Well, my first thought in this case is that the person theorizing about some characteristic being a fundamental element of femininity is simply wrong.
Before I respond to you on this – though I will, and soon – may I ask whether it is clear that the point of my OP is not primarily to rehash the many debates on 1) whether there is any genuine, fundamental distinction between genders or 2) what they might be? Because based on the responses I’ve thus far received, it appears that my point may not be clear.
If I am unclear, let me restate it as directly as I can: an individual human being – howsoever we would like to classify that individual, according to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc., etc., etc. – has no ethical duty to set “human life,” as such, as their standard of value, or “masculinity” or “femininity,” or “heterosexuality,” or whatever we think should be true according to what we perceive as their “nature.” An individual’s only proper standard of value is his own life, per his own nature.
If a person is a “broken unit” (somewhat more on that to come), I don’t know that this changes my assertion. Their ethical standard must follow suit to accommodate and reflect their “brokenness.” An individual lives his life for himself – for his own, one existence on earth – and not for the sake of any other entity.
But to speak to what most people seem to find interesting, I do think that this has a general application to all of these controversies. As when we attempt to group people into these categories and make moral pronouncements – general moral pronouncements as to what is good for members of that category (e.g. a woman should not run for President) – we are certainly misstepping. Because, whether we’re ultimately agreed with the idea that men are typically one way, and women another – and howsoever we account for those who do not fit our mold (“they are broken”; “they are outliers”; etc.) – we must still recognize that there may exist a woman who should run for President (in the same sense as such men exist), which makes the sentiment that “a woman should not run for President” false.
It remains tautologically true that a person for whom it would be irrational, or immoral, or self-destructive to run for the Presidency ought not do so. And for many (or even most) women, this may well be the case. And ethically, I don’t know that much more must be said on the matter – do you? “Judge for yourself whether taking this action (here: running for the Presidency) would be best for you in your given context (one’s ‘nature’ considered), and if it is, then do so, and if it is not, then don’t.” But whatever is our interest in proclaiming that women are a certain way when we know that “broken units” exist, when we know that it is not true of all women that they are the way that we say that we are, when what we have to say amounts to a falsehood in some individual applications… whatever we believe we stand to gain from this, I don’t know that we don’t stand to lose much more. In my view, philosophy ought not be about the “approximate,” but the exact. Not the “mostly true, sometimes false,” but the true.
That would certainly be my response to the idea that a woman should not want to be President. If we have actually discovered a fundamental characteristic of women, it should hold true for all instances of that concept
I agree.
(the exception is broken units, which I don’t have a complete grasp on but I think is well explored in this topic: http://forum.objecti…?showtopic=1099).
I’ve read the OP and done a quick review of the thread, which seems to descend into the kind of mindless acrimony that so many discussions on this board do. As that topic is seemingly likewise controversial, and as I haven’t given it sufficient time and attention yet to know my position, I don’t think I can agree to it without reservation for the purposes of our discussion; it may be begging the question.
And so, while I will shortly attempt to make an initial response to the topic of “broken units,” on the basis of the thread to which you’ve linked, I would hope that you are willing to develop those aspects of that case which you find germane, here, for the purposes of our discussion.
This is why we should be wary of claims about the fundamental nature of each gender which are based on nothing more than armchair theorizing and personal introspection. Personally, I think it’s obvious that there are fundamental differences between men and women, but what they are, and which ones are truly fundamental rather than just generalizations, I have no clue.
I don’t know that I am inclined to argue against the proposition that there are “differences” (fundamental or otherwise) between men and women. That I recognize men as being one thing and women being another lends credence to the claim. But when it comes to issues of psychology – human psychology – it seems to me that the wide divergence of individual variation trumps whatever generic claims we would like to make about a given population, time and time again.
And if we would like to make some claim that a woman’s psychology is necessarily directed in a certain way according to the shape or function of her genitals – if we even want to make the case that this somehow amounts to general proscription against running for the Presidency – then as you say, I expect “serious, objective evidence” and likewise serious discussion on the topic. The case must be made. And argued. And if and when it is, I fully expect it to be found wanting.
But instead of this method (a claim is made, a case is made and argued, with recourse to evidence and logic and etc.) what I instead find here seemingly without exception? The “case” that is made for such things is: “men and women are different – so you see, I can make whatever claim I’d like as to their differences, sans reasoning, sans evidence, but presented as a matter of obvious truth, acquired somehow.” This board, which is supposedly organized as a means of discussing Objectivism, which I believe to be a philosophy of reason, regularly entertains, without apparent irony, such “discussions.” It is (and I don’t use this word lightly) a travesty. It is appalling.
The more I think about it, I think the broken units discussion might get to the core of what some of the issue is here. It could certainly be the case that there are instances of men and women who do not share the fundamental characteristics of their genders, in the same way that a broken unit generally is missing a characteristic that it should have.
