By Ethical
Despite decades of feminist advances there still are countless inequities against women that remain to be addressed. Most notably the number of women in corporate leadership is disproportionately low. So is the number of female political leaders. And women still earn less in the workplace though admittedly due to factors such as fewer years of experience at the same job as men that are related to pregnancy and child rearing which society shouldn’t punish women for. Women also still have far fewer opportunities in professional sports, and the majority of jobs where there is some requirement for physical strength, or where there is an element of isolation or danger are still for the most part monopolized by men.
As far as domestic issues go women sometimes still have to endure the terror of sharing custody of their children with men whom they’ve accused of having been physically or sexually abusive. Then when they come forward to report that abuse even today women sometimes aren’t believed without question . And despite being responsible for the bulk of child care women are still sometimes forced by divorce judges to consider the view of the father in decisions regarding the children’s upbringing or education; infantilizing them as if they as mothers don’t know what’s good for their own children.
Finally in society as a whole women feel less safe than men and then have to contend with increased scrutiny regarding the circumstances they placed themselves in, the way they dressed, the way they acted, or whether they were high or intoxicated whenever they’re victim of a crime. It’s unfair, they feel, since in their opinion men aren’t judged equally harshly in the same situations.
How should feminism respond? If given infinite money and manpower to address each and all of these issues, logically the first thing to do would be to start with setting a quota that 50% of all appointed and elected corporate and political leadership positions go to women. With infinite funds we could hire a woman to train into each slot even if there weren’t currently any qualified female candidates. We might even hire a number of female trainees to increase the likelihood at least one will be found suitable after training.
Once the positions were filled, for those women who would otherwise subsequently be compelled to take time away for child rearing, we could pay for fertility treatments and hire surrogates so those women wanting children could avoid the career interruption of pregnancy if they so desire. For the others who chose to give birth themselves we could create offices with adjoining nanny suites so the children would always be near enough to allow it if the women should desire to breastfeed. On top of that we could institute job-sharing so that two women could both divide demanding roles like that of CEO without either having to work outlandish hours. Job sharing would also allow them to spread any necessary travel between them so neither would be forced to be away from home too long or too often. All this is within the realm of possibility even today. If companies can pay a few million for a private jet they can certainly pay for some or all of these lesser expenses.
But once we reached workplace equity how would we suppress men from working longer, and taking on more dangerous and risky endeavors with greater chance of reward as they have been historically more willing to do whenever they thought it would give them a competitive edge? We could make divorce so likely and disenfranchise husbands and fathers so thoroughly afterwards that no man would ever feel safe in putting in that kind of effort for the only reason that men ever have … which is to attract a mate and support a family. But continuing to cause young men to opt out like that would result in our economies eventually grinding to a halt, not to mention at some point generating dangerous societal instability. And even then how could we stop women from wanting to enjoy more time with their children or placing a higher priority on making a comfortable home for their families? Even once equity was reached those quotas would have to remain in place forever to thwart those with more ability or those wanting to invest more work so they don’t get ahead, and to bolster those wanting to achieve a better work life balance so they don’t fall behind. At some point the quotas become more unjust than the inequity they were meant to address.
And what of jobs requiring physical strength or greater tolerance for isolation or danger? How would we, across the board, forbid companies, sport teams, and other organisations from engaging in unrestricted competition for the human resources that make them most competitive? Would soccer players have to give each other a 2 meter berth to prevent fouls once women are forced into the English premier league? Will the NFL have to be slowed down and the aggression taken out for it to make it more woman-friendly once legislation made the NFL co-ed? Granted since we as feminist owners are willing to devote an infinite amount of money to our workplace equity dream we’ll likely have no problem paying enough to find women who’ll face off against a 300 lb linebacker, if only to take a dive. But far from us having infinite resources to pay her we’ll only have the gate receipts brought in by co-ed football. Unless we’re allowed to raise our revenue with half time lap dances we’ll just have to pray our season won’t be cut short by a league suspension because we can’t afford to fill our quota of women.
On the domestic front where women sometimes still have to share custody of their children with men who they’ve accused of having been physically or sexually abusive, to prevent any possibility of that horror we could just take the woman’s word in all cases. But even if only a few mothers made false accusations for ill purposes, going so far as to completely eliminate men’s right to defend themselves with real evidence would end up victimizing the daughters denied access to those innocent fathers. On eliminating the opportunity for the abusive influence of mothers who would make such false accusations to be tempered by the calming influence the fathers would have had in their lives, the girls would suffer. Furthermore all the women in the man’s extended family who would be denied any involvement in the children’s lives would also suffer from the loss of contact. A far greater number of women would suffer far more injustice than whatever injustice the mother as an individual would be freed from.
