*Don't Be a Feminist*: The Origin Story
What possessed me to write and publish Don’t Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice? Many observers - and even a few who know me well - blame a sudden attack of right-wing or even “reactionary” thinking. A case of Woke Derangement Syndrome, perhaps. The truth, however, is that I’ve been planning on writing this essay for almost a decade. Please allow me to share the inside story.
To start, I have held the feminist movement in low regard for as long as I can remember. I rarely thought about the topic, though, until college when I discovered Gary Becker’s seminal work on the economics of discrimination. Which can be boiled down to a single rhetorical question: “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?”
Yes, there is much more to the feminist worldview than just false accusations of unfair pay. I know that. Still, the very fact that sober Beckerian reasoning failed to defuse these accusations long ago is telling. Reasonable people would have admitted error, tempered their rhetoric, gained some epistemic humility, and tried harder to treat critics fairly in the future. Instead, the feminist movement has doubled-down on emotionalism and intimidation.
This hardly makes feminists the worst movement in the world. Once my daughter was born, though, I realized that she was statistically likely to become a feminist. Most smart, young women these days do, after all. What, then, should I tell her about the issue? How, exactly, should I explain the doctrine and my critique thereof?
I soon decided that the topic was worthy of a full essay. From the outset, my preferred title was “Don’t Be a Feminist: An Essay to My Daughter.” Scoff if you must, but my goal was never to make anyone angry. My goal, rather, was to be transparent. To clearly state: “You shouldn’t be a feminist - and here’s why.” I hope to change many lives with this essay. But if I only prevent my daughter from becoming a feminist, I will consider it one of my most worthwhile intellectual products. As I explain in the essay:
What’s so helpful about your father telling you about the flaws of feminism?
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. Earnest feminism leads you to treat men unjustly – to reflexively blame them both collectively and individually for the sheer imperfection of life. Earnest feminism leads you to treat non-feminists unjustly – to respond to reasonable objections with condescension and thinly-veiled threats. Earnest feminism turns you against your family – to see the father and brothers who have always loved and cared for you as part of “the enemy.” And earnest feminism leads you to treat yourself poorly – to see yourself as a victim, whose only reliable allies are other earnest feminists.
Second, I predict my words will dramatically change the way you think. Feminism has become so culturally dominant, especially for young women, that you’ll probably end up a feminist unless I talk you out of it. Yet the intellectual case for feminism is so weak that I think one well-crafted letter will talk you out of it. Or at least leave you with a healthy skepticism.
Couldn’t I have chosen a different title? A different framing? Sure, but I value candor too much. If you think X is false, there is nothing impolite about urging Xists to apostatize. I’m not angry at feminists; as I admit in the preceding passage, most are kind and happy people. I just think they are deeply in error and should change their minds. Yes, to quote Cromwell, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” I freely admit that I’ve been mistaken many times before. It hurt my pride, but let me grow. My daughter is still too young to understand why she shouldn’t be a feminist, but even at ten she’s already well-aware of the value of admitting error and moving on.
P.S. If the feminist movement is as bad as I say, why am I not afraid to publish and publicize this work? Answer: I’m not an idiot; I am a little afraid. But I choose not to let such fear rule my life. And as I’ve explained before, I’m trying to redeem my tenure by using it for good.
> 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.