What is feminism? What makes a feminist? These questions occurred to me last week as I watched reactions to the appointment of a strong, sympathetic, clever, learned young woman of independent mind to the highest court in the most powerful nation on Earth. The United States (US) Senate has just confirmed President Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, to the US Supreme Court. Surely a triumph for feminism?
Apparently not, according to the Democrat ruling class and most big media in the US. Barrett is a devout Christian (Catholic), a happy wife and the mother of seven multiracial children (two by adoption). For this she is regarded with suspicion by the guardians of approved opinion. The Democrats feel that the Supreme Court, by its judgments, should legislate for the policies of the Democratic Party. Since Barrett would not necessarily do so, she is not a true feminist.
What does the true feminist think about abortion? In India, many women choose to have their unborn baby aborted if the baby is female. The women place a higher value on boys than girls. Do feminists approve of these mothers’ right to kill unborn girls?
How about casual sex compared with sex only between those who love each other? For obvious biological reasons, men like lots of sex and are quite happy to copulate with strange women provided they are attractive enough, while most women seem only to want sex with someone they love. In the swinging sixties, with the contraceptive pill and free love, young men thought it was wonderful to have sexual congress with as many women as possible. Women did not find it so wonderful. Does the true feminist agree with traditional religions that sex should be restricted to loving couples, or believe that it should be quite casual and impersonal as well?
Transgender questions. LBGTI activists tell us that sexual differences – oops! gender differences – are not physical but a social construct. In that case, you are whatever gender you feel yourself to be. So, if a person, born male, feels that he is really she, the person should be classified as a woman. Does the true feminist feel that such a transgender woman, with a muscular body and testicles, should be able to use the women’s changing rooms and play in women’s sports – in tennis and rugby, for example?
Margaret Thatcher
Many of my favourite politicians have been women. Are they feminists? The only time I ever lived under a country leader I approved of was in England under Margaret Thatcher. She was Britain’s best peacetime Prime Minister in the 20th Century. She broke down class barriers and liberated the economy, she allowed working class people to own their own homes; she smashed the tyranny of the trade union bosses and gave democratic power to the workers in the factories. She privatised Britain’s inefficient, arrogant state-owned industries and made them efficient and economic, providing far better services to the people. The outstanding example here was telecommunications. She was tough, brave and principled. A feminist hero? Again, superior people did not always think so.
South Africa’s best parliamentarian was Helen Suzman. Helen Zille did quite well as leader of the Democratic Alliance and outstandingly well as Premier of the Western Cape. Both women were tough, brave, resourceful and articulate. Were they feminists?
In the awful Democrat debates in the US this year, my favourite was a woman and my least favourites were also women. I like Tulsi Gabbard, especially for her foreign policies, where she wants to withdraw America from stupid and destructive wars. (For good or bad, she has an attribute that few would notice in a man but everybody notices in a woman: she is gorgeous. This is a distraction.) The two I liked least were Elizabeth Warren, a rich, blonde, blue-eyed, white woman who pretended to be a Native American to advance her university career, and Kamala Harris, deceitful and spiteful, now the Vice Presidential candidate under Joe Biden. (Incidentally, Warren and Harris are both rather attractive.) I was delighted to watch Gabbard tearing Harris to pieces in one of the debates. Which of these three women would be judged feminist?
Men and women have different preferences. The more freedom you give them, the bigger the differences become. In Scandinavian countries, where freedom is greatest for men and women to choose their careers, the divide between their choices is also the greatest. In Sweden, engineering is overwhelmingly male, nursing overwhelmingly female. Such preferences do not appear in the field of politics.
Not particularly female
Policies and ideologies do not seem influenced by the sex of their bearers. Thatcher’s excellent policies were not particularly female, Gladstone’s not particularly male. Maybe, though, there is some manifestation of single-minded resolution and high principle that was shown by Helen Suzman and Margaret Thatcher that is especially female. I’m not sure.
For me, a feminist is an assertive woman of independent mind who believes in equal opportunities for women. The editors of The Guardian and the New York Times would disagree.
[Picture: Miguel Bruna on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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