> First, feminism is a life-tarnishing creed for the adherent because it makes a virtue out of wallowing in antipathy and self-pity. While many self-styled feminists are kind and happy, this is largely because they don’t take their doctrine seriously. Earnest feminism reliably leads to dire character flaws.
It still seems to me that your entire argument boils down to telling people what they believe isn't really what they believe. And that's a losing argument.
Let's say 80% of self-styled feminists are kind and happy. 20% are dyed-in-the-wool man-hating harpies.
1. The 80% basically don't *need* to be told anything, because they're already kind and happy. Lecturing them about what they don't actually believe is kind of off-putting, to put it charitably. For the same reasons that, say, laying into someone for being a registered Democrat or Republican is also inappropriate.
2. The 20% who are inclined to treat people poorly and be unhappy (over the long-run)... does anyone think this is really because of dogged adherence to feminism? I don't. I expect that it's enough to have a good relationship with your daughter, model good behaviors, and be able to communicate. As you say, if your daughter grows up seeing you as fundamentally "not evil", the contest is already won. The number of people who truly, lastingly throw out healthy relationships to adhere to ideology is pretty small.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but most well-developed people don't go off and join cults.
I suspect I would agree with your criticisms in many concrete cases but it feels like you are just walking into a really obvious trap laid by the very ppl you most want to critisize regarding how they brand their movement. Why not adopt the rhetoric of: real feminism is believing that women are equal to men and the attempt to demand ever more special treatment and demean women's free rational choices in the labor market is anti-feminist?
Feminist is now a word like patriot, freedom, liberty etc... For most ppl the meaning is tied more strongly to it being a good thing than any policy preference. Especially for readers in your daughter's generation I suspect they are far more likely to see an argument that some kind of advocacy about gender is wrong as showing that's not really feminism than that feminism is bad.
It's one of the oldest tricks in the book to call your political movement, idea, law etc some kind of positive term like the freedom from tyranny bill or the patriot party so you can accuse critics of not liking freedom, patriotism etc... And the standard response is to always respond by insisting: you aren't the real patriot etc. So why walk into the buzzsaw and make ppl less reciptive to your arguments?
I get that feminist is used in a kind of motte-bailey way with ppl falling back to "it just means women are equal to men" very often but the ppl you are calling not really believing in feminists absolutely think they are feminists and just that it doesn't mean that other stuff.
I have read all your previews of the book and I think you made poor arguments against feminism. I think you didn't mention the main topics. There are two big topics that feminists talk about a lot: The sexualization/objectification of women and the negative bias that women face everytime they do something else than being a housewife or mother, like being in the workplace ("Women are too hormonal, illogical, emotional, irrational").
Things like sexual harassment sexual assault are very common among women, much more so than among men. The sexual double standards are still alive, many people blame women's clothes or being in the wrong place for the harassment they face, or they call women sluts for any sexual behavior outside of a relationship/marriage. So when feminists stand up against this, they have a point.
The negative bias against women doing something except being a housewife and mother are so well alive that I could show you recent examples of them made by people you know. Here is Richard Hanania blaming women's emotions for the rise of "woke madness" in academia and politics (many commenters say women should not be allowed in college and lose the right to vote):
Another example, Dennis Prager from a few weeks ago attacking women for destroying the country because female teachers let kids visit drag queen story hours:
Sadly, you yourself have said demeaning things about women in your econlib blog. Here you philosophized about how women might be "soft heads" and therefore less rational:
That sounds pretty much like Hanania or Prager. Women as too emotional, irrational, illogical. In fact, in your last preview, when you wrote in your letter to your daughter "Feminists will react emotional against my book, look at how evil feminists are!", this was another weird example of this bias. I mean, there are libertarians who are racist, antisemitic, sexist and homophobic, yet I personally still think libertarianism is correct and would not see it as an argument against libertarianism to say that Ron Paul is racist. Why does it matter if some feminists react emotional to your book?
This anti-female bias about "too emotional" women can have real-life consequences. You said the gender wage gap is not real. I agree, mostly. But the truth is that, there is still an amount that is unexplained by different life choices. Some say it's as much as 9%.
And the reasons could vey well be a negative bias against women, as there is evidence that men overestimate their competence while women underestimate their competence, and that disagreebleness helps men in negotiations, while it doesn't help women ("bitchy").
You said the men make top 1% and the bottom 1% of society. This is true (politicians, CEO vs. homicide victims, suicide victims, homeless people, prison rape victims). But if you look at the important part, the median 98%, women face significantly more disadvantages than men: More sexual harassment and assault, more severe domestic violence, more negative bias in the workplace and more difficulties in access to healthcare (not just since the overturn of Roe v. Wade). So feminist activism can be a force of good, although every movement has bad apples.
