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diamonds don't enslave women, women enslave women

pamela — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:04:46 +0000

Part of why I decided to blog again is because I had a backlog of stuff I wanted to write about. Here’s the first of that stuff. Let’s call this the beginning of a “Feminism Friday” series.

An Engagement Ring Is a Deposit on a Wife

This piece was written in response to a recent New York case in which a woman whose fiance cheated on her wanted to keep the $19k diamond engagement ring. The court ruled that the ring is not just any gift, but a gift given “in contemplation of marriage” and that — regardless of fault — it must be given back if the marriage does not take place.

The author concludes that valuable diamond engagement rings are, therefore, deposits on wives. Furthermore, even if they were given freely (i.e., not in contemplation in marriage), they would still be unacceptable, because “treating a gendered ritual as if it were a freely given gift doesn’t change underlying creepiness.”

Feminists usually really like paying attention to social norms, cultural contexts, power relations, scripts, etc. But this argument is guilty of total context dropping. The behavior of men is shaped by cultural forces at least as much as women in this situation — how many of them would even *think* of proposing without a ring? Like it or not, this is simply a sociocultural fact. The law is, and should be, somewhat sensitive to sociocultural facts. To treat the engagement ring as any old gift is to disregard the sociocultural pressure that men face in purchasing it, expressly for the purpose of fulfilling their parts in the marriage proposal script. In legalese, the ring ends up sounding kind of like a deposit. But who cares? Everyone who’s not a moral monster now knows that women aren’t objects.

Would things really be better for women if the jilted female plaintiff in New York had been awarded the ring? Not at all. Then, enshrined in the law, would be a wildly objectionable way for women to make tens of thousands of dollars fairly quickly and easily: just get a guy to fall in love with you and propose, and then walk away. After all, when you actually marry, you keep the ring to wear and enjoy (barring difficult financial circumstances which require its sale). But I would guess that those who don’t actually marry typically sell the ring. Diamonds are valuable, durable, and in constant demand, making them unlike ordinary gifts you might receive from a boyfriend: clothing, books, DVDs, small electronics. This is a legally and morally relevant difference from ordinary gifts — diamond rings represent a cash windfall available to the owner at almost any time. Furthermore, getting to keep the ring would also add to the sickening stereotype of women as engagement– and marriage-crazed, more concerned with the trappings of love than love itself.

I suppose that you might worry that a man could then just offer diamond engagement ring to a woman in order to extract sex from her, and then break up with her and take it back whenever he wants. But it’s not like men don’t use women (and vice versa!) already. It’s not the rightful purpose of the law to order social arrangements in any particular way, even if it could effectively do so (which I doubt).

The important thing is that, even having received a valuable diamond ring, a woman can still change her mind and back out of the engagement. She merely has to give the ring back. Provided there are no extremely extenuating circumstances (e.g., she is literally starving), this should not be a particularly difficult thing to do. The diamond ring itself does not constrain a woman’s life choices in any appreciable way. If a woman were to marry because she really likes the ring and has chosen to see it as a deposit placed upon her life, then she has only succeeded in enslaving herself.

sexism and the equality of persons

pamela — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:21:05 +0000

This post at Overcoming Bias caught my eye the other day: I Am Sexist

Basically, Robin Hanson points out that a common definition and usage of “sexism” — having a “belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other” is flawed. It makes scientific observation of the differences between genders “sexist” and therefore politically incorrect even where such study is legitimate. It also isn’t naturally applied to instances of claiming that one gender is superior to another in some way. This leads to the possibly objectionable result that women’s superior qualities may be reported and celebrated, while the reporting of men’s superior qualities tends to be criticized as “sexist.”

But it’s easy to see where this flawed definition of sexism came from — the widely shared intuition that there is some respect in which all persons are equal. The definition goes astray in suggesting that something like “competence” is how we are all equal. Clearly some humans are incompetent. And no other capacity or ability can or should ground our equality. After all, we may always find new evidence that men and women are not alike in various capacities and abilities. And suggesting that intelligence (or athletic ability, or typing speed, etc.) is the most morally important trait would — dangerously — suggest that society should be ordered in an inegalitarian fashion, along that dimension only.

