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It seems that the vibe has definitely shifted in politics and general social spaces, as many folks last week commented on here. People are more open to using language that used to be termed offensive, right-wing political statements are more in vogue, etc.
I'm curious specifically what all of this means for feminism, and the gender war subset of the larger Culture War. I saw an interesting piece which blew up on X lately, that, in discussing the Neil Gaiman situation, argues:
Now many linkers and commentators on X are basically arguing - why yes, women don't have agency, and that's why most cultures have reflected that in law and social practice. I think this sort of smugly satisfied mocking of women is in quite poor taste, and not likely to be productive, but there is a deeper point in there. Unfortunately it seems that, even after decades of propaganda, rewriting of tons of laws, giving women voting power, dismantling "oppressive" cultural structures like religion, etc. etc., we still as a society are not able to treat women as adults with agency, and consequences for their actions.
Now a progressive might come in and say - ok, fine we do still struggle with this issue, but hey, it's because of bad social programming! Just give us another 100 years and we will totally hold women responsible just like men, we promise!
That has basically been the progressive line to justify going further and further to the left with social and legal programs. Problem for them is, with the vibe shift I mentioned earlier, I think that argument is running out of steam. The average person no longer seems to be convinced that this is just a cultural problem which will go away.
So, where do we go from here? Do you think feminism will actually be rolled back in a meaningful way? I'm skeptical myself, but I'm also skeptical we will magically start holding women accountable. Not sure what happens next...
Louise Perry (a British 'reactionary feminist') argues that agency is distributed on a bell curve, with some people being very agentic and some people being very passive/conformist. She also acknowledges that young women are particularly conformist, and so more vulnerable to doing things that are socially promoted (Louise was talking about Only Fans) even if they are damaging to the woman in question.
It's easy to focus on young women having sex because it's titillating, but I'm happy to accept the premise that lots of people need protection from their own choices by the state/society. Whether that means banning sports betting, making it harder to get drugs/alcohol, or for parents to stop their daughters from making poor choices about who to sleep with.
The state is a blunt instrument, of course, so it's better to have it regulate concrete things like gambling than messy things like sex.
The idea of an agency bell curve is intriguing. It seems to make a lot of intuitive sense when one acknowledges that IQ is a bell curve and that people also have broadly identifiable personality traits - neuroticism, openness etc.
I do not want to see the State, however, making decisions in relation to the agency bell curve. IMHO, the State dictates the limits to the playing field - laws are, mostly, what you can't do at the outer extremes. No killing, no theft of property, you have to conform to contracts you've entered into. Other than that, let culture and subculture take precedence.
If you want to adhere to cultural norms that place no penalty on pre-marital promiscuity, this is fine. If you feel you ought to have your father's consent before you are married, that's also fine. Cultures and subcultures that do a better job of fostering pro-social systems and reinforcement loops should, naturally, win out over time.
I think one of the meta-narratives on the Motte is that when the State thumbs the scale on one side or the other of the culture war, that's always bad.
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The motte part -- surely not. Various absurd baileys that have emerged, for sure. They are already in retreat in some places.
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People choose to take on too much frivolous debt and destroy their lives. Is the whole lending project dead? Should the media no longer write op-eds about payday loans with a 400% ARP? The average person no longer seems to be convinced that this is just a cultural problem which will go away.
That Pavlovich bird does not a summer make. There are global differences in median male and female traits, but I see no reason to treat them differently under the laws of a free society. Globally, men are vastly more violent, more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, get into gambling debt, fall victim to romance and finance scams. We somehow manage to treat them like adults. I've never even heard it argued that we should do otherwise which is weird.
But it's not weird. Men treating women as having less agency, and also women claiming less responsibility, has been normal throughout human history. Women have more agency and responsibility than children, but less than men. At the same time, exceptions have always been recognized (some women, and even some children, have more agency and responsibility than some men). However, not until the last few decades has anyone tried to reorganize society and culture around the exceptions rather than the norm. This is natural human social behavior. Fundamentally, a woman crying is psychologically (and even physiologically) more like a child crying than a man crying, and that matters more than any ideological principles or even the letter of the law.
