I think we broadly agree. "I give more weight to the degree to which sex differences and motherhood explain women's relative economic and political disempowerment in the western developed world" - perhaps I didn't make this clear enough, but I also think that the different biological and psychological realities of parenthood for each sex are largely responsible for women's disempowerment in the modern West. Which isn't to say that we couldn't design our social and political instituitions in a way that better accomodates/mitigates these differences. I'm also something of a transhumanist, and I think that bionic wombs are a prerequisite for women's emancipation!
"a movement to represent the concerns of women is important whether society currently treats women "unfairly" or not" - I like this way of putting it. In my concluding paragraph I say something similar, that advocating for sex-specific issues is not (usually) a zero sum game. But I guess we should admit that there are areas where women's and men's interests directly conflict (a highly patriarchal society might maximise men's interests at the expense of women's), so we will have to make some normative judgements as well as just talking about welfare.
"Bryan is mostly right to observe that much of the mainstream feminist discussion completely ignores the issues women face in other countries". I think this is fair, and it's ok to call this out, but its also a bit of a cheat to just dunk on the dumbest parts of feminist discourse without engaging with the more serious stuff!
Thanks, Alex! Yes, that makes sense and I am also down for bionic wombs etc. :)
And fair w.r.t. Bryan and the cultural relativism point I brought up. You’re very right that he didn’t even attempt to engage with feminist literature. I feel that dunking on the dumbest parts of mainstream feminism has a place, and I do it myself sometimes, but I also come from a feminist perspective and make space for what I think should *change* rather than dismissing “feminism” altogether as Bryan does.
I agree with most of this, although I think I give more weight to the degree to which sex differences and motherhood explain women's relative economic and political disempowerment in the western developed world and am less inclined to assume that unequal outcomes are inherently problematic (I didn't read you as claiming they're *always* problematic, but I may be less likely to conclude that at the margin). I also wrote a response to "Don't Be a Feminist" where I argue that because I think there are meaningful sex differences, a movement to represent the concerns of women is important whether society currently treats women "unfairly" or not. From my perspective it seems that there is good reason to assume that men will systematically underweight many issues that are important to women (and families). I also very much agree with your footnote on feminism as a global movement, but I think Bryan is mostly right to observe that much of the mainstream feminist discussion completely ignores the issues women face in other countries, partly due to a strong cultural relativist norm in very progressive circles (which I see as largely incompatible with feminism since being feminist explicitly means that you think some cultures, the less patriarchal ones, the ones that treat women better, are better than others).
I think we broadly agree. "I give more weight to the degree to which sex differences and motherhood explain women's relative economic and political disempowerment in the western developed world" - perhaps I didn't make this clear enough, but I also think that the different biological and psychological realities of parenthood for each sex are largely responsible for women's disempowerment in the modern West. Which isn't to say that we couldn't design our social and political instituitions in a way that better accomodates/mitigates these differences. I'm also something of a transhumanist, and I think that bionic wombs are a prerequisite for women's emancipation!
"a movement to represent the concerns of women is important whether society currently treats women "unfairly" or not" - I like this way of putting it. In my concluding paragraph I say something similar, that advocating for sex-specific issues is not (usually) a zero sum game. But I guess we should admit that there are areas where women's and men's interests directly conflict (a highly patriarchal society might maximise men's interests at the expense of women's), so we will have to make some normative judgements as well as just talking about welfare.
"Bryan is mostly right to observe that much of the mainstream feminist discussion completely ignores the issues women face in other countries". I think this is fair, and it's ok to call this out, but its also a bit of a cheat to just dunk on the dumbest parts of feminist discourse without engaging with the more serious stuff!
Thanks, Alex! Yes, that makes sense and I am also down for bionic wombs etc. :)
And fair w.r.t. Bryan and the cultural relativism point I brought up. You’re very right that he didn’t even attempt to engage with feminist literature. I feel that dunking on the dumbest parts of mainstream feminism has a place, and I do it myself sometimes, but I also come from a feminist perspective and make space for what I think should *change* rather than dismissing “feminism” altogether as Bryan does.
Good piece! I wrote something a while back about Caplan’s essay—I think his definition of feminism fails to do what he wants it to do https://open.substack.com/pub/wollenblog/p/caplans-definition-of-feminism?r=2248ub&utm_medium=ios
I agree with most of this, although I think I give more weight to the degree to which sex differences and motherhood explain women's relative economic and political disempowerment in the western developed world and am less inclined to assume that unequal outcomes are inherently problematic (I didn't read you as claiming they're *always* problematic, but I may be less likely to conclude that at the margin). I also wrote a response to "Don't Be a Feminist" where I argue that because I think there are meaningful sex differences, a movement to represent the concerns of women is important whether society currently treats women "unfairly" or not. From my perspective it seems that there is good reason to assume that men will systematically underweight many issues that are important to women (and families). I also very much agree with your footnote on feminism as a global movement, but I think Bryan is mostly right to observe that much of the mainstream feminist discussion completely ignores the issues women face in other countries, partly due to a strong cultural relativist norm in very progressive circles (which I see as largely incompatible with feminism since being feminist explicitly means that you think some cultures, the less patriarchal ones, the ones that treat women better, are better than others).
https://open.substack.com/pub/reganarntzgray/p/do-be-a-feminist?r=ipqw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true