To make a long story very short, the best explanation of sexism actually comes from people like Peter Singer who are interested in speciesism. Speciesism holds that moral beings do not have any greater or lesser moral value simply on account of their species, and that the interests of all sentient beings must be given equal moral consideration. Yet, speciesism does not hold that we must treat all sentient beings in the same way because any given being’s interests may be outweighed by another’s, depending on the circumstances. The interests of humans will often outweigh the interests of non-human animals because humans typically have other capacities (memory, life planning, close relationships, language) that make their interests in certain outcomes stronger or weightier than those of the non-human animals.

Sexism can and should be explained in much the same way. Humans do not have any greater or lesser moral value simply on account of their gender, and the interests of all genders must be given moral consideration. But there is nothing incompatible between this and recognizing the possible or actual differences between genders.

Here’s an example that the professor I TA for often uses: imagine you are in charge of hiring firefighters, and both men and women have applied. Men are, in general, are stronger than women, and this gives you a reason to weight their interest in being firefighters more heavily than that of the female applicants. However, it is possible that some of the women are stronger than some of the men. To use gender as a proxy for strength is sexist, because it favors the interests of men when there is no relevant difference between a weak man and a strong woman. On the common definition, though, even admitting the difference in strength is sexist!

So, I agree that the definition is bad. Sexism is not about inferiority in terms of any ability or capacity. Rather, it’s supposed to describe a kind of violation against the equality of persons. But persons are only equal in a moral sense, and it’s rather difficult to pinpoint and explain. As such, I’m not hopeful that the dictionary is going to fix this anytime soon. Until then, let’s not let political correctness stand in the way of legitimate scientific inquiry into gender differences, or of giving credit where credit is due — whether that is to men, or to women.

I don’t know how free Amish women are

pamela — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:29:34 +0000

Bryan Caplan writes:

Question: How free are Amish women compared to other American women? I say they’re just as free. I also say, against Will Wilkinson, that their “formal freedom” is morally significant. If the Amish used threats of violence to keep their women in, it would be a terrible crime. As matters stand, though, the plight of Amish women strikes me as objectionable, but far from awful. I vacation in Pennsylvania Dutch country without losing sleep over it. When an Amish girl marries an Amish boy, she knows what she’s getting into — and her voluntary consent is meaningful despite her Amish upbringing.

[I don’t think Will denied that their formal freedom has moral significance?]

My opinion? I don’t know how free Amish women are. Their level of freedom, and that of other American women, is determined by counterfactuals having to do with whether or not significantly different alternate ways of life were, in fact, open to them. The moral value of a person’s consent will come in degrees, in accordance with what the nearest alternate possible worlds to them are like. So there are epistemological problems here.

But, fortunately, there are some indicators of one’s level of freedom. These might include whether a woman has considered alternate ways of life, whether they are even conceivable to her, what consequences (legal or social) she forsees in the case that she doesn’t comply with the dominant way of life, and so on. These will be controversial, of course.

It seems to me that these indicators provide reason to think that non-Amish American women are freer than their Amish counterparts. But I could totally be wrong if, for instance, Cosmopolitan magazine and the rest of the media have adolescent girls so thoroughly consumed with maintaining their appearances that alternate ways of life are precluded, and the consequences of not living that way seem extremely dire to those girls.

However, I think we owe a certain amount of prima facie respect for women’s first-hand accounts of what their lives are like (so as to avoid paternalism, projecting, etc). Being an urban atheist, I am tempted to assume that the lives of Amish women are extremely restricted. But when I see interviews with them, and hear what they have to say about their lifestyles, my doubts regarding their freedom are reduced.

But even if Amish women do not enjoy much freedom due to cultural (not legal) factors, you may or may not care about that. Bryan is apparently an equity feminist — he cares about legal freedoms much more than social freedoms. I am a cultural libertarian feminist — I think that threats to both types of freedoms are morally important (people like Kerry Howley and Megan McArdle also seem to be in this camp). Importantly, it does not follow from cultural libertarian feminism that the government ought to intrude into social institutions in order to make them more freedom-friendly.

A discussion of this fundamental difference in feminisms is beyond the scope of this quick reply to Bryan — maybe some other time.

some evidence for parentism

pamela — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:18:55 +0000

A while back, I wrote a little bit on “parentism,” which I defined as “consisting in discriminating against people on account of their parental status, or in individual actions and attitudes or institutional arrangements that favor persons of a particular parental status unjustly.”

