The Radical Idea

A friend recently pointed me to a Facebook thread in which the economist Steven Horwitz was prompted to explain his views on feminism and provide a clear definition for what feminism means for him. The original poster, Daniel Amico, starts the discussion by noting that “offering a proper "grown up" definition of 'feminism' is Infinity Better than wailing infantile and trite slogans like, "Feminism is the radical idea that women are people too!"” and some of the commenters criticize this motto in a similar fashion. And while the comments in this particular thread that deal with this phrase don’t seem to converge on a specific assessment of its validity or even utility, a closer look into its possible meanings and implications seems worthwhile.

An obvious interpretation of the claim that feminism is driven by the notion that “women are people too” lies in the idea that feminism advocates for equal rights for women before the law. To some extent, one could argue that this interpretation describes the early goals of feminism, such as the right to vote, rather nicely. At the same time, arguing that women are not treated as “people” in the contemporary Western World in this regard calls for a more complex, and a less obvious, argument. The issues concerning rape and domestic abuse (which are not issues that strictly influence women but do influence them significantly), gender pay gap, birth control, abortion etc. are definitely issues that can be resolved through legal and political action but attaching these concerns to the notion of “being people too” is somewhat problematic. In particular, upon resolving the large and obvious problems such as that of suffrage, the relevant question becomes that of what the exact meaning of “being people” is in a legal and political sense. This is a rather complex question that is relevant beyond the framework of feminism and somewhat distinct from the more probable, more intuitive reaction to the idea that feminism is rooted in the notion that “women are people too”. This intuitive reaction largely seems to be one dealing with a wider treatment of women in our culture and in this context “being people” is intimately connected with respect, dignity and freedom from peer pressure and indoctrination.

The former notion of women “being people too” tends to be rooted in some variety of existentialism and has always reminded me of Simone DeBeauvior’ “Second Sex” in which the idea of women being not people but some sort of an “Other” is one of the most prevalent terms. The view that DeBeauvoir presents is essentially Hegelian. She recognizes this rather explicitly and in the introduction to this major work of second-wave feminism corroborates her views by stating that

 "Things become clear, on the contrary,if, following Hegel, we find in consciousness itself a fundamental hostilitytoward every other consciousness; the subject can be posed only in beingopposed, as opposed to the Other, the inessential, the object".

The idea of a subject being able to assert itself only through negating another potential subject is a part of the so-called Master-Slave dialectic in Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” and is related to the common idea that most concepts are fully defined only in terms of contradictions. In DeBeauvoir’s view the relevant contradiction is that between a man and a woman and she suggests that the man is seen as the norm while the woman is seen as faulty i.e. a contradiction to a fully realized person. This view is further corroborated by a number of classical authors such as Aristotle or St Thomas as well as early psychoanalysts that have established the theme of the woman as an incomplete man. In this context then, being a person is a matter of self-realization or the recognition of one’s position as the “Other”. Commenting on the particular position of women as an entity against which men can be defined, DeBeauvoir notes that "If woman seems to be the inessential which never becomes essential, it is because she herself fails to bring about this change". This notion of escaping the position of the “Other” through conscious change seems rather reminiscent of the notion that feminism is driven by the idea that “women are people too”.

While the somewhat convoluted and complex context of DeBeauvoir’s writing as well as the 64 years that have passed since the publication of the “Second Sex” might seem to imply that her ideas are outdated or obsolete, the notion of “being people” discussed above seems rather in line with a lot of contemporary feminist theory. The representation of women in media, cat calling and slut shaming tend to be some of the phenomena with regards to which this parallel is not all that obscure. The main complaint with regards to women in media and popular culture is often subsumed under the idea of the “male gaze” and overall objectification and sexualization of women. In claiming that a woman in a movie or a gossip magazine is equated to a sexual object one is essentially invoking an argument for the woman in question not being allowed to be fully realized as a person or, in DeBeauvoir’s language, an “essential” or a self-aware, self-realized “Subject”. A similar argument applies to the notion of slut shaming as restricting female sexuality thus hindering their process of self-realization.

Finally, an implication of the claim that “feminism is the radical idea that women are people too” that often seems to be overlooked is that, to a large extent, women should strive to primarily identify as people while being women should come as somewhat secondary. In particular, in striving to become “people” or “Subjects” women should be able to define themselves on an individual basis and not though their group affiliation. One of the things that DeBeauvoir highlights

in her work is that a woman is “a woman without having been consulted in the matter” so that the socially constructed idea of what it means to be a woman and the consequent identification of the idea of a woman with the idea of incomplete self-realization overshadow the woman’s ability to be a true individual. In being a person, for DeBeauvoir, a woman is able to shed this identification and be a person that happens to be female rather than “a woman”. In discussing the lack of role models in STEM fields I have written that “the distinction between being a "successful woman scientist" and being a "successful scientist" that happens to be a woman seems to be rather important in the context of providing idols for all of us prospective researchers and engineers” in exactly the same spirit and the lack of emphasis on individualism in a lot of feminist discourse available to young girls and women has always seemed to me to be rather bothersome. The slogan of “Feminism is the radical idea that women are people too” seems a great starting point for understanding that accomplishing the elusive ideal of “gender equality” should largely be centered on free self-realization rather than the establishing of more contradictions and dualities between the genders.