Rethinking Feminism (Part 2): A new feminism on the block
Dani Scarratt
Part 1 of this article summarised a series of recent critiques by Louise Perry, Abigail Favale, and Mary Harrington of influential feminist doctrines. The critiques ranged across intellectual, sociological, theological, economic, and technological territory, but each ended with a call for a new kind of women’s movement—one that takes sex differences seriously.
In Part 2 we take look at this new women’s movement. Is it feminism? What are its values? What are the proposed solutions to the problems it seeks to address? What is its relationship to Christianity, and should Christians get on board?
The F Word?
Should this growing form of concern for women’s interests be called ‘feminism’, or is the word too freighted with contrary ideas to be useful? Proponents find themselves in a Catch-22 situation: to deny the label is to risk being read as denying that women’s wellbeing matters, or that women are equal in value to men. Yet to embrace it is to risk being associated with ideas they reject.
The authors we have been discussing are well aware of this difficulty. Perry, for example, distances herself from what she calls ‘liberal feminism’ but recognises the need for a ‘truly feminist project’ (p79). Favale describes herself as an ‘heretical feminist’, insisting that the ‘questions that feminism seeks to address are still vital and relevant’ (p30), while making it clear that she rejects some of its tenets. Harrington, too, expresses her commitment to feminism ‘in the sense that I care about women’s interests and think these are often sidelined’ (p13), but also sees the need to qualify the term, calling herself a ‘reactionary feminist’—a feminist against the progress theology that ‘seeks to de-sex and disembody us all’ (p162).
Underlying all these negotiations is the idea that ‘real’ feminism really does value the lives of women and promotes their good. They acknowledge that many of the historical changes sought in the name of feminism have done this, but recognise that others have not, and that some have made things worse. With hindsight, the latter are seen to be ‘falsely feminist’. A key thinker in the new women’s movement summarises the situation nicely:
The writers featured in Part 1 of this article all argue that the reason these ‘biolib or autonomy’ iterations of feminism have failed women is that they deny—or attempt to neutralise—differences between men and women. But these differences have substantial implications for women's lives, so insisting that women be treated as 'just like men' in every way, even when they are not, does women a disservice. Recognition that sex differences have a whole range of implications for life is at the heart of the new women’s movement, even where this means facing up to some unpalatable limitations. (Better to ‘take a freedom haircut’, to use one of Harrington’s colourful phrases, than sabotage ourselves trying to be something we aren’t.)
The centrality of real sex differences to this growing women’s movement has led to the emergence of the term ‘sex-realist feminism’. Coined by legal scholar, Erika Bachiochi, in her influential essay of the same title, the qualifier clearly differentiates it from feminisms which have sought to deny or overcome female distinctiveness. Bachiochi has given the movement a focus and identity by founding an online journal, Fairer Disputations, which has drawn together likeminded thinkers, many of whom have adopted the designation. Following their lead, I will also use this term ‘sex-realist feminism’ to describe the movement in the remainder of the article.
Women’s needs
More than female…
Like Favale, Perry, and Harrington, Bachiochi is adamant that feminism must take sex differences seriously if it is to successfully promote women’s interests. However, importantly, she sees sex differences as only one of three factors that must be taken into consideration when seeking to make laws that support women’s wellbeing. Because while women are different to men in some ways (sexually distinct), they are also the same as men (human), and different to one another (individually distinct). All three of these aspects of personhood—humanity, sex, and individuality—must be taken into account in structuring a society in which women (and men, and children) can flourish.
Historically, Bachiochi points out, societies where these three aspects of personhood are out of balance have usually erred on the side of overplaying women’s reproductive capacity and all that goes along with it. When reproductive function is treated as the most important or even sole determinant of a woman’s place in society and the family, her dignity, needs and desires as a human being are overlooked, as is her distinct individuality. Viewed through this reductive lens, women become subordinate to men and are less likely to be afforded roles or rights outside the household. Women in such societies who, for whatever reason, do not marry or have children become personae non gratae.