Here’s some evidence for the phenomenon: you can buy a box of kid paraphernalia for the purpose of convincing your coworkers that you have a kid and are therefore entitled an important perk of parenthood — skipping out of some work while looking sympathetic instead of like a deadbeat.

The ridiculous thing here is not that someone sells this kit, or that people buy it. What’s ridiculous is that it is even needed in the first place. Some people value things other than spawning. Shocking, I know. Please learn to respect this in the way that you want them to respect your life choices.

h/t bakadesuyo

Stupak might reduce abortion insurance coverage, but not accessibility

pamela — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:55:17 +0000

From Feministing:

A new study from the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services reports that “the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.”

Brian at TPMDC writes:

In other words, though the immediate impact of the Stupak amendment will be limited to the millions of women initially insured through a new insurance exchange, over time, as the exchanges grow, the insurance industry will scale down their abortion coverage options until they offer none at all.

Do people not understand that abortions will remain legal and available even if this change occurs in the insurance industry? And that third-party payments for abortions have probably driven the prices up? And that if everyone who wanted an abortion were choosing her own provider and paying out of pocket, then the price of the procedure would probably drop? And maybe even it would be cheaper to just pay for an abortion than to buy a policy that covers abortions?

Just sayin’.

unintended consequences: Stupak Amendment & miscarriages edition

pamela — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:44:17 +0000

One of the most interesting things I have read about the Stupak Amendment is this:

Will the Stupak Amendment Affect Insurance Coverage for Miscarriages? I Think So

Sadly, the author experienced a miscarriage recently. In her case, as sometimes happens, the fetus had yet to be expelled. She was put in the difficult position of either waiting for that to occur naturally, or choosing either a chemical abortion or D&C. Each had different risks and costs. The author, like many women who miscarry, chose to undergo the procedure.

Although the fetus is this sort of case is deceased, there is some question (and dispute) as to how the procedure to remove it is typically described medically, or how it is supposed to be documented. It may be described as an abortion. If so, then the Stupak Amendment (which I wrote about earlier this week) would forbid public funding of these procedures even in the case of miscarriage.

It is doubtful that even the most ardent of pro-lifers intended to limit access to post-miscarriage medical care. The mainstream feminists who claim that generous reproductive care, including abortion, is a non-negotiable when it comes to health care reform are using this unintended consequence as evidence that the government should generously fund care but stay the heck out of decisions between a woman and her doctor.

However, that position is not politically viable right now. And, I was taken aback at the naïveté of one commenter who wrote to the OP: “Your eloquent post points out the problems when legislators do not adequately consider complex issues.” The legislators are trying to consider complex issues, but no result will ever be satisfactory to everyone, and there will always be unintended consequences. If they try to write in miscarriage exceptions to Stupak, the pro-life contingency will object that such measures will be used to cover up actual abortions with miscarriage paperwork. Or, women will start trying to induce miscarriages themselves at home, so that the care afterward will be covered by their publicly funded health plans.

There will not be any no strings attached public funding of reproductive health care anytime soon. Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, take a look at how legislative bodies have always functioned in the past, and take a guess as to whether you will be happy with how they handle bungle this one.

thoughts on NOW and the Stupak Amendment

pamela — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:15:17 +0000

Disclaimer: I haven’t been following the health care stuff too closely, because it is exhausting, but this particular aspect interests me.

The National Organization for Women is very upset because the Stupak Amendment passed and is part of the health care bill that passed the house the other day. According to the NYT, the Amendment “would impose tight restrictions on abortions that could be offered through a new government-run insurance plan and through private insurance that is bought using government subsidies.” According to the LA Times,

The compromise amendment, offered Saturday by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), in effect bans abortion coverage by all plans that are purchased using taxpayer dollars. Abortions could still be obtained by policyholders who pay their entire premiums without government assistance or by individuals receiving federal subsidies in the event of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life.

Since the Amendment was included in the bill that was passed last night, NOW sees this as a “bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.” More from NOW:

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women’s constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women’s access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

NOW is so into universal health care, but then they act all surprised and indignant when the political processes which govern the birth of any such scheme return a result which — surprise! — reflects the preferences of the sizable pro-life constituency in this country. Just imagine: If you (or your constituents) thought that abortion was murder and therefore the very antithesis of health care, you would vote to minimize directly or indirectly state-funded abortions, too.

