Overall a thoughtful and interesting essay. It seems that given the spiritual and material realities of today (post-industrialization, reliance on capitalist wages, no-fault divorce, etc.), certain legal rights should be afforded women so that they may find employment without discrimination based on their sex. This so that they do not wind up destitute or in radical hardship should their fragile support system break.
However, this "female liberation" doesn't seem like the ideal scenario but instead a necessity due to the breakdown of a properly-ordered society. Traditionally, as you note, women would not be participating in broader political life, nor in wage labor in direct competition with men. Though our current system did sadly "cleave home from work, economics from politics, public from private, man from woman, and ... parents from their children," the resulting liberation of women has acted merely as a band-aid, and today threatens even the continuation of the West altogether as gender relations, and therefore birth rates, are at an all time low.
Feminism, which is arguably an excess of the necessary liberation for the protection of women in light of modern conditions, has corrupted gender relations so thoroughly that women, instead of seeing this "liberation" as a necessary evil, see it as a positive good. Far from being merely allowed to participate in wage labor, political life, and the accumulation of property, women see this as a goal to be aimed at. Many do this at the very peril of those goods which are more accommodating to the female nature, namely domesticating, nurturing, and child-rearing. Think of the number of women who choose not to get married in order to further their careers, who freeze their eggs or opt for surrogacy, and who, instead of allowing themselves to be dependent upon a man as a provider, merely partake in hook-up culture until they are beyond child-bearing age.
It is too simple to say that there must be a hard division between what roles men and women take in society, but it is also too simplistic to act like the only legitimate sex differentiation between the sexes has to do with their different reproductive organs and biological functions. Under this latter view, men and women are the same under the law, except to the extent that women can get pregnant, and therefore women must be legally protected from adverse actions by employers around their pregnancy status (a legitimate differentiation between men and women), but that otherwise, "sex stereotyping" is completely arbitrary.
However, the differences between women and men is far more than uterus deep. To act like this is the only difference that the law can take into account damages the unique role that women are meant to fill in society. Women should have a right to be home with their kids and raising them without relying on daycare so that they can go into the workplace. Women should have a right to be furthering the domesticating mission of the hearth. Women should have a right to be first into a life raft, to not go down with the ship, to be exempted from enrolling in the army, and so forth.
In other words, while I think you have rightly outlined the rise of anti-discrimination law and justified it through a natural law lens (rather than from a liberal, personal autonomy account), I'm not sure that you have properly defeated the claims of older natural law thinkers who note that women do have a special competency in the domestic sphere and therefore have an overlapping yet distinct set of responsibilities to those of men. Today, natural law may require that these distinctions be loosened in the law to secure the common good. But it is entirely possible that in a hypothetical future that no longer requires this by necessity, the common good will be better secured by the law discriminating between men and women (beyond offering mere protection for pregnancy status).
This part jumped out: "What were these duties that characterized human beings? First, duties to self (to develop one’s rational faculties and to master one’s appetites), to family (to care for one’s dependent children, spouse, and elderly parents)..."
For those of us who aren't quite as well read but would like to dive in further, any recommendations on where Wollstonecraft discusses these various duties?
Thank you kindly. I’m pulling from various writings. You might start with Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and especially (perhaps my favorite), Original Stories in Real Life. Her prayers from the Preface of her Female Reader are exquisite. We’ve put all this up at https://www.abigailadamsinstitute.org/read-wollstonecraft
Are rights and duties separated in other instances of civic life? We have the right to drink, but we also have a duty to protect life by not driving a car while drinking. Think about environmental protection, employment practices, etc.? Is the erasure of duty that accompanies the right of sexual activity (the possibility of parenting a child) a forerunner of things to come, or is it already greatly in our midst?
"it was also a reaction against liberalism, which cleaved home from work, economics from politics, public from private, man from woman, and too often, parents from their children"
This confuses changing material reality, capitalism and industrialization, with philosophy. The stream engine would have shattered the unity of home and work even if Locke was never born.