Mary Wollstonecraft (Credit: spatuletail/Shutterstock)
As a result, early iterations of women’s movements tended to focus on the shared humanity and distinct individuality of women. Bachiochi notes that the central argument of Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was that women were fully human—rational beings who were thereby obligated to ‘pursue reason to its proper ends’, namely virtue and wisdom, and that this duty ‘was the very foundation for women’s just claims to political freedom and equality’.[1] A century and a half later Dorothy L. Sayers pointed out that answers to the question What do women want? don’t get you all that far towards understanding what any particular woman wants. As fellow human beings, women want the same things as men (‘interesting occupation, reasonable freedom for their pleasures, and a sufficient emotional outlet’); as individuals, their answers will be just as varied as they are for men:
Sayers felt the need to emphasise the fellow humanity and individuality of women, and her essay remains a valuable corrective to identity politics that treat the needs of members of any given class as subhuman on the one hand, or homogeneous on the other.[2]
… but not less than female
These tendencies have not entirely disappeared, yet in the West today it is the distinctiveness of the sexes that is in danger of being overlooked. Where women and men are treated equally as human individuals but their sexual dimorphism is underplayed, they come to be regarded as interchangeable, even in areas where their requirements are different because of their sex. It is this imbalance, sex-realist feminists argue, that we are seeing evidence of now. Harrington argues that the wellbeing of mothers is undermined when their distinct needs and preferences around caring for children are not recognised and accommodated by social and economic structures. And Perry makes the case that women, on average, are made miserable when they are expected to suppress their own preferences and mirror the male patterns of sexual behaviour that have become the default since the advent of reliable contraception (see Part 1). Medical research and product design, too, are areas where taking physical sex distinctives into account has the potential to improve outcomes, as their outputs are accommodated to different susceptibilities to disease, for example, or body size and strength. These are easily overlooked where male and female bodies are considered interchangeable by default.
Speaking from a legal perspective, Bachiochi concludes that the law—'if it is to govern us in all our multi-faceted nobility—must be fashioned to honor our shared humanity, recognize our sexual asymmetry, and provide room and scope for our irreducible individuality’. Modern sex-discrimination law provides a good model of this balance:
Theorized properly, this area of law provides a true account of the sexually dimorphic individual human person, which in turn provides the basis for a new sex-realist feminism. It’s an account worth fighting for.
When it comes to legislation, sex-realist feminism builds on achievements of earlier feminist movements. But, of course, changes are not restricted to the legal sphere; a society where conventions, norms, expectations and attitudes reflect this rounded-out understanding of people’s needs is also worth striving for.
Sex-realist Feminism
What changes do sex-realist feminists want to bring about in order to improve the lives of women today? It’s early days—the movement has only recently begun to identify itself as such, and as for any movement, it encompasses a range of opinions. There is already disagreement around the place of contraception and abortion, for example. But a raft of inter-related issues have emerged as central. Some of the counter-cultural advice sex-realist feminists have to offer is summarised below.
Occupy yourself
We are not bodiless homunculi piloting meat suits we’re entitled to upgrade at will. We are our bodies. We will not be displaced: we will occupy ourselves.
This rousing battle cry from Mary Harrington expresses the core ideas that our bodies are real, they have built-in constraints, and they are who we are. It calls women—indeed, all people—to accept that our bodies aren’t mere substrates or add-ons to a ‘self’ conceived of as a kind of detachable soul or consciousness that might one day be uploaded to a computer system. We are inherently embodied. Our bodies might not look or feel or operate exactly as we want them to, and sometimes things need to be tweaked to make them function well, but we are not in any way independent of our bodies. And there are limits on what we can do to and with them without harming ourselves. Flourishing as embodied humans means living within the constraints that embodiment imposes.
Sex-realist feminism is based on this foundation.