Furthermore, it’s unwise for NOW to keep pressing the point that the Amendment keeps women from using “their own money” to access abortion care. It’s not clear whether NOW is counting federal assistance as “their own money” (I think they are). But, even if they’re not, it’s important to remember that this hugely expensive (don’t even try to deny it) plan does lots and lots of things with money that belongs to other people. So while women seeking abortions may be prevented from spending their money in that way, there are tons and tons of taxpayers who are also prevented from spending their money in ways of their choosing. The “their own money” point does not support opposition to this particular bill, it supports opposition to expanding the government’s role in health care in the first place.

Finally, obviously this Bill is not itself an amendment to the constitution and it does not abridge the right to have an abortion. True, it would not in theory respect a right to have an abortion on the government’s tab, and thereby on the tab of pro-choicers, but no such right exists. The Stupak Amendment seems to be the logical extension of the Hyde Amendment, which has long prohibited the funding of abortion using federal Health & Human Services monies. Since now a more expansive health care program is on the table, a more expansive abortion funding policy is needed.

(Of course, I am still ardently pro-choice, and always will be. But nothing regarding positions on the state funding of abortions follows merely from that).

Editing to add: Megan McArdle has some cogents thoughts on this matter in this post: The Health of the Nation

madeleine albright thinks I'm going to hell

pamela — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:19:53 +0000

The other day, I saw a Madeleine Albright quote in my Twitter timeline. I don’t know if this Time magazine interview is the original source, but this is the quote (bold):

What advice do you have for women who want respect from their male colleagues? Dana Philbin, CHICAGO

Women have to be active listeners and interrupters—but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about. I also think it is important for women to help one another. I have a saying: There is a special place in hell for women who don’t.

I would guess that she didn’t mean anything by this other than to express condemnation of the bitchiness (for lack of a better term) that is sometimes reported specifically amongst women in the workplace, and that sort of thing. And maybe there was a time & place when most women really did have shared interests, simply qua women (such as suffrage). But if we’ve learned anything at all from third wave feminism, it’s that women are in many ways more diverse than they are similar (race, class, religion, etc). As such, I don’t think I really have any obligation to help my “sisters” simply because they are women, and that is what this quote prima facie suggests. So I guess I’m going to hell. The special part of it for people who think (gasp!) that moral obligations regarding who we ought to help are not straightforwardly related to coincidences of gender.

is cultural libertarianism entailed by political libertarianism?

pamela — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:24:52 +0000

A couple of months ago, I had a debate with a libertarian friend over whether cultural libertarianism is correct/good/necessary/whatever. At the time, I was sure that I was what you would call a “cultural libertarian feminist,” as specified in the Liberal Feminism entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (a reputable source). Recently, Kerry Howley wrote an interesting piece on cultural libertarianism over at Reason (“Are Property Rights Enough?”), and there have cropped up a variety of responses to it there and elsewhere in the blogosphere. I really wish I had the time right now to wade through all of it, as there is a ton going on. But for now I’ll focus on what I find the most pressing question for people interested in this issue:

Is it somehow inconsistent for a libertarian to care about freedom from government control and coercion but not to care about freedom from socio-cultural control and coercion?

or, to rephrase:

Is cultural libertarianism logically entailed by political libertarianism?

I find this important because it seems as if Kerry says yes: that libertarians who think freedom is just a political matter involving freedom from the state are either just ignoring or implicitly condoning freedom-limiting social structures such as the patriarchy. But cultural libertarian feminism, as I understood it from the SEP article, didn’t seem to be that strong of a position. A claim that political libertarians must care about culture on pains of logical inconsistency is apparently not a necessary feature of cultural libertarian feminism.

Instead, one might simply think (as I do) that there are sufficient morally relevant similarities between freedom-limiting political institutions and freedom-limiting cultural practices for us to care about one if we care about the other. Not to do so might suggest a lack of sufficient moral imagination (to see that some lives could be freer otherwise) or a lack of appropriate moral concern (for certain groups of people with whom we might have difficulty empathizing), but it is not obviously an indictment of one’s rationality.

