Friday, November 7th, 2008...5:15 pm
Libertarian Feminism versus Monarchist Anarchism
Todd Seavey refers to some of my thoughts on feminism and libertarianism and notes that “we can make any philosophy sound kind of, sort of like any other.” Well, that’s true. But it was never my intention to “subsume feminism under libertarianism” and pretend that we should all band together under some anodyne platitude about universal tolerance. I am not that agreeable. It was my intention to point out that most libertarian cocktail party critiques of feminism are utterly insipid and incoherent.
For some reason, various libertarian-leaning men are only capable of acknowledging the limiting nature of social norms when those norms result from recent political action. We all worry that universal surveillance breeds passive adults with no expectation of privacy. We all worry that smoking bans will encourage people to accept the diminution of their choices uncomplainingly. We all realize that the more the state does, the broader most people think its natural scope to be. No thinking libertarian is only concerned with coercion; most of us worry just as much about conformity and passivity in the forms of president-worship and war-lust.
It is extremely weird to recognize this sort of social pressure–the ability of government to create limiting expectations and norms of behavior–and then to immediately dismiss claims about the social construction of gender. States and patriarchies both engender certain patterns of behavior. Humans with female bodies have been dumped into a particular social category with various limiting assumptions, and they’re right to struggle against them.
If Todd wants to argue that women aren’t oppressed because they accept their assigned roles, he’d better be willing to accept the idea that governmental authority is not oppressive because most people don’t complain. Libertarians spend an enormous amount of time telling people that they are, in fact, oppressed. We don’t call it “consciousness raising” when we explain why you ought to be able to shoot up while selling your kidney to a sex worker, but that’s what it is.
Sadly for me, the term “Individualist Feminist” has been captured by women with conservative impulses and an unfortunate obsession with The Vagina Monologues. But it’s not the contradiction Todd thinks it is.
16 Comments
November 7th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
[…] Kerry Howley points out that people who treat “libertarian” and “feminist” as antonyms are, by and large, really fucking dumb: For some reason, various libertarian-leaning men are only capable of acknowledging the limiting nature of social norms when those norms result from recent political action. We all worry that universal surveillance breeds passive adults with no expectation of privacy. We all worry that smoking bans will encourage people to accept the diminution of their choices uncomplainingly. We all realize that the more the state does, the broader most people think its natural scope to be. No thinking libertarian is only concerned with coercion; most of us worry just as much about conformity and passivity in the form of president-worship and war-lust. […]
November 7th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
The problem is there are so many definitions of feminism. When I attended a women’s college in the late 80’s, we were fed a victim-ideology type of feminisim: the mutually exclusive belief that women were fully qualified yet simultaneously disabled regarding our actions in the marketplace. This bothered me for the obvious reasons, but specifically because it made excuses for crappy work (i.e. maybe you failed because your product/service was BAD, not because you were a woman.) So if this is your definition, I can see the problems trying to crowbar it into a libertarian philosophy.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
One more thing: If you have no ambition, it’s unlikely you’re going to feel oppressed by either the government or by society. A lot of people, and sadly a lot of women, actually want to lead a bovine existence (”The Quiet Life Crowd” as Margaret Thatcher contemptuously called them) and no amount of consciousness raising is going to help. That’s why Libertarianism is such a hard sell. It requires more work, more self-discipline and more responsibility than most people are willing to expend.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I’m female, straight, married, & Catholic - but I think I love you.
Great post.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:17 am
While I agree with you that social interactions have a significant impact on the formation and development of one’s gender identity, I think there is still a bright-line distinction that can and should be made between social pressure and government action.
Certainly there are consequences to bucking social norms, but, in a lawful-libertarian society, they do not involve forfeiting one’s life, liberty, or property. The flexibility of language allows us to properly call totalitarian governments and summers in Mississippi oppressive, but that doesn’t mean that the Delta heat prevents people from complaining about it on pain of death or incarceration.
If private entrepreneurs deny women opportunities because of personal beliefs about the “proper” role of women in society, that is bigotry, not oppression. From where I stand, such behavior seems both foolish and shameful, but it also seems that it is protected under the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments of the Constitution, and well should be under the laws of any free society.
My comment is not meant to disparage the activities of women who struggle against gender discrimination, but just to maintain that there is a legitimate and important difference between government imposed restrictions and uncodified social conventions. Being denied rights which apply to all human beings is not the same as being denied opportunities that require certain attributes to be profitably exploited.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:59 am
well done!! this is the response that desperately need to be written….thank you from a “feminist” who doesn’t identify with the left or the right necessarily, and who hates to be labeled in any way.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
[…] seem to be the implication of a confused pro-feminism — yet ostensibly libertarian — blog entry by libertarian Kerry Howley, who (not so unlike my ex-girlfriend Koli Mitra) thinks it is somehow baffling that so many […]
November 8th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Wendy McElroy, the anarchist libertarian woman who coined the term “individualist feminism,” runs ifeminists.com, and wrote the book “XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography,” does not strike me as having “conservative impulses.” If she’s ever written about “The Vagina Monologues,” I don’t remember it.
You may not have had her in mind, but if you didn’t you should have as she is the foremost proponent of individualist feminism. If you’ve got other folks in mind, perhaps Christina Hoff Sommers, you should say so.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:43 am
I’m surprised you didn’t link to this piece by Roderick Long and Charles Johnson. It seems like it would be worth just using the link rather than having to make the same arguments over and over to libertarians like Seavey (as opposed to those like Long and Johnson).
Anon
November 9th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
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November 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
[…] re: whether libertarians can be feminists and vice versa, but if you want catch up, click here, here, here and […]
November 10th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
[…] This exchange reminds me that many (maybe most) self-styled libertarians think that libertarianism is, by definition, a philosophy that conceives of liberty as a lack of coercion, and, additionally, that coercion is something easy to understand. For these libertarians, just as one might decide to take up an interest in the plight of foreign war orphans, one might decide to be troubled by the fact that some people’s lives are stunted or ruined by arbitrary yet systemic exclusion, or by having the development of their interests and talents constantly discouraged and their aspirations and confidence constantly undermined. But these elective worries cannot flow from an interest in liberty, because liberty is about not being threatened with involuntary confinement in a small room, while these things are about being threatened with involuntary confinement in a small life. […]
November 12th, 2008 at 7:02 am
[…] people as free so long as their property rights and bodily integrity are not violated. Kerry objected. I responded. Kerry objected […]
November 13th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
“If Todd wants to argue that women aren’t oppressed because they accept their assigned roles, he’d better be willing to accept the idea that governmental authority is not oppressive because most people don’t complain.”
I find this quote irksome because of Ms. Howley’s subtle intellectual con… the use of the word MOST.
Truthfully, a government is only required because some people don’t agree… and have to be forced. If those people agreed, then a coercive state would be unnecessary. If everyone accepted governmental authority then they wouldn’t need it and would in fact be free… the issue is what happens to the dissenter? Can a woman, or anyone dissent from popular opinion and if so, are they coerced as a result?
Social ostracization isn’t the same as Coercion (although not necessarily contrary to) and until Ms. Howley understands that this is an absurd debate.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
[…] Kerry Howley on libertarianism and feminism again: We don’t call it “consciousness raising” when we explain why you ought to be able to […]
December 8th, 2008 at 2:17 am
[…] away from Roderick Long and Charles Johnson (also only dealt with tangentially), and confront Ms. Kerry Howley’s arguments. Here goes: For some reason, various libertarian-leaning men are only capable of acknowledging the […]
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