Avoid casual sex
‘Sex must be taken seriously’, proclaims the first chapter of Perry’s book. This is a common sex-realist theme: it was a mistake to move sexual interactions into the just-another-leisure-activity box, and the resulting sexual revolution has been a disaster for women. Even if you reject the evolutionary story underpinning Perry’s main line of argument, the social research she cites makes the case abundantly: sex in the absence of a committed relationship makes most women miserable in the long run, and usually in the short run as well. Her advice to young women is to ‘make him wait’: hold off having sex for a few months to make sure he’s serious about the relationship. If he agrees, he cares; if he disappears, you’re better off without him. (Better still, get married—but we’ll get to that below.)
However, Perry also acknowledges that easily accessible, reliable contraception makes it much more difficult for women to say no than it was prior to the1960s. There used to be a widely acceptable reason to say no: the risk of unwanted pregnancy. This is no longer so.
First wave feminists sought to counter the sexual double-standard by holding men to the same standard as women, namely, chastity. When the pill came on the scene, the situation was reversed, and the default standard for both sexes became the pattern of male promiscuity. From a perspective of female wellbeing, this was a backwards step. ‘A truly feminist project’, Perry writes, ‘would demand that, in the straight dating world, it should be men not women who adjust their sexual appetites’ (p79). One way of doing this is to be religious and back up one’s ‘no’ with a divine prohibition. Another is for women to reject forms of contraception that put responsibility for pregnancy on the woman alone, and return that responsibility to both sexual partners (Favale, p99).
Though acknowledging the pivotal role of the pill in enabling the sexual revolution, Perry stops short of calling women to refuse birth control. Favale has no such hesitation, decrying any form of contraception that puts the responsibility solely on women. Neither does Harrington—rejecting the technology that disconnects us from our bodies in the name of freeing us from sex difference follows directly from her concerns about bio-libertarianism. ‘Rewilding sex’ (Harrington’s term for reintroducing the potential for pregnancy) will make women more particular about their partners, and more able to say no. And they will once again have a reason to avoid the ill-consequences of casual sex that Perry enumerates.
Embrace interdependence
After recognising that sex differences are real and have implications for how we live, the most prominent general theme in the sex-realist conversation concerns accepting the interdependence our embodied natures entail. This runs counter to the ideal of the independent, autonomous individual promoted by the liberal feminism Perry describes; the biolibertarianism Harrington opposes; and the meaningless postmodern world exposed by Favale, where traditional bonds are destabilised and dissolved in the name of freedom.
For Favale, the imperative to embrace interdependence follows from a theological vision of the cosmos as an interconnected, harmonious whole, imbued with meaning by its Creator and into which we are integrated as male and female humans in God’s image. But even without this theological package, Perry and Harrington find plenty of reasons in human experience—anecdotal and research based—to conclude that the natural human state is one of interdependence. Pregnancy and breastfeeding are, perhaps, the clearest counter-examples to the illusion of human autonomy, where the very bodies of mothers and infants are interconnected for extended periods of time: ‘the logic of individualism collapses upon contact with motherhood’ (Perry, p172).
From the interconnectedness of infants and mothers, it is a short step to acknowledging the value of committed paternal support—practical, emotional and economic. Societies throughout history have overwhelmingly formed family groups based around biological parents and their children, though of course there are other variations. But our dependence on one another doesn’t stop at raising children:
In a natural human life cycle, we begin as dependent babies, spend a very brief period as relatively independent young adults, before caring for our own dependent children, and ultimately ending our lives in what Shakespeare called our ‘second childishness’ … [W]e have to find a way of being dependent upon one another. (Perry, 174)
Harrington agrees. Most women don’t thrive emotionally or sexually as independent units, but when they are embedded in committed relationships. ‘Swimming against the atomizing current’ is therefore, ‘an urgent priority for reactionary feminists’ (p178). Much of what follows is a response to this priority, starting with reviving the institution of monogamous marriage.
Promote (realistic) marriage
Many second wave feminists saw marriage as a mechanism for oppressing women that should be rejected. Contra this, sex-realist feminists argue that marriage is actually protective of women (and children), and that it should be supported at all levels.
