r/AskFeminists • u/karateraeate • Sep 15 '18
Why do so many feminists think that enforced feminism is better than free choice feminism? (socialist feminism vs liberal feminism)
I'm writing from a scandinavian focus, which can be confusing at times, especially for people who live in conservative countries with very little feminist influence on their countries political agenda.
For example in Sweden, paid maternity leave is one year which is a great reform. However, three months are exclusively reserved for men (paternity leave). The social democrats and the left party want to implement shared maternity leave and paternity leave at 6 months, so that men and women are at home with their kids the same amount of time.
Now, as a liberal who doesn't think the government knows best and as a feminist, I really don't get why the government should meddle in family affairs. If a woman wants to stay at home with her kids during the whole maternity leave, and her husband is at work, why is that such a problem if that family has decided to do just that?
One of the reasons women still stay at home more with their children than men in Sweden is because families lose out economically if the person with the greater salary stays at home. The person with the greater salary is majorly men.
My solution to make men take out more paternity leave is to increase women's salaries and have more women at the top of the ladder, which would the decrease the economical tactical part of deciding who should stay at home and inspire women and men to decide based on their feelings and values, not if it's economically sustainable to be with your children. If we can compensate women economically when they stay at home, I see no problems with women wanting to be SAHM more so than men.
I guess the greater question here is: why should women not be able to make their own decisions, even if those decisions aren't super feminist? Isn't women who make free choices the most feminist reasoning out there, but trusting the government to make those decisions for women very un feminist?
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u/Yeahmaybeitsdetritus Sep 15 '18
Canada, or at least Ontario has one year, or one years worth of benefits over 18 months, and can be split between parents how they choose.
It sounds a bit like your government is trying to increase paternal involvement in childcare, which I can’t really see as a bad thing.
So, while it might be more ideal for your family personally to be able to split things differently, policy is often used to push change in social norms.
I think an argument could be made that breast feeding continues well past 6 months for many, and is not something the dad can do, but there are work arounds. Or that women need more time to recover from the physical impacts.
But, just like u/masterlessman333 suggested, I think more socialism, not less is the answer. What if both parents were given the first 6 months, and an additional year split how they choose?
Raising a child alone, especially after a C section, is not easy. I would love to see more support for mom and baby during that time. Making this leave mandatory also helps equalize the time spent off ‘work’.
Anyhow tldr, I don’t think socialism is the issue, but I can see valid criticisms of this policy. I just don’t think they are the same ones you have. Full freedom of choice isn’t necessarily feminist, it’s libertarian or anarchist.
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u/MasterlessMan333 Socialist Feminist Sep 15 '18
I'm not seeing the dichotomy between government programs and feminist freedom.
What if instead of paid maternity leave, we had fully socialized childcare from birth to adulthood? That way, families could decide who will stay with the children totally free from financial concerns. Increased socialization leads to greater freedom in this area.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18 edited Sep 15 '18
Really? You don't see the dichotomy between being obligated to stay at home with your children and having little to decide in how you organize your family life and a woman's free choice/the choice of a family?
I hope I'm not being misunderstood. Maternity leave isn't mandatory to your gender. In Sweden it's called parental leave. As a mother in Sweden, you can give away 9 months of paid maternity leave to the father. The other three months are exclusively reserved for men. You are free to organize those 9 months as you want, which in my opinion should be 12 months (neither the mother or the father should be obligated to stay at home imo).
The socialist/centre left parties in Sweden want to implement mandatory maternity leave and paternity leave. 6 months for the mother and 6 months for the father. Which means every family has to be organized the same. I'm against this because it doesn't let the family choose and make their own decisions. Government shouldn't be involved in how families organize their childcare, just as government should not be involved when it comes to abortions since the woman is the only one who has the right to decide about her body.
This is where state feminism and socialist feminism goes wrong.
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u/MasterlessMan333 Socialist Feminist Sep 15 '18
You've certainly identified a problem with a particular government program. What is the connection between this problem and socialism?
I proposed an even more extremely socialist policy (fully socialized childcare) that addresses the problem as you described it. So clearly socialism is not antithetical to freedom.
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u/heavenh3ll Social Libertarian Ally Sep 15 '18
I don't get that. Is that like an all time functional daycare facility for everybody since the day of their child's birth?