Overall a thoughtful and interesting essay. It seems that given the spiritual and material realities of today (post-industrialization, reliance on capitalist wages, no-fault divorce, etc.), certain legal rights should be afforded women so that they may find employment without discrimination based on their sex. This so that they do not wind up destitute or in radical hardship should their fragile support system break.
However, this "female liberation" doesn't seem like the ideal scenario but instead a necessity due to the breakdown of a properly-ordered society. Traditionally, as you note, women would not be participating in broader political life, nor in wage labor in direct competition with men. Though our current system did sadly "cleave home from work, economics from politics, public from private, man from woman, and ... parents from their children," the resulting liberation of women has acted merely as a band-aid, and today threatens even the continuation of the West altogether as gender relations, and therefore birth rates, are at an all time low.
Feminism, which is arguably an excess of the necessary liberation for the protection of women in light of modern conditions, has corrupted gender relations so thoroughly that women, instead of seeing this "liberation" as a necessary evil, see it as a positive good. Far from being merely allowed to participate in wage labor, political life, and the accumulation of property, women see this as a goal to be aimed at. Many do this at the very peril of those goods which are more accommodating to the female nature, namely domesticating, nurturing, and child-rearing. Think of the number of women who choose not to get married in order to further their careers, who freeze their eggs or opt for surrogacy, and who, instead of allowing themselves to be dependent upon a man as a provider, merely partake in hook-up culture until they are beyond child-bearing age.
It is too simple to say that there must be a hard division between what roles men and women take in society, but it is also too simplistic to act like the only legitimate sex differentiation between the sexes has to do with their different reproductive organs and biological functions. Under this latter view, men and women are the same under the law, except to the extent that women can get pregnant, and therefore women must be legally protected from adverse actions by employers around their pregnancy status (a legitimate differentiation between men and women), but that otherwise, "sex stereotyping" is completely arbitrary.
However, the differences between women and men is far more than uterus deep. To act like this is the only difference that the law can take into account damages the unique role that women are meant to fill in society. Women should have a right to be home with their kids and raising them without relying on daycare so that they can go into the workplace. Women should have a right to be furthering the domesticating mission of the hearth. Women should have a right to be first into a life raft, to not go down with the ship, to be exempted from enrolling in the army, and so forth.
In other words, while I think you have rightly outlined the rise of anti-discrimination law and justified it through a natural law lens (rather than from a liberal, personal autonomy account), I'm not sure that you have properly defeated the claims of older natural law thinkers who note that women do have a special competency in the domestic sphere and therefore have an overlapping yet distinct set of responsibilities to those of men. Today, natural law may require that these distinctions be loosened in the law to secure the common good. But it is entirely possible that in a hypothetical future that no longer requires this by necessity, the common good will be better secured by the law discriminating between men and women (beyond offering mere protection for pregnancy status).
An absolutely stunning essay.
This part jumped out: "What were these duties that characterized human beings? First, duties to self (to develop one’s rational faculties and to master one’s appetites), to family (to care for one’s dependent children, spouse, and elderly parents)..."
For those of us who aren't quite as well read but would like to dive in further, any recommendations on where Wollstonecraft discusses these various duties?
Thank you kindly. I’m pulling from various writings. You might start with Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and especially (perhaps my favorite), Original Stories in Real Life. Her prayers from the Preface of her Female Reader are exquisite. We’ve put all this up at https://www.abigailadamsinstitute.org/read-wollstonecraft
And obviously I’d recommend my book! :)
Are rights and duties separated in other instances of civic life? We have the right to drink, but we also have a duty to protect life by not driving a car while drinking. Think about environmental protection, employment practices, etc.? Is the erasure of duty that accompanies the right of sexual activity (the possibility of parenting a child) a forerunner of things to come, or is it already greatly in our midst?
Yes indeed
"it was also a reaction against liberalism, which cleaved home from work, economics from politics, public from private, man from woman, and too often, parents from their children"
This confuses changing material reality, capitalism and industrialization, with philosophy. The stream engine would have shattered the unity of home and work even if Locke was never born.