>> “Feminism is the view that men and women should be treated equally”
and:
“Feminism is the radical view that women are people”
These definitions are trivial: They state positions almost no one disagrees with. And they fail to accurately sort people who are feminists from people who aren’t feminists.
I don't think it's true that these state positions almost no one disagrees with. In fact, I would argue that all of the world's religions, with the possible exception of certain strains of theoretical Buddhism, actively promote the idea that women should not be treated equally to men. Arguably, these religions don't grant full personhood to women either.
When I made that claim, I guess I had in mind the sorts of people who might have answered the feminism survey. I think almost all Westerners, religious or not, would take themselves to affirm that women and men should be treated equally, even if they strongly disagree--as can be reasonable--over what that means. As far as mainstream religions denying the personhood of women, I don’t really know what personhood means in this context. If ‘personhood’ is ambiguous in the abortion debate, it’s all the more ambiguous in cases where people claim that a certain system of ideas Y denies group X’s ‘personhood’, even when Y doesn’t explicitly deny that X is a conscious subject with a sense of self or that X has some significant degree of moral standing.
Is "personhood" really ambiguous in the relevant cases? It seems like the term "person" means the same thing in both contexts, i.e. an entity with a significant degree of moral standing, such that it is appropriate to talk about the entity having (prima facie) inviolable rights. This seems to be how it's being used in the feminist context as well (e.g. in the "women are people" slogan, the idea seems to be that feminism means thinking that women deserve rights).
The right thing to say would seem to be that personhood is DISPUTED in the abortion debate, not that it's ambiguous. As for the claim that (some of) the major religions don't regard women as persons, that's just straightforwardly false.
Do we even need the belief in the GENERAL mistreatment of women? Instead of your hypothetical, we could imagine a situation in which women are not generally treated unfairly, not worse but not better either, yet still a political/social position of defending and supporting the rights of women as a class. I think it'd be still a feminist one.
And arguably (this is contra Caplan too of course) you could imagine many people who DO think women are treated unfairly (worse than men) yet not adopting the position on defending or improving their rights *as a class*. I'd argue that those people are not feminists.
So I'd propose that the "sufficient prioritisation" part of your definition is sufficient, regardless of the beliefs about the current state of "fairness" or "equality", which also allows for going beyond equality (with this definition, female supremacism would be feminist, which I'm not sure whether it would pass in theory; but also, less controversially, feminism would work as a kind of "vested interest lobby group" in any circumstances, the way a trade union or a professional association or any advocacy group might).
>> “Feminism is the view that men and women should be treated equally”
and:
“Feminism is the radical view that women are people”
These definitions are trivial: They state positions almost no one disagrees with. And they fail to accurately sort people who are feminists from people who aren’t feminists.
I don't think it's true that these state positions almost no one disagrees with. In fact, I would argue that all of the world's religions, with the possible exception of certain strains of theoretical Buddhism, actively promote the idea that women should not be treated equally to men. Arguably, these religions don't grant full personhood to women either.
When I made that claim, I guess I had in mind the sorts of people who might have answered the feminism survey. I think almost all Westerners, religious or not, would take themselves to affirm that women and men should be treated equally, even if they strongly disagree--as can be reasonable--over what that means. As far as mainstream religions denying the personhood of women, I don’t really know what personhood means in this context. If ‘personhood’ is ambiguous in the abortion debate, it’s all the more ambiguous in cases where people claim that a certain system of ideas Y denies group X’s ‘personhood’, even when Y doesn’t explicitly deny that X is a conscious subject with a sense of self or that X has some significant degree of moral standing.
Is "personhood" really ambiguous in the relevant cases? It seems like the term "person" means the same thing in both contexts, i.e. an entity with a significant degree of moral standing, such that it is appropriate to talk about the entity having (prima facie) inviolable rights. This seems to be how it's being used in the feminist context as well (e.g. in the "women are people" slogan, the idea seems to be that feminism means thinking that women deserve rights).
The right thing to say would seem to be that personhood is DISPUTED in the abortion debate, not that it's ambiguous. As for the claim that (some of) the major religions don't regard women as persons, that's just straightforwardly false.
Fantastic article! I had thought of the first objection, but never the second one.
Do we even need the belief in the GENERAL mistreatment of women? Instead of your hypothetical, we could imagine a situation in which women are not generally treated unfairly, not worse but not better either, yet still a political/social position of defending and supporting the rights of women as a class. I think it'd be still a feminist one.
And arguably (this is contra Caplan too of course) you could imagine many people who DO think women are treated unfairly (worse than men) yet not adopting the position on defending or improving their rights *as a class*. I'd argue that those people are not feminists.
So I'd propose that the "sufficient prioritisation" part of your definition is sufficient, regardless of the beliefs about the current state of "fairness" or "equality", which also allows for going beyond equality (with this definition, female supremacism would be feminist, which I'm not sure whether it would pass in theory; but also, less controversially, feminism would work as a kind of "vested interest lobby group" in any circumstances, the way a trade union or a professional association or any advocacy group might).
I don't treat men and women equally. I try to have sex with women and I don't try to have sex with men. Nothing trivial about that definition.