Basic Assumptions of Feminist Theory

     I have written quite a number of articles about feminists before. However, my previous articles were mostly concentrated on specific parts of the feminist agenda, and were relatively informal, but still logical though. Today I would like to explore together with my readers about the basic premises of the feminist theory and of course, its absurdities. This is going to be a relatively formal article so one could expect a reference list.


Gender: Nature VS Nurture


     One of the most important premises of the feminist theory is that gender is purely a social construct. Specifically, they consider traditional feminity and masculinity to be solely due to socialization, rather than inherent characteristics of either gender. This is one of the reasons why they believe that some seemingly "unfair" treatment are problematic.
     Take women's underrepresentation in science and engineering as an example, they have cited extensive evidence (e.g. Spencer et al., 1999) that it is "purely" due to discrimination against women in these domains. Nonetheless, these studies are probably methodologically flawed. This is because most of them indicates that women's performance on some standardized test can be impaired by stereotyping. Lamentably, doing scientific researches and designing engineering products have very little to do with these tests.
     Indeed, the above-mentioned trend has been very consistently observed across cultures and it persists despite all those feminist agenda, along with many other gender differences in behaviors and cognition (e.g. Lee & Keith, 1994; Cohen-Bendahan et al., 2005). This suggests that such difference are quite resistent to cultural influence, implying that they have some biological roots. Therefore, it makes absolutely no sense to argue that gender itself doesn't have a biological basis. Then it logically follows that this very basic premise is false.


The Oppressed Gender


     Another commonly cited premise by the feminist theory is that women were "oppressed" more than men in the past, primary by the patriachial system. To begin with, we should define this terms before discussion, since a vague word implies unclear thinking. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the term "oppress" means to cause distress to someone through the inappropiate use of authority.
     However, there have been strong evidence people of both gender tend to treat males more harshly than females, at all ages (e.g. Daly & Tonry, 1997; Mustard, 2001), even in childhood (e.g. Lambert et al., 1971). These findings are quite consistently across cultures and therefore probably have a biological basis as well. This implies that no matter who is holding power, they tend to treat males in worse ways, even back in ancient times.
     The above means that there factors which suggest that men were actually the more oppressed gender back in those old days. However, if one would like to prove this point, they need to show that the total unhappiness caused by unequal treatment received by men is greater than that received by women. The only way to do this is to develop some ingenius ways to measure total happiness, and travel back to those old days using a time machine. This obviously cannot be done, at least not with the current technology. Then it follows that it makes no sense to argue that one of the genders was overall more oppressed than the other and thus, the feminist theory makes very little sense in this premise, too.
     Moreoever, can this oppression be blamed on patriachial system entirely? Probably not. Even back in those old days, we have many women who held considerable authority, mostly through maniplating men around them though, and they were fully capable of inflicting harm on their subordinates. This is especially problematic since men tend to suppress their aggression towards women, but may not other way round.
     Worse still, even in nowaday society, oppressions exist in non-patriachial system. This implies that the tendency to misuse authorities may be innate in humans rather than being inherent problem of the patriachial system. Therefore, can one says that it is the system that have caused the oppression? The answer would be a certain "no".


Equal Opportunities in Everthing


     Based on the above premises, the feminist theorists suggested that women deserve equal opportunities in EVERY aspects of life as men, most specifically political influence. However, even without considering the falsehood of the last two premises, this statement is also problematic in itself.
     The very first condition for giving someone certain rights is that they are not going to cause troubles with those rights. We won't let serial killers freely roam around because we know that granting them such rights is going to be harmful to our society. In a similar manner, it is actually reasonable not to give women certain power. Take political influence as an example, there have been little doubt that women tend to base their judgement more on "empathy" (e.g. Toussaint & Webb, 2005). This is quite problematic since we all know that this is going to cause biases in perception, since some politicians are really good at manipulating emotions.
     Therefore, a more reasonable thing to do is not to allow all women to exert their power on everything, since their biased perception is going to lead them to cause destructions. Of course, if a woman does give some rational opinion, we should listen, but if we allow all women to act without letting men voice their opinion first, troubles would follow. Thus, according to our basic principle, women don't deserve equal opportunities in political participation. I am NOT saying that women shouldn't get such rights in every aspects, but they don't deserve it in at least SOME domains. Similarly, if one finds that letting men having certain opportunities would cause trouble, I would agree that men don't deserve equal rights in these aspects either.


Conclusion


     Obviously, it is not possible to cover all facets of the feminist theory in one single article, that's why I stressed the word "brief" in the title. However, the above three are the most basic premises of this theory. In reality, almost ALL feminist agendas are based on at least one of the above three statements. As we can see, all three of these feminist principles are far from the truth. This implies that a VERY significant number of feminist theories are based on serious falsehood and their arguments are definitely NOT going to be sound. This is going to do nothing but to cause misery to everyone.


Reference


     Cohen-Bendahan, C. C., Beek, C., & Berendaum, S. A. (2005). Prenatal sex hormone effects on child and adult sex-typed behavior: methods and findings. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Review, 29(2), 353-384.
     Daly, K, & Tonry, M. (1997). Gender, Race, and Sentencing. Crime & Justice, 22, 201-252.

     Lambert, W. E., Yackley, A., & Hein, R. N. (1971). Child training values of English Canadian and French Canadian parents. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 3(3), 217-236.

     Lee, K. A., & Keith, D. E. (1994). Attachment style, gender, and relationship stability: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(3), 502-512.
     Mustard, D. (2001). Racial, Ethic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 44(1), 285-314.
     Spencer, S. J., Steel, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(1), 4–28
     Toussaint, L., & Webb, J. R. (2005). Gender differences in the Relationship between Empathy and Forgiveness. The Journal of Social Psychology, 145(6), 673-685.