If a non-cultural, political libertarian wishes to show that (s)he need not or ought not to care about the effects of non-state actors (like cultures) (s)he would need to argue that there is some morally relevant difference between coercive state practices and coercive cultural practices. This is not an impossible task. Perhaps states are morally more problematic than cultures because they, unlike cultures, are comprised of specific groups of actors literally employed in their service, to whom the moral blame for coercion transfers. Maybe states are morally more problematic than cultures because they involve more coercion between people who are strangers, instead of between intimates with complicated and valuable (if deeply flawed) relationships. Or, one might argue that the (often) formal and readily observable nature of political institutions actually generates a moral reason (and not merely a pragmatic or prudential reason) to tackle their barriers to freedom first. That might be related to “ought implies can”: it seems that governments are more susceptible to deliberate change than cultures, so even if expanding freedom on both fronts would ideally be morally good, we ought to start in the place where we can actually do the most good.

Of course, all of those possible morally relevant differences between political and cultural limits on freedom are up for debate. My point is just that, if there is any such difference that is defensible, then cultural libertarianism is not entailed by political liberalism (contrary to what Kerry seems to think). There might exist a family resemblance between cultural and political libertarianism, and both could be morally upright positions. I still consider myself a cultural libertarian feminist (where “feminist” is not meant to rule out cultural concerns not having to do with patriarchy, but extends concern to all marginalized & oppressed groups). But I don’t think the case for cultural libertarianism needs to be made so provocatively. There may be moral or prudential reasons to focus on political freedoms first (and, indeed, cultural freedom might itself be promoted in the process). And there certainly are strategic, if not moral, reasons to avoid alienating oneself from those who are like-, if not identically-, minded.

Cargo, your lip gloss insults my intelligence

pamela — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:40:24 +0000

If you are not familiar with Sarah Haskins and her video series, “Target Women,” you should be! She does a great job of hilariously exposing the absurdities of advertising that, well, targets women.

In the Sarah Haskins spirit, I have to share with you my unhappiness with this product, Cargo Classic Lip Gloss.

Ordinarily, I would not spend a whopping $22 for lip gloss. But, it was for the wedding, and came with a bunch of other stuff I wanted in a package deal, so I ended up with it anyway. What makes this particular lip gloss so special is its “Timestrip technology:”

“Timestrip™ is a strip that remembers when a product was first opened and alerts you when it is no longer wise to use it. Simply insert the Timestrip™ into the cap and it is immediately activated. As the months go by the Timestrip™ window gradually turns red and, when the entire window is red, it is time to replace your gloss.”

More propaganda from the Cargo Timestrip website:

This “best-before” date has become so important that European countries recently launched legislation requiring cosmetics companies to have a PAO (Period After Opening) time frame listed on their products.

But how are you to remember when you first opened the product? Most women have multiple glosses in multiple locations: purses, bathrooms, offices. It is almost impossible to know when each gloss was used for the first time.

Enter Timestrip® technology. Simply insert the strip into the cap of the gloss to activate. The Timestrip® window will start turning red, indicating the passage of time. When the nine months are over and the entire window is red, you know it is time to throw out your gloss.

CARGO Founder Hana Zalzal explains, “We are proud to be the first to offer this technology. Women can now be assured that their gloss is fresh and effective.”

I suppose I should be thanking my lucky stars that some benevolent materials scientists out there have created a technology that allows me to sleep at night now that I can be sure my gloss is fresh and effective. But seriously now, this is banking on a variety of dubious marketing techniques:

Naturalness: They have formulated the product without parabens, which are effective preservatives typically used in tiny amounts but which strike carcinogenicity fears in the hearts of conspiracy theorists everywhere.
Germiness: Partly because they removed the parabens, this product will grow tons of bacteria, requiring its disposal after nine months. They liken this to food, as if old lip gloss were as dangerous as old milk.
Technology: But never fear! In today’s day in age, there is no need for forgetful women to rashly continue to use germ-ridden lip gloss. We have valuable technology to fix everything. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.

From where I’m standing, it’s pretty obvious that the real point of the exercise is, first, to charge more for the lip gloss in the first place and, second, to stimulate additional lip gloss purchases that the customer otherwise wouldn’t have made. C’mon, almost no one actually follows those makeup guidelines. Alot of people don’t even change their toothbrushes often enough, and they are used to physically dislodge chunks of bacteria from the inside of one’s mouth. I’m pretty germphobic, but oldish lip gloss doesn’t bother even me.

Of course, it’s not really wrong for Cargo to advertise in this way, but I will not be purchasing this particular product again. The gloss itself is not anything $5 couldn’t buy you at Target, and the Timestrip doesn’t even work!!! I opened my gloss 3.5 months ago, and the Timestrip reads 6 months. Never again, Cargo, never again.