And honestly, there is no easier way to draw a child to an idea than being obsessed about her not embracing it. That's why I believe your daughter will be a staunch feminist. Considering the upcoming political situation (the abortion fight), her father's curious obsession of her not becoming a feminist, and the overall realities of life as a woman, she will very likely embrace feminism.
> “If women are really paid 20 or 30% less than equally qualified men, why don’t employers just fire all their men, replace them with women, and earn massive profits?”
One reason why I suspect Becker's approach here is deeply flawed is that we know, from history, that this didn't happen with African American workers. For decades, black people were systemically paid less than white counterparts for the same work. If Becker (and after him, Friedman) were correct, this could never have happened, but history proves otherwise.
So my mother calls herself a feminist...loudly and proudly because she entered the legal profession at a time when she was frequently told she should just go and have her baby and the old boys club kept women from becoming partners.
Yet, at the same time, she has become quite critical of programs that give women preference in hiring in areas like academia where the evidence suggests little net bias. She constantly pushes back against the ppl who insist that we need to stop confrontation stop rewarding boldness/speaking up bc it harms women.
She, and many ppl like her, would probably agree with many of your criticisms. They see it as unfeminist to try and coddle women or demand equal outcomes. To them feminism just means not ignoring things like harassment (but don't think that means not treating men's concerns as serious as well).
But you'll never reach her or ppl like her with a book like this. It's like calling your book critisizing US foreign policy: "America is evil" and putting a pic of you stepping in the flag on the cover...you might get some extra sales but lots of ppl who might be sympathetic to the content will never listen bc of the branding.
I tried to get the Alameda County Library to purchase. AS they often do with Conservative/Libertarian books they did not purchase because their vendors do not carry. I challenged them to get new vendors. Of course this will go nowhere but I tried
> First, feminism is a life-tarnishing creed for the adherent because it makes a virtue out of wallowing in antipathy and self-pity. While many self-styled feminists are kind and happy, this is largely because they don’t take their doctrine seriously. Earnest feminism reliably leads to dire character flaws.
It still seems to me that your entire argument boils down to telling people what they believe isn't really what they believe. And that's a losing argument.
Let's say 80% of self-styled feminists are kind and happy. 20% are dyed-in-the-wool man-hating harpies.
1. The 80% basically don't *need* to be told anything, because they're already kind and happy. Lecturing them about what they don't actually believe is kind of off-putting, to put it charitably. For the same reasons that, say, laying into someone for being a registered Democrat or Republican is also inappropriate.
2. The 20% who are inclined to treat people poorly and be unhappy (over the long-run)... does anyone think this is really because of dogged adherence to feminism? I don't. I expect that it's enough to have a good relationship with your daughter, model good behaviors, and be able to communicate. As you say, if your daughter grows up seeing you as fundamentally "not evil", the contest is already won. The number of people who truly, lastingly throw out healthy relationships to adhere to ideology is pretty small.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but most well-developed people don't go off and join cults.
I suspect I would agree with your criticisms in many concrete cases but it feels like you are just walking into a really obvious trap laid by the very ppl you most want to critisize regarding how they brand their movement. Why not adopt the rhetoric of: real feminism is believing that women are equal to men and the attempt to demand ever more special treatment and demean women's free rational choices in the labor market is anti-feminist?
Feminist is now a word like patriot, freedom, liberty etc... For most ppl the meaning is tied more strongly to it being a good thing than any policy preference. Especially for readers in your daughter's generation I suspect they are far more likely to see an argument that some kind of advocacy about gender is wrong as showing that's not really feminism than that feminism is bad.
It's one of the oldest tricks in the book to call your political movement, idea, law etc some kind of positive term like the freedom from tyranny bill or the patriot party so you can accuse critics of not liking freedom, patriotism etc... And the standard response is to always respond by insisting: you aren't the real patriot etc. So why walk into the buzzsaw and make ppl less reciptive to your arguments?
I get that feminist is used in a kind of motte-bailey way with ppl falling back to "it just means women are equal to men" very often but the ppl you are calling not really believing in feminists absolutely think they are feminists and just that it doesn't mean that other stuff.
I have read all your previews of the book and I think you made poor arguments against feminism. I think you didn't mention the main topics. There are two big topics that feminists talk about a lot: The sexualization/objectification of women and the negative bias that women face everytime they do something else than being a housewife or mother, like being in the workplace ("Women are too hormonal, illogical, emotional, irrational").