My personal preference is for the classical liberal ideal of legal equality but cultural inequality. However, that does not seem to have been a very stable equilibrium. It seems humans as constituted are unable to cope in that kind of world. There is no returning to the past, but the future will not look like the present (if only because birthrates among these cultural groups are unsustainable).
Of course the sexes are unequal. This is undeniable. But I have yet to hear any argument why basic rights should differ. What is being proposed here is an anathema to classical liberalism. Sure, people are free to debate the cultural inequality of agency or roles between men an women, so long as they're treated equally under the law. If it wants to fit into classically liberalism, the individual takes precedent over group based rights.
Women demonstrate more agency than men when it comes to getting romance or finance scammed, abusing drugs and alcohol, or murdering people. Of course, it doesn't follow that we should take the vote away form men, or consider them children. Men are full adults, and are responsible for their choices. So is Pavlovich.
They don't show more agency, they don't do those "bad" things. Agency is actively making choices that don't strictly follow others. This is the same mistake as thinking someone too incapable to commit crime virtuous.
Avoiding those bad things requires agency, and women demonstrate more of it than men in those contexts. This is true around the world. In general, males show greater impulsivity in both humans and lab animals. Nobody has argued for a broad societal reconsideration of whether men are adults. People would laugh that argument out of the room.
Is there a problem with women claiming a sexual encounter was consensual, and arguing for a take-back some time later? Absolutely. Does it follow that we should seriously consider whether women are adults? No. Thats insane.
Everyone who has uttered the words "the brain doesn't finish development until you're 25" is making this argument.
It's not laughed out of the room.
To the extent that observation constitutes an argument, its completely different. Any serious proposal to push back legal adulthood to 25 is generally laughed at as an impractical nanny state absurdity. Men demonstrate less agency in some areas, women in others. Why consider one adults, and not the other.
Because man bad, woman good. Young men are also more physically disorderly than young women (despite 48% of population, overwhelming majority of violent crime), so you can sell it as risk control.
It's certainly laughed at less than any proposals to lower the age of adulthood, which suggests the average person believes it should be higher.
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What do you mean by this? For example, men do most of the murder, and murder is a high-agency activity. Agency doesn't mean "good outcomes".
No, not good outcome. But in general males are more impulsive, in humans and lab animals. Thats more direct. Murder was a proxy, but its multifactorial. My point being men around the world and across time seem perennially unable to control their behavior when it comes to murder (for the subset of murders that are heat of the moment, impassioned, impulsive, etc). This is because the sexes are inherently different, yet we still prioritize the individual and their choices. We don't call into question men's right to vote.
Women are more likely to be "scammed" of sex, where men are more likely to be scammed out of money. Of course men aren't spinning yarn about how they're really not responsible for their own free choices in romance scams, or divorce rape, etc. Women arguing that Pavlovich wasn't responsible are insane (as far as I understand the details).
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How much sympathy do men get for being romance scammed? Or being murderers?
Now, ask yourself the same question for a college aged woman who reports being sexually assaulted at a party?
I probably agree with you a lot here. But it would be laughable to argue that these outliers at the margins are a serious reason to question if men are adults.
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Uhhh this is unironically also a big societal issue. Lots of people have been agitating to nationalize the credit card industry for this exact reason.
Ok but the issue is that we do treat men and women differently under the laws of our society...
Most of my critique revolves around extending a single instance of an unreliable narrator into viewing women as children, and questioning their right to vote. This is an insane extrapolation of the data, and wouldn't be accepted as a fundamental policy or philosophical argument.
I know, and the govt heavily regulates lending anyhow, but less now than ever in terms of max ARP.
My point being that even the most egregious instances of usuary (ie pay day loans) do not portend the end of lending. Nationalizing the credit industry seems less fringe and hairbrained than not treating women as adults. However, neither are practiced anywhere worth living.
I'm sure there is bias in the law as practiced, and men and women suffer unfounded disparate impact, but AFAIK the laws theoretically apply equally wherever possible. Given men's propensity to fall for romance, finance, and gabling scams, its odd that I've never seen it argued that we should view all men as hapless children, and restrict their rights. A maximally insane take would be restricting unrelated rights like driving or, I dunno, voting.