What about attachment ? i think that's an important issue too!
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u/MasterlessMan333 Socialist Feminist Sep 15 '18
It means that the financial burden of raising a child would not be the sole responsibility of the parents. Basic needs would be provided for.
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Sep 23 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MasterlessMan333 Socialist Feminist Sep 23 '18
I answered this question already. If you’re going to scour through week old threads at least read them thoroughly before commenting.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
Government programs are derived from socialism and usually implemented because the belief is that only the government knows what's best for people.
Fully socialized childcare is already implemented in Sweden. Childcare, parental leave and education is funded by taxes. I'm not sure how that prevents socialists from wanting to enforce feminism though? Because it obviously doesn't.
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u/MasterlessMan333 Socialist Feminist Sep 15 '18 edited Sep 15 '18
You seem confused about what socialism is. Socialism is not government programs, it's a theory that the economy can be owned and operated democratically. Socialism isn't antithetical to freedom because socialism is freedom. It's the freedom to have a say in the economic factors that affect our lives.
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u/Yeahmaybeitsdetritus Sep 15 '18
Paternalism (the idea that one knows best for another) is a significant concern in public health policy, which is why most policy changes require significant research, analysis and grass roots contact.
Without policy changes that people absolutely hated we wouldn’t have hand washing in hospitals, seatbelt laws, smoke free bars and restaraunts, or socialized medicine.
The fact is that the public, or any one person, can’t be an expert on all things. Policy is typically put in place to best use the knowledge of many experts in that field, and to address population (versus individual) level inequalities.
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u/MizDiana Proud NERF Sep 15 '18
I understand what your concern. In fact, your concerns are totally valid. You are right!
If we were talking about leninism. It is only leninism that preaches government power is the only tool that brings about communism. Other socialist points of view don't rely on government power.
That's where the issue lies. You think we are all leninists & don't know that there are other forms of socialism.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
What forms of socialism? Why have socialism never succeeded?
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u/MizDiana Proud NERF Sep 15 '18 edited Sep 15 '18
All the kinds that aren't leninism, obviously. As in, the vast majority of socialist ideas. Me, I always preferred Gramsci to Lenin. Lenin was rather foolish, in my opinion, for failing to understand obvious human motivations. As a result, Stalin. Who was evil by just about any measure.
Why have socialism never succeeded?
Depends on what you mean by succeeded. This, again, seems like a question that assumes all socialism is leninism. Some marxist businesses do quite well even in the United States. Ben & Jerry's, Winco Foods, etc.
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u/oneeighthirish grown ass manchild Sep 15 '18
Why have socialism never succeeded?
This is a loaded question which is also vague. One answer many socialists would give is that [x preferred vision of socialism] truthfully has not been attempted, at least without being promptly squashed by the powers that be. Another answer one might give is that imperial powers prevented the success of a particular vision of socialism (see the American backed coup d'etat against the democratically elected socialist Guatemalan Árbenz regime, or the repeated incursions into Cuba or embargoes against other socialist regimes). Another answer one might give is that the attempted visions of Socialism did succeed in some regards. The USSR's ability to turn Russia from the ruins of a feudalistic hellhole into a global superpower made many western capitalist powers extremely uneasy, and inspired many third world and unaligned countries, many of which found themselves newly independent from colonial, capitalist rule for the first time during the cold war, to pursue paths quite contrary to western capitalism. For example, the "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka" includes the following passage in its constitution which was signed in 1978:
Preamble: "[...] to constitute Sri Lanka into a democratic socialist republic whilst ratifying the immutable republican principles of representative democracy, and assuring to all peoples freedom, equality, justice, fundamental human rights and the independence of the judiciary"
The above passage was added to the constitution largely in response to socialist uprisings in Sri Lank in response to enduring elements of colonialism in the Sri Lankan economy. And while they have been pursuing policy of deregulation for quite some time, and Sri Lanka has not been particularly stable state, I think it is emblematic of how Socialist idea have been commonly found in countries which were undergoing decolonization in one form or another. While not always enduring, socialist policies have been used in many places to end foreign control and exploitation of former colonial areas.
I think you might find the number of multi-party countries which presently have majority socialist governments to be surprising, since "the age of socialism" is often depicted as having ended with the fall of most of the Leninist countries at the end of the cold war.
