Feminists attack Julie Borowski for explaining why there are so few female libertarians. Accusations of "slut shaming" abound.

actanonverba8 · 2013-01-07T06:00:44+00:00

As soon as a lot of money and attention are to be had with libertarianism, feminists will try to take it over.

YetAnotherCommenter · 2013-01-07T06:21:30+00:00

As a libertarian, I am inclined to agree with Steve Horwitz and Sarah Skwire (both of whom are libertarians themselves).

The simple fact is that, for whatever reasons, women tend to be more interested in certain issues other than economic theory - most libertarians have their intellectual background in economics, and economics is a predominantly male field.

Whether this is caused by, perhaps, on-average neuro-cognitive differences between the sexes (plausible yet the hypothesis still needs to be tested), social conditioning towards a certain set of values (also plausible yet needs to be taken with a grain of salt, especially considering how modern western women actually have a bit more cultural liberty to 'pick and choose' what parts of their gender role they wish to adopt than men have), or perhaps a Carol-Gilligan-esque "women are naturally statist" hypothesis (which is complete tripe), just doesn't seem relevant to answering the question.

Many female libertarians come from the left, initially. Their interest is typically in social issues first, economics second. When libertarians explain their ideology, they tend to start with the economics, which tends to be the part which women are less likely to be interested in.

But look, let's make it clear, this fracas is NOT an example of feminists 'invading' libertarianism. The third-wave/radical second-wave feminists have no hope of invading libertarianism because libertarianism is premised on methodological individualism in the social sciences, which is precisely what the feminists we complain about reject. Additionally, libertarianism already has feminists within it, the good kind of feminists who aren't raving manhaters. Wendy McElroy, Sharon Presley and Cathy Young, for instance. This means there will be plenty of pushback against modern-women's-studies-class feminists, should they decide to invade.

Libertarians are by no means a "soft target" at all. They're typically extremely systematic thinkers who will spot the crazy-radfems a mile away and reject them virulently.

I've never heard an actual libertarian feminist (all libertarian feminists are, due to theoretical necessity, the sane type of feminist) allege that "systematic misogyny" is poisoning libertarianism. All I have heard them allege is that most libertarians rarely discuss women's issues, and being that most libertarians are male then this is a perfectly reasonable point to make.

I'm seeing a pattern here: What do the Atheist/secular movements, gaming (at least before it became 'normal'), and libertarianism have in common? They're male nerd spaces. They're inclined towards systematic-thinking intellectual men. Now that gaming and atheism have came under attack by certain feminists, people are getting paranoid that libertarianism will be next (understandably, given how us nerdy men have always had bullies imposing on and mocking us for our hobbies and groups).

Trust me, it won't. Manhater-feminism is so theoretically alien to libertarianism, down to the very basic premises, that no libertarian at all will even give the manhaters the time of day.

MaunaLoona · 2013-01-07T00:26:30+00:00

Her point was that libertarianism is not part of the popular culture. Why did this require her to go on and on about sexuality in the media? I felt most of her speech had nothing to do with libertarianism.

rightsbot · 2013-01-06T21:24:20+00:00

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Title	Feminists attack Julie Borowski for explaining why there are so few female libertarians. Accusations of "slut shaming" abound.
Author	MaunaLoona
Upvotes	36
Comments	17
Date	January 6, 2013 9:24 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/mensrights/comments/162v8j/feminists-attack-julie-borowski-for-explaining-why/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/feminists-attack-julie-borowski-for-explaining-why.1603450 https://theredarchive.com/post/1603450

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