Theoretically is doing a lot of work here. There are all sorts of issues with women's vs men's shelters, funding for female programs in schools, affirmative action type things for women in corporate, etc etc etc.
I think that we are disagreeing on the fact that I absolutely do not think that women and men are treated equally right now, even though the laws say they do. In fact I think there's a big difference. Do you agree with that or not?
EDIT: FWIW I'm not actively arguing we take away rights from women, which you seem to be implying. I'm just saying that culturally, there seems to be an issue with having women occupy both the role of equal to men and also getting much more benefit than men socially.
Yeah I agree with your assessment quite a lot. My point is that extrapolating these outlying male deficits in self-control/agency all the way to questioning if society can treat men as adults is absurd.
I don't think that society should treat alcoholics or degenerate gamblers as adults... and in fact we don't in many cases, in similar ways.
I can grant that, and the original hypothesis still doesn't follow. We're talking about an entire category of people, only some of whom demonstrate lower agency in at least one area. Men are less able to control their drinking and gambling, but we wouldn't consider all men to be children. Its the same in the Pavlovich et.al cases. Some women claim they can't meaningfully consent to sex even when they do. They're insane and a moral hazard. I'm not gonna play in that framework. Whether they like it or not, they're adults.
Again I'm not saying that women should be denied rights or anything. I edited my earlier post to clarify. No need to play in a framework that doesn't exist.
I'm really just asking the question of like - what do we do with this? How can we make it more fair, perhaps by changing the culture, or at least make things make more sense?
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Situations like this are precisely why progressives are skeptical of employee/employer sexual relationships and it sounds like it was worse here because Gaiman and Palmer were also providing Pavlovich housing as part of the deal. If your combination landlord/boss came onto you one day might one go along with it even if they didn't want to? Might the implicit threat of "I could make you unemployed and homeless" convince someone not to resist? I hardly think we can generalize from "a woman might pretend to enjoy sex to keep her job and housing" to "no women anywhere can be treated with as having agency."
In any case I feel very comfortable asserting that ~no one enforces their own desires and boundaries as they might like 100% of the time. Do you tell your boss how bullshit it is every time they drop work on you that you think you shouldn't be doing or have to do? Do you bitch to your spouse every time they want to do That Thing they like but you don't? Or do you sometimes suck it up and do the thing with a smile anyway? Sexual assault is an extreme case of this but the consequences of not doing so (unemployment, homelessness) probably seemed pretty extreme to Pavlovich.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that I don't consent to it. I make the decision to accept that I am working late instead of hang out with my husband. I make the decision to watch the show my husband likes and I don't really care about. I consent to all these things because I weigh up their plusses and minuses, and make a decision. That's just what it is to be a human person in an imperfect world making decisions. "Sure, I decided to take on student loans, but I felt pressured from my parents to go to the more expensive school and I don't like the idea of paying them back." Still consent.
An employer or landlord trying to get sex out of an employee/tenant is bad for reasons that have nothing to do with consent. It's bad because it creates an unfair labor or housing market, which is based around who is willing and able to provide sexual favors.
The point is that maybe sex is special, and consent is necessary but insufficient to guarantee an ethical sexual encounter.
The sufficient level of consent might be a highly expensive (in terms of social capital both now and in the future) public ceremony of consent that also indirectly involves your closest family members.
That's right; marriage.
While I personally think it's goofy, I can at least understand the idea that a breathy "yes" in the middle of buttons unbuttoning and belts unbelting during a steamy makeout session is, perhaps, rushed and ill-considered. Not so in a multi-hour (or day) ceremony with religious overtones and even clergy present all while grandma and grandpa look on with (dis?)approval.
I don't think a marriage certificate ought to be required for sex, and I don't think we should be imprisoning people for the crimes of fornication or adultery. But I'd love to see a culture where casual sex is once again considered a weirdo fringe thing much like married couple swinging still is.