Things like sexual harassment sexual assault are very common among women, much more so than among men. The sexual double standards are still alive, many people blame women's clothes or being in the wrong place for the harassment they face, or they call women sluts for any sexual behavior outside of a relationship/marriage. So when feminists stand up against this, they have a point.
The negative bias against women doing something except being a housewife and mother are so well alive that I could show you recent examples of them made by people you know. Here is Richard Hanania blaming women's emotions for the rise of "woke madness" in academia and politics (many commenters say women should not be allowed in college and lose the right to vote):
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/womens-tears-win-in-the-marketplace
Another example, Dennis Prager from a few weeks ago attacking women for destroying the country because female teachers let kids visit drag queen story hours:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/30/women-are-disproportionately-hurting-our-country/
Sadly, you yourself have said demeaning things about women in your econlib blog. Here you philosophized about how women might be "soft heads" and therefore less rational:
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/01/women_liberty_m.html
That sounds pretty much like Hanania or Prager. Women as too emotional, irrational, illogical. In fact, in your last preview, when you wrote in your letter to your daughter "Feminists will react emotional against my book, look at how evil feminists are!", this was another weird example of this bias. I mean, there are libertarians who are racist, antisemitic, sexist and homophobic, yet I personally still think libertarianism is correct and would not see it as an argument against libertarianism to say that Ron Paul is racist. Why does it matter if some feminists react emotional to your book?
This anti-female bias about "too emotional" women can have real-life consequences. You said the gender wage gap is not real. I agree, mostly. But the truth is that, there is still an amount that is unexplained by different life choices. Some say it's as much as 9%.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/women-earn-91-cents-for-every-dollar-men-earn--if-you-control-for-life-choices/2012/06/04/gJQAqrHkEV_blog.html
And the reasons could vey well be a negative bias against women, as there is evidence that men overestimate their competence while women underestimate their competence, and that disagreebleness helps men in negotiations, while it doesn't help women ("bitchy").
https://news.nd.edu/news/men-earn-a-premium-for-being-disagreeable-in-the-workplace-women-dont-says-new-research/
You said the men make top 1% and the bottom 1% of society. This is true (politicians, CEO vs. homicide victims, suicide victims, homeless people, prison rape victims). But if you look at the important part, the median 98%, women face significantly more disadvantages than men: More sexual harassment and assault, more severe domestic violence, more negative bias in the workplace and more difficulties in access to healthcare (not just since the overturn of Roe v. Wade). So feminist activism can be a force of good, although every movement has bad apples.
And honestly, there is no easier way to draw a child to an idea than being obsessed about her not embracing it. That's why I believe your daughter will be a staunch feminist. Considering the upcoming political situation (the abortion fight), her father's curious obsession of her not becoming a feminist, and the overall realities of life as a woman, she will very likely embrace feminism.
Entrenched political interests do not want to admit error. Too many free riders and rent seekers.
> “If women are really paid 20 or 30% less than equally qualified men, why don’t employers just fire all their men, replace them with women, and earn massive profits?”
One reason why I suspect Becker's approach here is deeply flawed is that we know, from history, that this didn't happen with African American workers. For decades, black people were systemically paid less than white counterparts for the same work. If Becker (and after him, Friedman) were correct, this could never have happened, but history proves otherwise.
So my mother calls herself a feminist...loudly and proudly because she entered the legal profession at a time when she was frequently told she should just go and have her baby and the old boys club kept women from becoming partners.
Yet, at the same time, she has become quite critical of programs that give women preference in hiring in areas like academia where the evidence suggests little net bias. She constantly pushes back against the ppl who insist that we need to stop confrontation stop rewarding boldness/speaking up bc it harms women.
She, and many ppl like her, would probably agree with many of your criticisms. They see it as unfeminist to try and coddle women or demand equal outcomes. To them feminism just means not ignoring things like harassment (but don't think that means not treating men's concerns as serious as well).
But you'll never reach her or ppl like her with a book like this. It's like calling your book critisizing US foreign policy: "America is evil" and putting a pic of you stepping in the flag on the cover...you might get some extra sales but lots of ppl who might be sympathetic to the content will never listen bc of the branding.
I tried to get the Alameda County Library to purchase. AS they often do with Conservative/Libertarian books they did not purchase because their vendors do not carry. I challenged them to get new vendors. Of course this will go nowhere but I tried
It amazes me how you create such a strawman of feminism. So pathetic and shocking for someone so smart.
https://www.mattball.org/2022/09/my-review-of-response-to-bryan-caplans.html