"Freedom Feminism": I'm For It
I recently called myself a "personist," meaning that I'm for fair treatment for all people, male and female, but I can buy into what Christina Hoff Sommers is selling here.
Christina Hoff Sommers writes at reason (in a response to Sharon Presley who slammed Hoff Sommers' book, Freedom Feminism):
Freedom feminism shares with egalitarianism an aversion to prescribed gender roles: Women should be free to defect from the stereotypes of femininity if they so choose. At the same time, however, it respects the choices of free and self-determining women--when they choose to embrace conventional feminine roles. Nowhere do I say women should stay in the home or that women who defy convention are "aberrations." I simply note that, to the consternation of hardline contemporary genderists, many women, when given their full set of Jeffersonian freedoms, continue to give priority to the domestic sphere. Somehow in Presley's mind "giving priority" means a total rejection of the workplace. Not at all. But many women, especially when they have children at home, do appear to have a strong preference for working part-time.
Hoff Sommers is also correct on the biological basis of sex differences:
Presley faults me for accepting the possibility that the sexes are equal--but different. "From a feminist point of view--and from an individualist one--Sommers' stereotyping is unacceptable." She reports that the consensus among "most serious scientists" is that gender differences are small and insignificant. She cites a few of her favorite feminist authors as proof. That won't do. In fact, there is a vast body of serious research indicating a biological basis for sex differences. In 2009, David Geary, a University of Missouri psychologist, published Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences under the auspices of the American Psychological Association. This thorough, fair-minded and comprehensive survey of the literature includes more than 50 pages of footnotes citing studies by neuroscientists, endocrinologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and psychologists showing a strong biological basis for many gender differences. While these particular studies may not be the final word, they cannot be dismissed or ignored. Presley's instinct is to ignore or dismiss research that challenges her worldview.Presley seems to be captive to a 1970s-style of "free to be you and me" feminism that sought to free human beings from the constraints of gender. But is that truly liberating? In a 2008 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a group of international researchers compared data on gender and personality across 55 nations. Throughout the world, women tend to be more nurturing, risk averse and emotionally expressive, while men are usually more competitive, risk taking, and emotionally flat. But the most fascinating finding is this: Personality differences between men and women are the largest and most robust in the more prosperous, egalitarian, and educated societies. According to the authors, "Higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality." New York Times science columnist (and awesome libertarian) John Tierney summarized the study this way: "It looks as if personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India's or Zimbabwe's than in the Netherlands or the United States. A husband and a stay-at-home wife in a patriarchal Botswanan clan seem to be more alike than a working couple in Denmark or France."
Why should that be? The authors of the study hypothesize that prosperity and equality bring greater opportunities for self-actualization. Wealth, freedom, and education empower men and women to be who they are.
Good to know, and I don't doubt it for a moment. I certainly think the difference between masculinity & femininity is the biggest and most reliable (if dynamic) distinction in human nature.
But when I look at the differences I have with other people nowadays, the elemental distinction is from those who think policy is the source and the solution for problems.
I think it's intimacy that more often deserves our attention. Responsible intimacy —like other virtues, such as courage and humility— is infinitely renewable.
Behaving well on an individual basis, and helping a select number of others behave well, is never going to be as much fun as griping about policy... Because policy can give one power over others, and over the public money one wants to spend. But when you're helping someone intimately, the money is always your own.
Well, we're running out of public money.
Intimacy may soon be making a comeback.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 20, 2014 2:24 AM
Nah, we can't be out of money, we still have ink and paper, and power to the presses.
I R A Darth Aggie at January 20, 2014 8:39 AM
Feminism is like a rancid fart for which the farter expects kudos. No descriptive adjective can make it stink any less. All enveloped by the noxious miasma can only hope that it fades away as soon as possible.
I actually find most of the "ist" labels that people stick on themselves and others to be devices to shut down true discussion and introspection -- very limiting.
Jay R at January 20, 2014 12:55 PM
> devices to shut down true discussion and
> introspection
Where introspection equals humility, I wholeheartedly agree.
But I think no force in American life —not advanced agriculture, not communications, not packetized transportation, not regulation, not higher education— no force in postwar American life did more to turn your life into a rollicking (and extended) good time than did feminism.
When you double the release of your population's genius into markets, both of finance and ideas, you are going to outperform your sluggish contenders.
That's what we did. No one on the planet can keep up with our excellence, even if Obama has us coasting on fumes.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at January 20, 2014 9:35 PM
When you double the release of your population's genius into markets, both of finance and ideas, you are going to outperform your sluggish contenders.
Crid, it sounds like you've bought into the lie that no woman anywhere on the planet or throughout the vast time of human civilization ever held a job until 1956
lujlp at January 21, 2014 10:00 AM
I find it interesting that you reprint Sommers remarks but not my response. Do you see yourself as a fair person? Even I had a link to Sommers' reply to me on my Facebook page.
