Women's Scholar Discusses Equality And The Feminine

Women must seek equality with men without sacrificing the qualities that distinguish the sexes, a noted scholar on feminist thought said to a crowd of 30 in Agassiz House last night.

"We don't have to keep structures gender neutral or keep differences only at an ideal level," said Genevieve Lloyd, senior lecturer on Philosophy at the Australian National University.

"Equality makes possible a middle ground," Lloyd said in a lecture entitled "Sex Differences and the Idea of the Feminine," which was part of an ongoing speaker series on gender-issues sponsored by the Radcliffe Project on Interdependence.

In her lecture, Lloyd illustrated various feminist theories and proposed her ideal solution to the social inequality of women.

"Liberal feminism's goal is the inclusion of women into society in an equal role," Lloyd said. "Its idea is that humans are fundamentally the same."

Liberal feminists see sex differences as only irrelevant biological distinctions, Lloyd added.

"I am against the idea that the biological role of reproduction should define women's social roles," said the expert on feminism who is on sabbatical as a visiting scholar at Radcliffe this semester.

Lloyd argued that the liberal feminist view of equality hails back to the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who believed "the world was gender neutral and that men should extend ideals to actually include women."

This view differs from those held by other feminists who use the differences between the sexes to raise women's status, Lloyd said.

Quoting the French philospoher Rousseau, Lloyd said that "Plato had abolished the feminine sphere and that actually men and women differ in mind."

Rousseau, argued Lloyd, believed men and women should complement each other to show a complete representation of human nature.

Presenting her own view of feminism Lloyd said that by merging the two philosophies, women could achieve equality more easily.

"We don't know what sex differences might be in equality. We know what they are like in inequality: women's social roles are based solely on perceptions of sex and biological difference," Lloyd said.