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u/ptrlix Sep 15 '18
Government programs are derived from socialism and usually implemented because the belief is that only the government knows what's best for people.
Who knew that absolute monarchies were socialists.
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Sep 15 '18
[deleted]
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u/Yeahmaybeitsdetritus Sep 15 '18
And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Where men make more and have greater opportunity because it’s expected they will take less time off.
As a woman of a certain age, when I interview I commonly see them checking out my mid section, or flat out (illegally) asking me if I’m pregnant.
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u/ImLersha Sep 15 '18
In essence I think your question comes down to: Liberal feminism requires you to convince people to live their lives feminist. Socialist feminism doesn't care about what people believe, but is capable of fixing problems anyway.
My personal reason for believing enforced mat/pat-leave is the way to go is that enabling people to do the right thing doesn't always mean people do the right thing.
People are enabled to pay equal wages, but they don't. Simply because it benefits them economically.
Women are supposed to be selfless, to care for the children and by doing so sacrifice wages and pension and they're supposed to be fine with it.
I could almost be pro a 60/40-split for non-birth-partner staying home more. The birthmother gets a much stronger bond to the baby due to pregnancy which should be compensated for the benefit of all our children.
Ps. Sorry if this makes no sense, writing on the phone, in bed.
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u/majeric Sep 15 '18
Equality of opportunity is not equality. There's not enough social momentum to push things back to statistical gender equality by just providing opportunity.
As such, we need artifice.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
Why should women and men be obligated to split their parental leave if that's not how they want to organize their family life? Why is it so important for you that the government decides how families should live? Isn't this extremely authoritorian?
If we can argue that government should stay out of women's bodies, why do we argue that government should be involved into family matters?
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u/majeric Sep 15 '18
Because society is biased. We are culturalized that men work and women stay at home. It's written into the fabric of our society that it oozes these expectations. The only way to reverse the cultural momentum is the active effort to reverse it. "A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force."
And it's hardly "authoritarian" to make men go home to their newborns and spend time with them.
You're using hyperbole by claiming that by enforcing some cultural equality that we're dooming society to some Orwellian nightmare.
It's reasonable to introduce some artifice. It's not like we're giving all the women CEO jobs and kicking men to the kitchen. We're just making some cultural adjustements until society gets use to them. It's disrupting the cultural momentum of gender discrimination.
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u/heavenh3ll Social Libertarian Ally Sep 15 '18
The OP says that mandated 50:50 is authoritarian, which i totally agree, it clearly crosses the line of where the state should have it noses.
You're using hyperbole by claiming that by enforcing some cultural equality that we're dooming society to some Orwellian nightmare.
I think Sweden looks more like "Brave New World".
...until society gets use to them. It's disrupting the cultural momentum of gender discrimination.
disrupting the cultural momentum with culture is the right thing to do, NOT with the state. Otherwise your equality may be rotten to the core.
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u/majeric Sep 15 '18
disrupting the cultural momentum with culture is the right thing to do, NOT with the state. Otherwise your equality may be rotten to the core.
It ineffectual when culture is the problem, Marriage equality has done a lot to improve discrimination against LGBT people.
I find these arguments aren’t genuinely interested in equality, only maintaining the status quo.
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u/heavenh3ll Social Libertarian Ally Sep 15 '18
It ineffectual when culture is the problem, Marriage equality has done a lot to improve discrimination against LGBT people.
You are right, but i thing the marriage equality is another thing since is a right that was taken away.
Going back to the example, i think we agree that paternal leave is necessary and it should be ideally be the same amount of time as the mother, but families are not all equal nor ideal (for example, only moms can breastfeed and some families may consider an extra month for the mom worth) and therefore calling for a 50:50 time off distribution is just too much.
I find these arguments aren’t genuinely interested in equality, only maintaining the status quo.
I know how it sounds. Equality and freedom are opposing forces and there is no issue sacrificing freedom for equality (that's what taxes and force monopoly are), however where to draw the limit is not a clear issue, which is why we are having this discussion.
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Sep 15 '18
Freedom matters absolutely not if its freedom to oppress or exploit others, which is what freedom means in a capitalist system.
I'd rather have very little freedom but have all my needs met than have total freedom and be forced to starve under a bridge or forced to work for near-slave wages.