If I'm a young person dating right now, there is a constant suspicion that the other person is not entirely exclusive and that, due to that fact, I may be less than number 1 on their list. So dating turns into this exercise in competitive mistrust and a prisoners dilemma of commitment-investment, rather than a steadily progressing exercise in value and life ambition matching and bonding.
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And this is why ‘consent based sexual morality’ is full of obvious rule patches tack-welded on in the most awkward possible way.
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So how does this square with the general feminist sex-positive ideology? Are you saying we should restrict all sex at the workplace and in any relationship where power dynamics could be employed?
Yes. This is bog-standard just about everywhere. You can consensually fuck/date anyone you want at the workplace except those that you have a supervisory or evaluative relationship. The same is true of police, they can consensually fuck/date everyone except those they are investigating or arresting.
That's the motte, I think it's probably good not to sweep away this particular motte with the bathwater here, and of course I agree with the broad stroke that some are trying to claim an entire bailey of "it's not consensual if later on one party believes it wasn't".
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I think one can generally be (and feminists are) pro-sex generally while thinking particular categories ought to be prohibited or warrant additional scrutiny.
I think those relationships at least warrant extra scrutiny but I wouldn't be opposed to a general prohibition.
So you are in favour of segregation of men and women in society writ large? Thats the only Way such a prohibition would function
This seems very straightforwardly false. I've worked with a lot of women, none of whom have had relationships with management.
As if you would be privy to this information
How hot were these women? Maybe we can make allowances for fuglies to work with men
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The question is whether it's false in general and over time. If it works for some people some of the time, but also results in reduced family formation and below replacement birthrates on the whole, then it will be replaced by something else in the long run. Segregation is part of a historical package that could make a comeback.
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It already functions in most workplaces, honestly. At least everywhere I worked at there was a clause about notifying management when you start dating another employee, with the underlying assumption that it would prevent uncomfortable situations regarding power dynamics. It's not that uncommon, you don't need to introduce new laws to do this.
Most workplaces don’t prohibit coworkers from dating, true
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The one obvious and crucial difference is that all those examples are forms of written, signed agreements with detailed rights and responsibilities of the signing parties, effecting penalties in case of breach of contract etc. In the current year, trying to regulate human mating would be seen as an enormously icky idea and would never fly.
Hmm.
Or even... a marriage certificate?
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See, as someone who is actually quite fond of women- but not delusional- this is quite sad. Getting taken advantage of happens whenever women aren’t protected, either because no one cares or because of recognizing their ‘autonomy’ or whatever.
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the greatest opponents of any potential measure to introduce contractual agreements in the realm of heterosexual mating would be women.
There is a figure you sometimes see, the ‘abortion bro’. He is strongly pro-choice because, although he doesn’t care overmuch about women’s freedom or health, he definitely does not want to wind up a dad by accident. He’ll make arguments along the lines of ‘what if your girlfriend got pregnant- see that’s why it’s important to protect women’s reproductive rights’. Some of them will talk about the need to firmly tell partners interested in keeping the baby that paying for an abortion will be the last help they ever get, and they’re going no contact afterwards regardless of her decision.
For obvious reasons, this figure is not allowed to headline pro-choice rallies. But you find them on Reddit, sometimes IRL, and occasionally in op-Ed’s in lowbrow newspapers. But they definitely exist. I suspect they’re much more common than women who actually want low commitment relationships.
Men have identical happiness whether married or cohabiting- women are far happier married. Women are nearly four times as likely to say they want to save sex for marriage as men are- and by relationship progression, men get their way. The median woman has socially-conservative-in-practice preferences for relationships and sex; in fact feminists generally do too. They’re just unable to advocate for themselves effectively in the face of men’s preferences. And that is the reason for patriarchy. We don’t tell children to stick up for themselves against adults and expect them to do it, at least not well. There are frameworks for dealing with relationships between adults and children- teachers have extensive rules governing how they relate to students, for example. Likewise you can’t reasonably expect an unprotected woman to be at the mercy of whatever man is around.
Yes, the people most offended by this are women. I have no doubt that the feminist will answer with ‘that’s NOT true’ or some variant thereof and the abortion bro will answer with ‘not my problem they’re like that’. But a typical woman flourishes better with couverture than as femme sole.
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