To date, the only widespread functional solution, other than marriage, to the ‘problem’ of mother-child interdependency is institutional childcare—and this must be financially propped up by the state to be accessible by any but the wealthiest. More radical suggestions have included raising children in collectives that distribute parenting duties among more adults (recommended by Germaine Greer in The Female Eunuch; briefly trialed in one form in the Kibbutz system), and Shulamith Firestone’s hope that technology will eventually free women from the reproductive task altogether. (This last option is no longer the distant dream of fictional societies like Huxley’s Brave New World. I recently attended a presentation about the development of artificial wombs or ‘biobags’ that would allow precisely this.)[3]
But all of these, even the familiar solution of institutional daycare, are premised on the value of autonomy—the desirability of loosening the mother-child bond from an early age to fast-track separateness. None offer women ‘a way of being physically with their children while also being materially and emotionally supported by other adults’ (Perry, p175). Except marriage.[4]
People—and not just women—tend to flourish in stable marriages. The numbers are in, and study after study shows that on average, married people are happier, wealthier, face lower rates of domestic violence, and their children enjoy many advantages.[5] These benefits of monogamous marriages ripple out producing ‘wealthy, stable societies that survive’ (Perry, p185).
Harrington agrees but warns against simply trying to turn back the clock to the pre-1960s model that saw women as domestic consumers dependent on their husbands’ income, good will and character to offset their lack of agency. ‘Such proposals’, she argues, ‘seem blind (or indifferent) to the fact that this would be subject to all the structural downsides that drove women to abandon this model in the first place’ (p179). In any case, the conditions supporting such a model no longer exist, and the normalisation of dual income households means it would only be feasible for the wealthiest. Instead, she argues for the need to rebuild solidarity between men and women, ‘revising the pre-modern approach to what marriage is for: less personal fulfilment, or even romantic love, than an enabling condition for building a meaningful life’ (p182).
Of course, not everyone wants to, or will, get married, but those who do should be prepared for it to be ‘difficult, demanding high levels of tolerance and self-control’ (Perry, p185). Sex-realist feminists are under no rose-tinted illusion that marriage is easy, or that all marriages will last. Opening the legal door to divorce and lifting the social stigma were beneficial for women in abusive marriages. Bachiochi (following Wollstonecraft) points out that giving one party too much power in marriage carries the same dangers as doing so in a political system. Power corrupts sinful humans, and so it is wise to limit it by building checks and balances into its legal structures.[6] Yet there is also a sex-realist case to be made against too-easy access to divorce, which undermines commitment when marriages inevitably go through difficult times.
While sex-realist feminists are pro-marriage, they acknowledge that for (heterosexual) women to flourish in marriage, they need to marry good men. This doesn’t mean holding out for Mr Darcy and ‘not settling’ for anything less. Having too high a bar damages the marriage prospects of both men and women (Harrington, p93). But it does mean sex-realist feminists will support efforts to encourage the formation of respectful, self-controlled, and responsible men.
Support men
Rejecting the ideal of the autonomous individual, sex-realist feminism isn’t restricted to the well-being of women in some kind of zero-sum game of limited benefits. The recognition of human interdependence has led some of its proponents to write on the sex-distinctive needs of men and fathers as well as women. Many bridegrooms have been given the advice ‘happy wife, happy life’, but the same is also true of husbands. And the mutual interdependent flourishing of men and women is not restricted to marriage, but applies in workplaces, churches, clubs—indeed any area of life common to men and women. Just as the wellbeing of the interdependent whole will be improved where the sex-distinctive needs of women are acknowledged and supported by men, so will it be where women recognise and support men’s distinctive needs.
Harrington devotes a whole chapter to arguing that women should respect the needs of men as men, such as ‘celebrating those social structures in which younger men learn from older ones … without demanding to be included in them’ (p202). If this seems a counterintuitive plank for a feminist program, it is because we’re still thinking of people as atomised individuals. Once we recognise that men’s and women’s wellbeing is mutually interdependent, a ‘brute calculation of ordinary women’s interests should support a call for more and better jobs for men; more dignity; less porn and video games; more responsible men forming families’ (p198).