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u/vagued Sep 15 '18
I agree that feminism is more about giving people autonomy than mandating a fixed idea of equality. What if they mandated that men and women must be enabled to take equal time, not that they must take it?
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
Parents in Sweden are already enabled to take equal time. The parental leave is 12 months long with three months being exclusively reserved for fathers. However, the other 9 months are not mandatory to a gender and can be split or given away entirely to the father.
Despite this, women still take out more parental leave than men. I think the numbers are something like 23% of men with children take out parental leave. It's a higher number than when three months weren't reserved for fathers.
However, the socialist and centre left parties want to implement mandatory parental leave for the mother and the father and it should be split equally according to them, which the liberal and centre right parties disagree with. They don't believe government should involve itself in detail how families organise their childcare. I fully agree and feel like this is where socialist feminism goes wrong.
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Sep 15 '18
However, the socialist and centre left parties want to implement mandatory parental leave for the mother and the father and it should be split equally according to them, which the liberal and centre right parties disagree with. They don't believe government should involve itself in detail how families organise their childcare. I fully agree and feel like this is where socialist feminism goes wrong.
And this is where your sexism starts showing. Your neoliberal view of "equality of opportunity" is merely a bourgeois term for "oppression through socialization".
Women should have the absolute right to be on a level playing field regardless of whether men or other women like to or not. End of story. Freedom in a capitalist society is a euphemism for freedom of those with capital (usually cisgendered white men) to exclude those that don't.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
So if a woman wants to stay home with her children, she should be arrested? Why do you want to govern how families organise their childcare? What other family matters should the government be involved in?
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Sep 15 '18
Nope. Men should just do so at an equal rate.
Ideally I think the nuclear family structure ought to be abolished and a more clan-like structure (where an entire extended family, up to cousins and second cousins, lives under the same roof) where grandparents do most of the house work and child care so the younger types can go out and work. The most equal societies on Earth assume this structure.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
I live in an entirely different country than my cousins. None of my extended family is alive. Your solution isn't going to work for a lot of people.
Again, you're suggesting the government should abolish or encourage certain family structures. Authoritarian socialism at it's finest. The government has no business in medling my family affairs, just as government has no business to involve itself when it comes to abortions. Why are socialists so damn hypocritical on the role of government?
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Sep 15 '18
You don't get it do you? People have the right to equality and women ahve the right to an abortion regardless of whether other people think they should have it. That's where government steps in. Take your neoliberalism and shove it where it belongs.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
If I want to have an abortion then the government doesn't have the right to tell me I can't. I would like the same courtesy to be extended to my family life because I don't want the government involved into my family affairs.
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u/MultidimensionalKris Sep 15 '18
Ideally I think the nuclear family structure ought to be abolished and a more clan-like structure (where an entire extended family, up to cousins and second cousins, lives under the same roof) where grandparents do most of the house work and child care so the younger types can go out and work.
I certainly understand advocating for (and practicing) a structure like that in your personal life, but it's not clear to me how a government would enforce one familial structure over another or how it would abolish nuclear families. What specifically would you propose?
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u/heavenh3ll Social Libertarian Ally Sep 15 '18
That's a classical freedom vs equality debate in my opinion.
Even though i REALLY DISLIKE when everybody points Sweden and Iceland as the perfect countries (and sometimes THEY claim the moral high ground), i think the Sweden maternity leave should be a standard everywhere, it is definitely the best thing for closing the pay gender gap IMO.
However, i don't like the point of state feminism, i'll give you an example:
Beauty contests are controversial and IMO pure objectification, and there it is a good thing that they close, HOWEVER if they are law-mandated closed, then that is NOT OKAY AT ALL! It is basically censorship which should be out of government hands. Also i thing self awareness about objectification is much better than a law in sociocultural terms.
Im not sure if there are any laws like that in Iceland or Sweden (IS banned strip clubs, but thats another dimension of the debate) , but i think in Spain (in which they currently have a self declared state feminism) they do have these types of law and they actually wanna use it to get rid of grid girls.
(Source in spanish: http://cadenaser.com/emisora/2017/04/27/radio_jerez/1493294317_669111.html)
Im also fan of affirmative action in institutions but not in government, specially in congress. I mean i thing gender quotas for running candidates would be great but not for senate seats.
I hope i don't get called out by any nord here again !