And finally, completely preventing women from ever becoming a target for crime regardless of what choices they make would take the same effort as making sure a tiny wisp of a man dressed in a designer suit and wearing a huge diamond studded platinum Rolex never got robbed whenever he decided to walk drunk as a fish through deserted ghetto alleyways late at night with earphones pumping ABBA way too loud to hear the footsteps behind him. Namely we would have to completely eliminate all crime. To avoid crimes of opportunity we would have to have complete security everywhere at all times so women could even walk carelessly through alleyways full of homeless crackheads in the middle of night, while dressed in negligees. To avoid premeditated incidents we would have to make sure potential perpetrators were jailed before a crime was committed if there was any potential motivation such as disagreements over money, or an insult or slight.
If we as societies are infinitely prosperous we could certainly afford to make at least some progress towards accomplishing this utopia. But infinite prosperity is exactly what we would need. Because any type of business or commerce, and life as whole for that matter, would grind to an absolute halt. From the sheer ridiculousness of this thought experiment it should be clear by now that the closer we got to achieving this feminist utopia the more we would recognize that for any demographic other than women we would instead have achieved an Orwellian hell. In order to completely free women from responsibility for any consequences of their decisions, we would have to completely repress everyone else. The great injustice of impairing every man’s ability to make a living because of an 8:00 pm curfew, the great injustice of causing every man to fear even taking out the garbage because all men who walk through any alley must register themselves as a potential sex offenders or robbers, and the great injustice of imprisoning men if they can’t produce a signed consent agreement after any time there’s a misunderstanding about whether sexual consent was given, would all rapidly make asking women to be a little more aware and responsible for their own safety seem a tiny injustice in comparison.
With debt growing to unsustainable levels in all the advanced western democracies rich enough to even contemplate such feminist utopias, realistically achievable and cost effective social solutions may instead be all we can afford.
It may be time to be practical and consider that while seeking equity is an admirable goal, inequity does not necessarily mean inequality. Completely aside from the argument of whether it’s justified to address historical inequity by applying reverse inequality, we have to be cautious and judicious about which inequities we apply our efforts to, regardless of whether we try to address inequities or explain them away.
Caution is important because views from any traditionally privileged demographic (in this case men) justifying historical inequity as resulting from differences in natural abilities or predispositions, are overwhelmingly only theories. They can’t often be proven except in a highly contrived manner without controlling for some variables that might be unknown or unknowable at the time. On the other hand views from the traditionally underprivileged demographic (here women) explaining away historical inequity in terms of unfair barriers or lack of opportunity are generally also only theories relying on untested assumptions. But quashing these theories is quashing hope where the possibility of an better outcome can’t be ruled out. Social science is unfortunately not only an inexact science but also a laggard. Explanations WHY SOMETHING IS IMPOSSIBLE for someone or other are too often rendered moot by the person who goes out and JUST DOES IT anyways. And it only explains WHY the impossible could have happened long after some intrepid soul with a crazy Cinderella story has ventured into the unknown and demonstrated HOW its done.
But despite the uncertainty we can make progress towards equity by becoming more honest about what we DO know from empirical evidence and at the same time becoming more honest and aware about the holes in our knowledge around what we DON’T know. We’re beginning to learn for example that some if not all the inequity in men’s and women’s salaries comes from the fact that if given the choice women tend to prefer less risky, less dangerous, less isolated jobs in favor of jobs that offer a better work life balance. Risking all to race balls to the wall after the brass ring is less enticing to many women more women than hugging their children every night. At the same time we can’t say this is a permanent limitation. Perhaps it’s possible to cost effectively change the corporate world so these considerations no longer factor in and women don’t have to choose.
In either case the lack of detached objectivity in the feminism still so rampant even today makes the issues so sensitive that candid discussions are a great challenge. However in recent articles like “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” by Anne Marie Slaughter we see working women watching themselves becoming less happy and more frazzled as they try to avoid either being held fully responsible financially for their families like men or held fully responsible for the care of their families like traditional homemakers. We men only look on and sigh, just as we always have when women ask us about problems they don’t want solved. We know better than to suggest the obvious which is that for all but the exceptional woman, in trying to achieve both goals one will conflict with the other and she’ll end up accomplishing neither. We’ve watched women skirt around the issue for so long. Now the cognitive dissonance is finally shedding light on the lack of straight honest talk, and without even a word from us in the manosphere, women for their own survival are disarming the most harmful elements of feminism that our resource constrained world soon may no longer be in the position to even pretend to be able to afford to indulge her with.