Perry concurs, pointing out that a society that encourages committed monogamy is good for everyone, even for ‘caddish’ men for whom it goes against their natural inclinations:
if a man wants to have sex in a way that’s socially acceptable, he has to make himself marriageable, which means holding down a good job and setting up a household suitable for the raising of children … A society composed of tamed men [that is, men who operate in ‘dad’ rather than ‘cad’ mode] is a better society to live in, for men, for women, and for children. (p182)
Chivalry, too, should be encouraged as a way men can use their typically greater strength and tendency to violence to protect women and children. Sex-realist feminists urge women to value this expression of masculinity rather than rejecting it as patronising (Perry, p68).
Welcome children
Not shying away from thick relationships of commitment and care, sex-realist feminism places much more emphasis on welcoming children and embracing motherhood than mainstream feminisms where, Perry notes, motherhood has largely ‘slipped out of sight’. It is discussed ‘in fewer than 3 per cent of papers, journal articles, or textbooks on modern gender theory’ (p172), leaving gaping holes in its relevance to around 75 per cent of women. By comparison, over one third of the articles on the Fairer Disputations website discuss motherhood, which is not surprising given that one of its aims is to revive the neglected ‘pro-care’ strand of feminism.
Several key sex-realist feminists are committed Roman Catholics, and their pro-natalism goes hand in hand with a rejection of abortion and most forms of contraception. But while not all agree with these stances, even being able to have the conversation is remarkable given the central place contraception and abortion have come to hold in mainstream feminist thought. Especially when you consider that many of those involved are not Catholic, or religious at all.
Harrington, for example, doesn’t think abortion should be prohibited, but she recognises a common ideal with pro-life feminists—‘a world where every baby is welcome’ and ‘the proper support and regard is there to enable all mothers to flourish as mothers, without being diminished as adult human women’ (p171).
Re-evaluate work
Sex-realist feminists call for a revival of the feminism of care,[7] to challenge the currently dominant view that economic productivity is the yardstick of worthwhile endeavour.
This should not be mistaken for a call for women’s withdrawal from the labour market. Studies repeatedly find that about 20% of women are ‘work-centred’, many of whom choose not to have children. Another 20% are ‘home-centred’, and state a preference for full time domestic duties, often having large families. The remaining 60%, given the choice, would opt for a mix of home and paid employment. The male-typical career model of training followed by a largely uninterrupted work life has become the default for men and women, but it disadvantages the 60% of women who want to balance paid employment with time out of work with young children. The task of sex-realist feminism in this context is to encourage attitudes and approaches to work—on the part of both women and employers—that allow women to meet their caring responsibilities when they need to, and when they are returning to work, allow employers to recognise and access their skills in the labour market.
This group face significant workplace discrimination, often hitting up against what has been termed the ‘maternal wall’. A number of interesting proposals have been canvassed on Fairer Disputations, including ‘momternships’, and state support for parents who have taken time out to care for young children and wish to re-enter the work force. This could be in the form of grants for upskilling or renewing licences that have lapsed in the intervening years, or perhaps encouraging employers to prioritise returning homemakers in recognition of their years of caring service, akin to the support given to people returning to civilian life after serving in the defence forces. Harrington suggests that digital technologies open new possibilities for harnessing some of the advantages of the pre-industrial agrarian household. Where work can be done remotely, there is ‘scope for families to carve out lives where spouses blend family obligations, public facing economic activity and rewarding local community activities in productive mixed-economy households’ (p180). True, such a life will include repetitive and laborious tasks, but that is the case for most paid work as well. And if ‘the drudgery of daily life is in the service of building a resilient relationship, home and family, this is the work of life’ and much more ‘meaningful overall than being slave to a corporation’ (p183).
