an inferior social position to her own. Make sure he is poorer. It will also help if he is very much younger than she is. This way, the woman can make the most money and thus exercise the control. Ms. Hirshman and the "elite" wealthy feminists who will be trolling after young cowboys and construction workers to be sperm-donor drones to their Queen Bees apparently do not realize how proletariat men will respond to that sort of thing.