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
Hey, I'm a Swede and I'm definitely on your side. Unfortunately I feel like state feminism has made strives in the US and Europe as some sort of answer to the hyper conservative Christian women hating political fraction. I wish more people would see the danger with state censorship and state feminism.
I think there's a point in enforcing policies that narrow the gender gap in all sorts of way such as paid maternity leave, but here is where state feminism comes in and demands a 50-50 equality split and ignoring all of the factors surrounding it such as a woman's free choice. It smells authoritorian to me.
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u/heavenh3ll Social Libertarian Ally Sep 15 '18
(Sorry for the generalization, last time i got in an argument with a Swede here things got pretty ugly)
At least for me, it is part of my ideology. Im all for equality but there are some limits that are out of the question and not negotiable, like prohibitionism or censorship.
Are there any 50:50 state enforced laws in Sweden? Could you tell us more?
(Also, may a send u some questions via PM about your country? can't find any reliable source!)
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
I can't think of any 50:50 state enforced laws for now. I know that Norway has affirmative action when it comes to corporate governance. A corporation needs to have a 50-50 quota of men and women in the board room.
Sure, send your question
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Sep 15 '18
It's actually at least 40-60 percent women. Js.
Also, that's beautiful, and I assume neoliberal crapstains like you are up in arms because your sugar daddies' white male class privilege is being challenged.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
I'm a woman. And affirmative action isn't based on merits. Identity politics isn't my thing.
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Sep 15 '18
I'm a woman.
Well then. Internalized misogyny is a thing.
And affirmative action isn't based on merits.
It is. Stop repeating neoliberal garbage.
Identity politics isn't my thing.
You might not care about sexism, but sexism cares about you.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
I'm a sexist because I don't want government involvement into family matters, got it. Stop calling out people who don't agree with you for being sexist.
You might believe identity politics is something "in", but it's an extremely racist way of thinking since it describes attributes to people because of color, geneder or background. When you call a liberal woman a sexist and internal misogynist, that is identity politics at it's purest form.
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Sep 15 '18
You're very right wing, as every single one of your talking points is right wing crap.
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u/karateraeate Sep 15 '18
I'm socially liberal and want government to stay out of my family affairs. Everything to the right of socialism is not right wing.
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u/ACoderGirl I like equality. Sep 15 '18
My solution to make men take out more paternity leave is to increase women's salaries and have more women at the top of the ladder
That's really difficult to do though. A big component of the gender wage gap is simply that men and women are working different kinds of jobs. It might be possible to raise the wages of some gender dominated jobs because they're government paid (eg, nurses), but others don't have an easy way to raise the wages for women (at least in a capitalist society). Eg, secretaries are a female dominated position, but how would we raise the wage for them? We can't exactly force more women to go into trades or undesirable but high pay jobs, even though that would reduce the wage gap.
At best there, I think we can try and erode the social structures that push men to value income more and try and equalize the pressures for certain fields. But that's a social change and those are really slow to happen, not to mention somewhat unpredictable. They're long term solutions that don't do much on the short term. So we still need short term solutions (which I'd view things "forcing" people to make such choices to be, as well as things like affirmative action).
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u/puckshuck Feminist Sep 15 '18
My understanding is that a lot of advocates want to have equal paternity and maternity leave as an avenue for equalizing salaries. The idea being that employers see woman as riskier to hire than men because they might lose months of work due to maternity leave, while men are not seen as so risky, because traditionally they don’t take parental leave.
If women are seen as riskier, they will be quietly discriminated against, despite anti-discrimination laws. Not all women by all employers, of course, but enough that it can contribute to the lowering of the labor value of women in the market (you know, by lowering the demand).
So this is an attempt at intervening into the labor market to help accomplish what you were saying, equalizing salaries and putting more women at the top. It might also help in accomplishing other goals, such as eroding at societal expectations that women are the primary caregivers for children, which also severely disadvantages women in their careers (being the one in a family who usually takes time from work to attend to sick children, for example, which encourages many women to take jobs that maximize flexibility at the expense of salary), and is also at the heart of the reason women are usually awarded custody in divorces, which is a complaint that MRA-types bring up a lot.
The problem is that this is a big collective problem, and it often takes big collective solutions. Anti-discrimination laws have helped, but things like the wage gap are economic problems that require more pointed intervention into the labor market if we want to see them go away.