I also find it interesting that you scoff at my comments about gender. Are you an expert? No? Since you didn't include my response, readers may not know that in fact I taught Psychology of Women for 20 years and have been reading gender research for over 40 years. Sommers has no such background.
I'm also interested to see that Sommers claims that I report "that the consensus among "most serious scientists" is that gender differences are small and insignificant." Actually I said nothing of the sort. I never used the word "insignificant" Sommers made that up. But since you didn't print my response, no one would know that, would they?
Let me ask again, do you consider yourself a fair person? I wonder.
Sharon Presley at January 8, 2017 8:15 PM
I really like your TED talk "The surprising self-interest in being kind to strangers." Too bad it didn't extend to this particular stranger. To post Sommer's comments and not post my response to her lies doesn't seem very kindly to me. I'm very disappointed in you.
Sharon Presley at January 9, 2017 12:49 PM
Sommers claimed I called gender differences "small and insignificant." Does anyone reading this knows enough about stats to know why someone like me who has taught research methods would never say that?
If there are in fact differences, no matter how small, they are statistically significant differences [that is the term used], that is, the statistical analysis suggests that the differences didn't occur by chance. So if there were differences found and reported, no matter how small, they are significant differences. NO psychologist would call them "insignificant" The term is "nonsignificant" if no differences are found. Of course this does show how little Sommers understands about statistics. So we also now know that Sommers lied about what I said. If my response to her had been reprinted, people would have known that.
Sharon Presley at January 10, 2017 12:09 AM
"There is almost certainly a small genetic component, but it is less overall than the contributions of multitudes of cultural, family, and individual environmental influences."
This (from the text from your review at Reason) is entirely wrong. Nancy Segal's research on MZ twins (identical twins) separated at birth and raised apart shows how strong a part genes play in behavior.
http://www.livescience.com/47288-twin-study-importance-of-genetics.html
Judith Rich Harris is another to read on this. Sure, environment plays a part -- a varying part depending on what's being inherited -- and affects how genes express, but genes are not "a small part."
Best not to brag about what an expert you are or decide I don't have expertise in this area because I don't have a Ph.D. I've spent much of the past 20 years reading research on sex differences every week, including Geary's (whom I just heard speak in Vancouver at an ev psych conference), Joyce Benenson's, Anne Campbell's, David Buss's, David Schmitt's, Norm Li's, and that of many, many others.
Sommers is exactly right on your cherry-picking: "She cites a few of her favorite feminist authors as proof."
P.S. Plenty of people teaching psychology for 20 years don't have a very evidence-based notion of it either -- teaching that sex differences are culturally produced, and, say, if only we gave girls trucks instead of Barbies, they'd want to work on oil rigs. (My fave is the photos primatologist Richard Wrangham sent me of girl chimps engaged in doll play with sticks. Amazing. Do we think they watched too much Saturday morning television?)
Also, I know all about "significance," as I have regular talks about it with one of the great living biostatisticians.
You write: "If there are in fact differences, no matter how small, they are statistically significant differences." This is ridiculous. When researchers use the word "significant" to describe a finding, they are using it to mean "meaningful."
By the way, had you written me a straight-up email instead of sending an obtuse one that danced around the issue -- and had you asked me to post your Reason link or links -- I would have.
What I'll do is leave your nasty, wrong, petty comments above -- rather than deleting them -- because I run a free speech site, even for people who behave like assholes.
I've also told you by email that you can post your link in the comments here. One link per comment or your comment will go to spam. I'm not eager to spend any more time on this than your weird behavior has already led to. (I particularly like the creepy, passive-aggressive comment referencing my TED talk.)
You are a piece of work, lady.
Amy Alkon at January 10, 2017 11:28 PM
Sharon apparently touched a nerve. Amy, just admit you didn't do your due diligence and move on.
Krystle at January 11, 2017 9:06 AM
H-m-m AA, You say: "(I particularly like the creepy, passive-aggressive comment referencing my TED talk.)"
I actually posted your TED talk on my Facebook page The Psychology of Freedom on Dec. 29, 2016, long before this brouhaha occurred. I was quite sincere, Nothing passive aggressive about it.
You also say " When researchers use the word "significant" to describe a finding, they are using it to mean "meaningful." Actually it means just what I said it means--that the finding was unlikely to happen by chance. See the definition below from Investopedia.
"What is 'Statistical Significance'
Statistical significance means that a result from testing or experimenting is not likely to occur randomly or by chance, but is instead likely to be attributable to a specific cause. Statistical significance can be strong or weak, and it is important to disciplines that rely heavily on analyzing data and research, such as finance, investing, medicine, physics and biology."
I'll let others decide who of us is the "asshole" or a "piece of work" here.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/statistical-significance.asp#ixzz4VWZtk5ap
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Sharon Presley at January 11, 2017 10:08 PM
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