Anti-Feminist Politics
Anti-Feminist Politics
I used to think that the primary appeal of Trump to his supporters was his racism. That is undoubtedly a factor, but I’m coming to think that his attitude towards women is a big factor too. I mean his misogyny, his sexism, his contempt, his aggression—all the bad stuff. Notice that his many sexual and other transgressions have not dented his popularity with certain sectors of the population; indeed, they seem to have enhanced it. What is going on psychologically? I have the feeling that feminism is part of it, in particular the Me-Too movement. I think this has angered a lot of people, mainly men: it has made feminism seem doctrinaire and punitive, even cruel and fanatical (the Al Franken episode stands out for me, also Andrew Cuomo). This has angered many men and instilled fear in them. Nor does it help when pundits and politicians trot out the slogan “women must have control over the own bodies” as an argument-ending move—a transparent piece of nonsense to any rational person (for the record I am in favor of abortion). Trump seems to these people to represent a needed counterweight to “feminist” excesses. Men thus resonate to his retrograde tendencies, finding in him a bulwark against a new form of repression and brutality (so typically American in its hysteria and violence). None of this is reasonable, but it is psychologically intelligible. It is what is called backlash. If my diagnosis is correct, contemporary feminism (so called) is part of the reason for Trump’s ascendancy. If he wins, they will be part of the cause.
Since you’re pro-abortion, I assume that when you call trotting out the slogan, “women must have control over the[ir] own bodies” as an argument-ending move a “transparent piece of nonsense,” you mean not that the slogan is nonsense but that trotting it out as an argument-ending move is nonsense. Why is that — because it ignores the claim of forced-birth advocates that fetuses have a right to life? But because forced-birth advocates — at least those in state legislatures — oppose abortion even when fetuses have defects that preclude their survival and may kill the women carrying them, I don’t know how many forced-birth advocates still have the nerve to call themselves “pro-life.”
I mean the slogan is nonsense. Nothing to do with forced-birth. Clue: do women have the right to use their bodies to kill other people?
On October 14, you wrote that “the Lord’s Prayer” and the “holy Roman empire” were inaccurate descriptions that function as names. Might we view “Women must have control over their own bodies” as an inaccurate description of the reason that the government should not interfere with the right to abortion but that functions as a name of that reason? The slogan is overbroad, but it is not used outside the context of abortion (except when it is used as the reason that the government should not interfere with people’s right to take drugs). It is never used to justify killing other people or other acts of physical aggression, so its overbreadth does not give rise to misunderstandings.
What is that reason? That’s the whole question. The other side says a fetus has a right to life, so that it is murder to kill it. We need to address that argument (which is not difficult) but the slogan offers us no help. It is supposed to be a convincing argument not a mere name. Its rhetorical forces depends entirely on suggestions of nail clipping and the like.
I don’t understand “Its rhetorical forces depends entirely on suggestions of nail clipping and the like.” Does “Its” refer to a convincing argument to address the other side’s argument? More important, how would you address the other side’s argument?
I mean the slogan’s apparent cogency stems from thinking of morally neutral questions like whether a woman has a right to clip her nails if she feels like it. But that fails if she does things with her body that have consequences for others. This is painfully obvious. You will find a discussion of the whole abortion question in my Moral Literacy(1992), chapter 3. The “right to life” slogan conflates killing sentient beings and killing anything made of living tissue.
Thanks. I just ordered Moral Literacy. (I don’t know how to do italics at this site.)
Hard to believe I wrote it 32 years ago.
I am enjoying Moral Literacy, and I have a question about something you don’t address in it. Does it follow for you that, if a category of abortion is immoral, then it is moral for the government to prohibit it? In other words, is your sentience criterion merely an academic matter or is it a legal one as well?
An unrelated matter: Do you read the messages you get via “Contact” at your website? A week or so ago I sent you one alerting you to a website problem (clicking on “Inborn Knowledge” goes to a different book), and it hasn’t been fixed.
I don’t think all immoral actions should be illegal, so I might be prepared to make certain cases of immoral abortion legal. At any rate, these are distinct questions.
I don’t know about the website problem–I don’t run it.