Feminism on Red Alert

Campus Report ^ | April 25, 2008 | Deborah Lambert

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Feminism on Red Alert

by: Deborah Lambert, April 25, 2008

Question: What would inspire a conference on feminism at Harvard to feature conservative viewpoints?

Answer: When it’s organized by Professor Harvey Mansfield’s Program on Constitutional Government. The flyer told the tale, saying: “a genuine debate with DIVERSITY of views on THE LEGACY AND FUTRE [sic] OF FEMINISM” adding that “Ladies Receive an Additional 50% off" (at the free conference)…”

According to Anthony Paletta, some of the guests at this unusual forum were taken aback at the sights and sounds of conservative speakers like Jennifer Roback Morse, Wendy Shalit and Christina Hoff Somers included among the panelists, who presented views on feminism that probably were 180% out of phase with Harvard's tried and true opinions.

The point of the conference was not that conservative viewpoints dominated the sessions. The point was that they were presented at all. Here you actually had left-leaning Brandeis prof Linda Hirshman who denounced “hierarchical, patriarchal and unjust family” and author of Get to Work: A Manifoesto for Women of the World paired against Jennifer Roback Morse, who defended family and home.

How did attendees react to this shocking display of debate and academic freeom on campus? Two of them walked out in disgust. Difficult and hostile questions were directed at conservative panelists—some called the right thinkers “superficial” and “Neanderthals” but. . . and here's the best part, there was favorable reaction also. Panelist Linda Hirshman told Harvey Mansfield that she couldn't...

[killermedic]

Go get em girls!

[agere_contra]

I don’t think feminism can survive actual intellectual diversity. It must have Stalinist consensus or die.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Radical man-hating feminazis have nothing worthwhile to say. They should shut their atheistic materialistic mouths.

[donna]

In the end, feminism gets you kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

[Lucky Dog]

It is interesting that the original premise of “feminism” was “equal pay for equal work.” Some would trace this premise back to “Rosie, the Riveter,” etc. from WWII. Until that time, women in the non-home workplace were a relatively, small percentage of the total workforce and generally confined to occupational areas usually congruent with family life. However, WWII and the post WWII economy changed the workforce demographic paradigm significantly.

On its face, the premise, “equal pay for equal work,” is inarguable from a perspective of justice. It should be obvious when two people are doing the same job under the same constraints, the compensation should be equal. However, debate soon erupts over exactly what is “equal work” and what “constraints” are “equal.” The feminists tried, somewhat successfully, to shift the debate from “equal work,” which is obvious, to a not-so-obvious, “equivalent work.” Definitions soon blurred nearly beyond recognition.

Feminist soon augmented “equal pay for equal work” with “equal opportunity for all under equal constraints.” Again, on its face, the premise is justified as a self-evident truth. Unfortunately, what constituted “equal opportunity” and “equal constraints” became subject to “interpretation.” Soon thereafter, there arose the demand for, not just, “equal opportunity,” but rather, “equal outcomes.” Then, the demand further morphed into “only equal outcomes when they are beneficial.” Beyond that change, the demand for “’equal constraints” also morphed into “some constraints are more ‘equal’ than others.” (…shades of Animal Farm)

The morphing from self-evident truths intuitively based in conceptual justice into unjust demands for “equal outcomes” and then only if they are “beneficial,” regardless of talent, assumed risk or continuity of experience seemed to escape most radical feminists. We now have situations where feminists demand entry in occupations requiring upper body strength such as fire fighting with the proviso that the requirements be lowered for women (completely independent of actual requirements to potentially carry victims out of burning buildings, etc.) Similarly, there are demands to make women executives despite the time demands to achieve such positions that women with children cannot fulfill and remain competent parents.

In summary, feminism has completely lost any basis in the intuitively obvious concept of the justice of “equal pay for equal work.” It is now a movement demanding not justice, but special, unjust considerations. Feminists won’t admit it, but, in reality, they maintain their existence purely for the sake of exercising political power.