* * *
These are some of the concerns central to sex-realist feminism. There are others, which space only allows me to mention briefly here. One of the most significant is opposition to the commodification of women’s (and men’s) bodies in work related to sex, including prostitution, pornography, commercial surrogacy, and the sale of body parts such as eggs. Another is the interaction of many of the issues raised above with class. Simple narratives about social shifts being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for women are frequently complicated by a dynamic in which changes that have benefited elite women have had the opposite effect on those who are less well off. These are important issues for the whole of society, and the light that is being thrown on them by sex-realist feminists should be welcomed.
Sex-realist feminism and Christianity
A quick scan of sex-realist feminist concerns reveal that its values overlap with those of Christian ethics: pro-relationship, anti-individualism, sexual chastity, marital commitment, pro-children, a high regard for service and care, and concern for the vulnerable. Several of its key proponents, including Fairer Disputations founder Erika Bachiochi and Abigail Favale, are deeply committed Roman Catholics. Others, including Louise Perry (who, at the time of writing, regularly attends an Anglican church) and Mary Harrington, are not Christians but are respectful and interested, recognising the alignment of their ideas with Christianity. While their conclusions often fall short of being ‘Christian’, they are a good deal closer to it than the cultural default— witness Perry’s advice to ‘listen to your mother’ and ‘don’t have sex with your boyfriend for at least a few months’, or Harrington’s exhortation to remain faithful to your marriage partner even when the gloss wears off.
That said, many of those involved show no sign of religious affiliation. Sex-realist feminism is not a Christian movement but a social movement. And here we find two reasons Christians—particularly evangelical Christians—might hesitate to align themselves with it.
The first hesitation we share with the authors we have been discussing: should Christians ally themselves with any group carrying the label ‘feminism’ at all, given its patchy history?
It is true that identifying as ‘feminist’ is not straightforward, given that it means different things to different people. There may be contexts in which it is wiser to avoid it, especially if there is no chance of clarification. In general, though, I suspect the message conveyed by explicitly rejecting the term has more potential to cause damage than that conveyed by adopting it, given that its primary connotation remains a concern for women. Still, those who choose to call themselves feminists take on a responsibility to explain what they mean by it. This responsibility is also an opening for conversation. In calling her book Reactionary Feminism, for instance, Mary Harrington both invites and challenges those who identify as feminists to think more deeply about whether what they stand for really is in the interests of women. Those aligned with ‘sex-realist feminism’ can do the same.
The second hesitation has to do with whether Christians should get involved with social movements at all, even good ones. Evangelical Christian Claire Smith, for example, has quite rightly argued that if Christians are acting as thorough-going Christians, all that is right about feminism will be incorporated naturally in Christian social action. The extra step of identifying with feminism is superfluous. She also points out that if we ‘as Christians, needed feminism to awaken us to injustice and deprivation we should have already seen and corrected, then the fault lies with us’. Again, this is true; but it is precisely our tendency to this blindness that leads Abigail Favale to argue that there is a need for a feminism that takes seriously the God-given nature and God-imaging dignity of women (p29).
History shows us that women often bear the brunt of major shifts in social and economic conditions. And while women are better off in societies where Christianity is (or has been) a dominant force,[8] Christians still need to stay alert to those who are particularly vulnerable. After all, Christianised societies also value children, but not many years have passed since we discovered the extent of the child sexual abuse that had taken place on our watch, and in our own institutions. This abuse would not have happened if churches were acting fully Christianly, but responding by dedicating resources to protect children against it happening again is an appropriate response—not as an add-on to Christian ethics, but a practical outworking of it in recognition of the sinfulness of human hearts. And in this it has been valuable for churches to work with other groups who share these aims. After all, it is not only children on our own turf who are worthy of protection.
The parallel with child protection is also instructive in that while all Christians should be eager to prevent abuse, the body of Christ has many parts with many functions. It is important that churches support initiatives and devote resources to child protection, but child protection is not the main work of the church. Likewise, it is helpful for all Christians to be alert to the particular vulnerabilities women share, but responsibility for promoting their safety and dignity need only be the particular focus of some. (Given the challenges currently facing boys and men in our society, having a similar watch out for their needs is also a growing priority.)