Again, I don’t know that I can immediately agree to “broken units” wholesale – I hope you’ll forgive this. But as an initial attempt to address that subject directly, insofar as it relates to our topic here, let me pull from the OP of that thread:
[A] broken unit is not simply a unit that lacks a characteristic shared by other units of the concept of which it is a member. Instead, a broken unit is a unit that lacks a characteristic that is proper for its survival qua the entity it is. Or, in the case of non-living entities designed to serve a human purpose, a broken unit is a unit that lacks a characteristic that is proper for its functioning given its intended function (a function supplied by man). A broken unit, in other words, is one that lacks a characteristic it should have but doesn’t [1].
“Should” implies “goal.” To say an entity should have X is to say X is a means of achieving some goal. Only living entities have goals. Putting aside for the moment the issue of human purposes, the goal that directs all living action is the survival of a living entity as the kind of entity it is. This last part is important – although it might perhaps be beneficial for a gorilla to be able to conceptualize, his survival qua gorilla is not dependent on conceptualization. Therefore, it makes no sense to say a gorilla should have the ability to conceptualize. Only man, who survives by his use of reason, should – in the relevant sense – have a conceptual faculty [2].
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[1] “Should”, in this context, is not meant to imply “choice” - rather it means, “proper, given its goal or purpose.”
[2] It must be stressed that “broken” does not mean simply, “different from the norm.” The standard for what is or is not a broken unit is its relationship to the goal it is intended to serve, given its nature.
So… what is the potential claim with regards to a “broken unit” here? That a woman somehow “insufficiently feminine” (however we believe that would express itself…) does not have a characteristic “that is proper for its survival qua the entity it is”? Can you elaborate on this?
It seems to me that the phrase “qua the entity it is” introduces the potential for a question-begging argument. For I would ask whether – taking this all quite literally – a woman who runs for the Presidency thus condemns herself to a shorter actual lifespan (as against men in the same position)? But in response, a person might say (“qua the entity it is”) that, at that point, she is somehow no longer living “as a woman, but as a man does.” Ta da.
Apart from that, the “broken unit” argument appears to rest on a claim that things cannot serve their “purpose,” though I believe that DPW intends this to apply solely to “non-living entities.” Still, perhaps it is important to state that other people are not means to our ends. A given woman does not have the burden of our “purpose” for her, and she is not “broken” because she does not conform to what we wish her to be, or does not serve our ends.
Approaching this idea of “broken units” more generally, I wonder… at what point would we conclude that the “break” occurs? In another thread along Kevin Delaney’s quest to reshape this board into his personal blog, he has made wild and insulting claims as to what women are supposedly like. Insofar as my wife does not conform to Delaney’s expectations (and thank god for that)… would my wife be “broken”? Or is it rather the women Delaney encounters who have – we must presume – somehow led him to his sad vision? Is this understanding achieved through a statistical analysis? How would you propose we establish the paradigm for female behavior, against which outliers must be considered “broken”? And is it a binary thing? Or a continuum? If a woman enjoys – oh, I don’t know, scents which are accounted masculine – is she broken yet? Is she yet missing that vital characteristic “that is proper for its survival qua the entity it is”? Will she curl up and die? Or just turn into a man? (And if I begin to make this all sound a bit preposterous, I apologize – but it’s hard for me to revisit these actual arguments, these actual claims, these actual, tortuous threads, and not get a little giddy.)
I doubt that we would benefit from reliving a past conversation much,
Well, you never know.
Something like lactose intolerance in Asians, as an aspect of character, for example, might illuminate the value of drawing personal knowledge from generalized statistics. If an Asian fellow lived in the west, accepted that 4 servings of dairy per day were necessary for his health since he is a human and human nature requires 4 servings of dairy per day then understanding that a group he is a part of shares certain characteristics might lead him to a more accurate view of his own individual nature. He would no longer have to feel guilty and inadequate for being so poor at digesting dairy and leave a more gastrointestinally enjoyable life.
I don’t think I’m disagreeing with you or your example, per se, except that I don’t believe a person should feel either guilty or inadequate for being “poor at digesting dairy” in the first place. Do you?
About women and the Presidency – just to pull a topic out of nowhere, and apropos of nothing – do you think that a woman who thinks to herself, “yeah – I might want to run for the Presidency someday” should feel either guilty or inadequate?
If he is 1/2 caucasion, or digests dairy well for any other ideosyncratic reason then he is in no way required to keep applying the principle to himself. He’s only freed by the more accurate view of his capacities from an over-generalized view of human nature that cannot answer every question regarding his shoulds, coulds, and woulds.
Well indeed.
What may cause a person to feel guilt, perhaps, is if they attach moral significance to their individual “nature” conforming to, or contradicting what supposed “authorities” proclaim as being that which ought to be true of them, depending on their membership in some group.