Feminism and Sexual Equality

Jessica at feministing.com has this to say about this recent speech by Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield. Because my Rule #1 is "Consider every idea at face value," I thought I'd look up the speech and give my thoughts in response.

Although I could only read the news report, the speech seemed to be mainly arguing that traditional feminism is promoting the wrong kind of behavior for modern women. Mansfield's chief allegation seems to be that feminism has caused women to "lower" themselves to men's level in the area of sexual behavior. According to Mansfield, when young women have casual sex/pseudosex (currently called "hooking up"), it changes men's attitude toward women; once they get used to free polygamous sex, Mansfield argues, men will never be able to stay monogamous and will thus be unsuited for long-term relationships.

Is he right?

The allegation that a history of easy sex (among other factors) can make some men cheaters seems to me to be (sadly) true. I live in Japan, the country that is possibly the most casual about sex in the world. Here, men grow up watching porn, visiting prostitutes, and having more girlfriends, on average, than Americans. When they get married, sure enough, they rarely sleep at home, and often use their high salaries to maintain a bevy of mistresses. On this point, Mansfield seems to be right.

But Mansfield's argument is that feminism is the cause of casual sex culture. From what I've seen, that couldn't be more wrong. Feminism's main accomplishment has been to give women roughly the same economic opportunities as men. This gender equality has improved the world immesureably, lowering birthrates and decreasing poverty. But, from what I have seen, gender equality has made life and relationships - yes, sexual relationships - a whole lot better for women.

While American women haven't yet achieved full economic equality, their situation is infinitely better than the women of Japan, the most gender-unequal rich country in the world. In Japan, where "feminist" is a dirty word, most women have only two options for their livelihood - housewife, or prostitute (a disturbing number of normal women choose the latter). Prostitution makes it easy for men to have unemotional sex with little or no effort - much more destructive to romance than college hookups. The cycle feeds itself; men raised on prostitution come to see women purely as sex objects, which causes rampant chauvanism, which keeps women from finding good jobs and forces them into prostitution.

It seems to me as if Harvey Mansfield is romanticizing a fictitious past, when women's modesty and coyness acted as a break on men's lustful instincts and "forced" men into responsible fatherly monogamy. It's a complete fantasy. With their dependent wives safely stashed at home, the suit-clad businessmen of America's past were free to dally as much as they wanted - and dally they surely did, just as Japanese men do now.

Anyone who has lived in the East and the West will understand what I mean. Economic equality has given Western women more power in sexual relationships (Amanda at Mouse Words agrees with me). This allows women to have sex on their own terms, when they want to and with who they want to. Equality makes men respect women more, as individuals, as romantic partners, and as friends.

So Mansfield may be right about the casual sex bit, but he's totally wrong when he says that feminism is the problem. Feminism, in terms of promoting female independence and equality, is more like the solution. (For what it's worth, he's also wrong when he says that "without modesty, there is no romance—it isn’t so attractive or so erotic." Sorry, Professor, it's all a matter of taste...)