Feminism and the Gender-Neutral Society

In 2005, researching for my book on Manliness, I went to the sexual orientation meeting for newly-arrived Harvard freshmen. I was looking for feminism in action and I found it.

Feminism being the subject, you are thinking already that I am against women. But I am against feminism because it is against women. It is against them because it cannot define them.

The freshman meeting tried to orient the two sexes to each other without mentioning their names, that they are two, and that they like each other. This attempt reflects the grand ambition of feminism to make a new gender-neutral society — one where your sex determines your life as little as possible. For the first time in human history — no sex roles!

Most people underestimate the size of this ambition. It has been so successful because it has been fairly quiet. First-wave feminism early in the 20th century made great public scandal, as the suffragettes were willing to go to jail. They believed that women were more moral than men and would improve our politics if they could vote.

Our feminism, dating from Simone de Beauvoir’s “Second Sex” in 1949, claimed that women were equal to men, not better. It said that women had no biological definition, and the effect is that women could now choose to be what they wish. “The right to choose” would apply generally, not just to abortion.

After this feminism came to Harvard, I recall that in November 1986, I gave a speech to the faculty opposing the designation of Women’s Studies as a new field of concentration. I made two points: that it made no sense to study women separately from men, and that this program was exclusively feminist, having no conservative women. My speech was a rhetorical triumph in reverse: when I began it there were twenty or so on my side, and when I finished, I was alone.

Still, let me discuss those two points again.

First, the question of sexual norms. I believe a feature concern of today’s feminists is women being bothered by men. But I have found that most women try to attract men, desiring them to take the first step. Those who take that first step will make mistakes; isn’t that normal? By not accounting for this, the feminist sexual code has become clumsy, unreal, and hostile to love. The notion of “gentleman,” now considered obsolete, deserves a second thought from women not entirely satisfied by feminism.

My second point concerns the main method of feminism, “raising consciousness” by means of symbolic change. That phrase comes from the decayed late Marxism that largely abandoned Marx’s economics and turned to culture. More recent feminists have not faced the resistance that the suffragettes did! But they invented and promoted woke, a form of outward symbolism focusing on names and titles rather than arguments.

Their first target was not so much male chauvinism as femininity foisted on women by patronizing males. Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” became a symbol of this second-wave feminism. They then shifted their attack to the impersonal “he.” Why should the pronoun for doctor be male? I noticed Harvard Philosophy professors especially began to use “she” for the impersonal singular; others followed their brave lead. “Ms.” was invented to conceal the difference between a married and an unmarried woman. Why should a woman be defined by her man? Words with “man” in them like “chairman” and “freshman” disappeared.

These are petty matters for individuals, but the feminist slogan of “the personal is political” raised their significance. Woke is invasive and surreptitious. It arrives by decree without justification or even announcement. It reached beyond feminism to the erasure of the phrase “stock of the Puritans” from the anthem “Fair Harvard.” A “stock” is something you inherit but don’t choose: Can’t have that! We’re supposed to forget the Puritans who founded our university.

The gender-neutral revolution started from a renaming. You will have noticed my failure to use the word “gender” instead of sex. Who decided that change? Gender implies that women are arbitrarily defined, like languages that make “table” either masculine (in German) or feminine (in French). This usage is taken to mean that “woman” can mean anything one wishes, even a biological man who identifies himself as transgender.

Most women have the good sense to see through this delusion. If women can choose identity, and identity is in the use of one’s body, then every use of a woman’s body must be respected. Euphemism takes over and a prostitute gets the title of sex-worker. On this point a protester’s sign I saw said “the body is not a workplace,” implying that “sex-worker” is a misnomer.

This means that not every choice of a woman’s identity is correct. There must be some better definition of woman, one that distinguishes her from a man but leaves her equal — or sometimes superior. One that men could admire or love, just as men ought to strive to be gentlemen worthy of being admired by women.

Feminism once sought to elevate women. Today, it obscures them. Contrary to feminism, Harvard women need a definition of woman to sustain their dignity as well as their equality.

Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 is the Kenan Research Professor of Government at Harvard.