Christians need not baulk at engaging with sex-realist feminism while (as in all things) remaining vigilant and testing everything against Scripture. Christians are already actively promoting many of its goals. Indeed, it is for this reason that Christianity is attractive to the likes of Perry and Harrington, who recognise the effect Christian ethics has had in protecting women (and children, and men) from the worst consequences of the sexual revolution, individualism, and biolibertarianism. This is not surprising, since it was God who created the (real) world, and (real) human nature—male and female—in his image.
I would even go a step further and say that for Christians not to participate in the movement would be a sadly wasted opportunity. Here is a public forum set up for sharing ideas about which Christianity has much to say; a space where Christians are invited to participate fully and not required to leave their religion at the door. How foolish it would be for us not to take up the offer.
At present, the Christian voice in the movement is predominantly Roman Catholic, though not exclusively. Despite considerable overlap between Catholics and Protestants on these matters, there are differences, and Protestants have work to do to develop the kind of robust ethical framework Catholics can point to. One challenge, to be taken up by Dr Megan Best in our next edition, has to do with approaches to contraception. Contraceptive technology has played a significant role in the sexual revolution, and unlike Catholics, Protestants permit non-abortive forms of contraception. Have we been complicit in the harm that has resulted, or does the fault lie in an abuse of a technology that is otherwise good and helpful?
Favale rightly notes that Protestant theology also has a more catastrophic view of the effects of the Fall on human nature than Catholicism. This has implications for the extent to which that ‘nature’ can be taken as a reliable guide for ethics, especially in areas not addressed directly in the Bible. This problem is even more pointed for secular thinkers for whom the frameworks of the inherent dignity of all people and protection of the weak—doctrines that support women’s interests—are bequeathed by centuries of imbibing Christian values, and not self-evident.[9] How should Louise Perry, for example, who advocates living in accordance with our sexed natures, evaluate the fact that most societies have been polygamous, but that ‘unnatural’ societies that enforce monogamy through ‘laws and customs’ (p181) are the most successful? Or that men are ‘naturally’ promiscuous? There are important conversations here for Protestants to be involved in, with relevance that extends beyond speaking to our own tribe.
Christians have long been concerned for the dignity and well-being of women as well as men. Sex-realist feminists are putting good work into understanding how women—and those with whom their lives are enmeshed—can flourish in the social, technological, economic and political contexts we now find ourselves in. Christians can be thankful for their work and the more biblically aligned direction this movement is heading in for the common good of our society. What message does it give if there are no contributing Protestant voices? Instead, we should pray for those involved to be drawn to the truth of Christianity, and add wise godly voices to the chorus.
Dr Dani Scarratt has a background in philosophy and is Assistant Director of CASE.
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[1] Erika Bachiochi, The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a lost vision (University of Notre Dame Press, 2021), p5.
[2] Favale makes this point in The Genesis of Gender: ‘Intersectionalism erases the dimension of the universal as well as the individual. We can no longer appeal to a shared human nature… Neither can we turn our attention to the individual; we must instead look at people through the lens of identity categories.’ (p80f)
[3] Brigitte Gerstal, Luara Ferracioli, and Mianna Lotz , ‘Ending the “Tyranny” of Pregnancy’. Panel Discussion at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, presented by The Ethics Centre, Sydney, 24 August 2024.
[4] An exception is the curious case of the Na people of southwestern China, ‘the only society we know of in which marriage is not a significant institution’. Sibling relationships are seen as more significant than sexual ones, and households are made up of groups of brothers and sisters ‘jointly raising, educating, and supporting the children to whom the sisters give birth’ after having sexual encounters with men from outside the household’. S. Coontz, Marriage, A History: How love conquered marriage (Penguin, 2005), pp32f.
[5] Perry cites numerous studies on the benefits of marriage in her notes to Chapter 8, pp212ff.
[6] Bachiochi, Rights, p56.
[7] Harrington, pp16ff; Bachiochi, Rights.
[8] See, for example, Tom Holland, Dominion (Abacus, 2019); Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe (The Good Book Company, 2022).
[9] See, for example, Holland, op. cit.
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