Feminism: Pro and Con

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Feminism Pro and Con

• I. Flemings Biological Analysis of Sex
• II. de Beauvoirs version of Ethical Creativity
• III. Problem for de Beauvoir Location of Justice

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I. Fleming Men

• Men can have many children, and the minimum
  investment in each child can be extremely low
  (one sperm, a few minutes).
• Egg is 85,000 larger. Woman approx. 20 children
  max man potentially thousands
• 2 models of biological equilibria
• Monogamy
• Free agency

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Monogamy as an Equilibrium

• Each man is limited to one marriage throughout
  his lifetime.
• Men's reproductive possibilities become similar
  to women's, and to each other's.
• Equalization of opportunities for reproduction.
• Consequently, each household has two parents, who
  are equally committed to the household's children.

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Males as free agents

• Each man seeks to have sex with as many fertile
  women as possible.
• Households consist of mother and children.Minimal
  involvement of father(s).
• Reproductive inequality some men have many
  children, many have few or none.

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Paradox

• Monogamy feminizes men -- makes the father/mother
  roles similar -- and equalizes the sexes.
• Yet, monogamy and patriarchy are connected
• Patriarchal privilege is one of the glues used to
  bind men to marriage as an institution.
• If men are absent from the home, they lose the
  opportunity of being dominant there.

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Questions

• Is monogamy natural?
• Is patriarchy natural (adaptive)?
• What does it matter if they are?

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Classical vs. Modern

• According to the classical tradition, objective
  value is rooted in human nature, prior to our
  choices and actions.
• We exist within a framework of values and norms
  that are prior to and independent of our wills.

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The Modern View

• According to the modern tradition we enjoy the
  power or freedom of ethical creativity.
• There are no objective norms or values to
  constrain us, with authority over us.
• Case in point consider Wilson's discussion of
  sex roles. pp. 132-133.
• Wilson admits that the differentiation of humans
  into distinct male and female roles is adaptive
  (product of natural selection).

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• However, he gives this fact no normative weight
  -- no authority over our choices.
• We are still free as a society to decide whether
  to alter, exaggerate or eliminate these
  differences.

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Evidence for Brain Differences

• Hormones testoterone stimulates muscle
  development, associated with aggressive and
  violent behavior.
• Hormones affect brain development in utero
• Men more visual women more auditory.
• Girls excel in verbal skills, boys in spatial
  abstract reasoning.
• Matters of averages, not universal.

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Early behavioral differences

• Boys tend to congregate in large groups compete
  for status girls tend to form small groups
  seek approval.
• At early age, girls are much more attracted to
  babies, small children.
• Different attitudes toward sex, connection
  between sex and long-term relationships.

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Anthropological Data

• Nuclear family is a universal. Without the
  nuclear family, the extended family would be
  impossible.
• Most societies tolerate some form of polygyny
  (high-status males with multiple mates).
• Human females are unique sexually receptive at
  all times. Pair bonding.

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Anthropology and Sex

• Societies do define sex roles differently, with
  three constants
• There is always significant differentiation
  between the sexes (no androgyny).
• Whatever roles are assigned to males are also
  given higher prestige.
• Warfare is always the exclusive province of the
  males.

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Margaret Mead and the Samoans

• In Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead painted
  a picture of parental permissiveness,
  unconstrained adolescent sexual license, and
  absence of psychological stress and pathology.
• In fact, wrong on all counts. Samoan parents
  were harsh authoritarians who demanded strict
  chastity of girls.

15
Jane Goodall and the Chimps

• Goodalls reports in 60s and 70s portrayed
  chimpanzees as peaceful and sexually
  undifferentiated.
• In fact, groups of young males constantly patrol
  the perimeter of the group.
• Chimpanzee wars, even genocidal wars, have been
  observed.

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Flemings Account of the Source of Feminine
Discontent

• Commercialization and industrialization in 20th
  century moved more and more functions from the
  home to outside agencies, market.
• Before 20th century, men and women cooperated in
  economic production centered around the home
  made own food, clothing, furniture. Home
  schooling.

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Commercial Displacement of Home Production

• Ready-made food and clothing.
• Mechanized laundry and cleaning equipment.
• Institutionalized schooling.
• Medicalized childbirth formula feeding.
• Home becomes nothing more than sleeping quarters
  mother a mere coordinator, chauffeur.

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Two Options

• Modern feminist/capitalist complete the
  commercialization of home services universal
  child care, after-school care, individualized
  entertainment.
• Natural family movement (Allan Carlson) home
  childbirth, breastfeeding, home schooling,
  home-based industry crafts, family
  entertainment, telecommuting.

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A New Crisis?

• Overpopulation is no longer a threat in nearly
  every nation, fertility has now fallen to
  replacement levels or below.
• In the developed world (Europe, Japan, North
  America), depopulation is an imminent threat.
• As home family are deemphasized in favor of
  career and income, this trend seems to be
  irreversible.

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III. Simone de Beauvoir and Ethical Creativity

• Is more consistent than Wilson, Pinker, et al.
• She clearly affirms the freedom of ethical
  creativity, but she does so by embracing a
  radical sort of nature/culture dualism.
• Ethical choice transcends the biological and the
  physical.

21
Metaphysical Discontinuity

• Based on a metaphysical theory, in which human
  consciousness represents something radically new,
  a complete discontinuity.
• Jean-Paul Sartre dualism of physicality and
  consciousness, Being and Nothingness.

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Consequences

• We can divide the world into two domains that of
  immanence (nature), and that of transcendence
  (freedom).
• For example femininity and masculinity in human
  life are a social construction (transcendent),
  having only a contingent relationship to
  biological categories of sex (immanent).

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Transcendence of Nature

• de Beauvoir's goal an androgynous society.
• She freely admits that this has no basis in
  biology.

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Is the freedom of ethical creativity a coherent
idea?

• In classical tradition, not even God has this
  freedom.
• 14th. C. philosopher Duns Scotus is first to
  attribute it to God. Followed by William Occam.
• Rousseau -- transfers it to human beings.

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An Aristotelian objection

• 1. All decisions depend on a pre-existing scale
  of values. We always decide for the better.
• 2. FEC means that all values are created by a
  prior human decision.
• This leads to an infinite regress.

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Criterionless Choice

• Defender of FEC must believe in the possibility
  of an absolute, criterionless choice.
• A choice of what I shall be, what I shall seek,
  that depends on no prior conception of value.
  (e.g., "I choose androgyny, not because it is
  good, but as a fundamental, ungrounded value")

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Aristotelian Response

• Aristotle this is impossible. The human will is
  not built this way.
• Some kind of self-deception must be involved in
  any attempt to do so.

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IV. de Beauvoir and the Problem of Justice

• de Beauvoir clearly affirms that sexual
  inequality is unjust.
• Where do we locate justice in the realm of the
  immanent or the transcendent?
• de Beauvoir seems to face an insoluble dilemma.

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The Dilemma of Justice

• If de B. locates justice in the realm of the
  immanent, then it is something which we humans
  can freely transcend -- if we do not do so, we
  are guilty of bad faith.
• If de B. locates justice in the realm of the
  transcendent, then it must be the product of an
  individual, criterionless choice. No room for
  universal judgments.

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• If justice is transcendent, then de B. cannot
  consistently condemn the standards of patriarchal
  society as inherently unjust.
• At most, she can claim that she chooses (without
  reason) to regard it as unjust.
• If others choose to regard patriarchy as just,
  then for them, it is just.