Helen Rittelmeyer, on feminism and libertarianism:
I notice that my libertarian paradise can only sustain itself in a world with stable communities and self-governing individuals, and the only thing capable of producing either is tradition. If I want to live among mature individuals capable of citizenship in a libertarian state, I’d better defend the social norms that make it possible to bring up those people. If I think that organic communities obviate the need for government intervention, then I’d better preserve those communities, even if they engage in soft coercion. If some of their norms treat women differently or even disadvantageously, that might be good or bad but, in any event, is a matter for that community to decide for itself.
This, concludes Helen, “suggests that feminism and libertarianism (or at least certain brands of it) might be at odds.”
I’ll confess that I don’t know what it means to say that “the only thing capable of producing self-governing individuals is tradition.” With a broad enough definition of “tradition” — as in, tradition discourages the outsourcing of parental responsibilities to rabid dogs — I’m on board here. But since Helen is trying to argue that feminism and libertarianism are somehow mutually exclusive, I guess we can take “tradition” to mean “traditional gender roles.” Have people become less adept at self-governing since women entered the workforce? Again, what is meant by self-governing? It certainly seems odd to characterize a culture that encourages women to be financially independent as less supportive of “self-governance” than one that advises them to stay home, watch Passions, and let the other 49 percent of the population suss out the whole money thing. Is the idea that in a left-libertarian paradise pair-bonding would be obsolete? Or that gay marriages kill productivity? Are we talking about a particular population here? Specifics please.
The libertarian antifeminist position seem strange to me, given the emphasis libertarians place on economic growth, and the tendency of growth to upset traditionalist familial arrangements. (Except on a purely individual level, as in “Go have your abortions, I’ll be right here on my FLDS compound.”) Nothing wreaks havoc on your birth rate like a tripling of GDP, as the Singaporeans can tell you. Someone actually interested in enforcing traditional gender roles across the broader culture would be trying to diminish the opportunity cost of staying home by decreasing the returns to employment, rather than, you know, hand-waving and complaining about the decline of the culture in First Things. Open economies aren’t so helpful there; I suggest checking in with the Kingdom of Bhutan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, because they seem to be doing a bang-up job of it.