Arguing with an anti-feminist

[Comrade Dracula]

So, I've asked a certain acquaintance of mine on what he thinks of feminism. He replied that he thought it was

Complete and utter stupidity.

As someone who is pro-feminist, I couldn't tolerate what I viewed as reactionary, and as such argument ensued. I apologize for my ignorance on this topic.

Long story short, his argument boiled down to that feminism is illogical because of biological differences between men and women, or more specifically the alleged fact that men are naturally stronger than women, and ergo the "logical" division of labor into so-called "men's" and "women's" jobs, i.e. more physical jobs being "naturally" assigned to men and less physical "naturally" being assigned to women - And it was due to these physical differences that men and women ultimately couldn't be equal.

Now, for reasons beyond either of our controls, the argument was cut short and I wasn't allowed to form any sort of counter-argument.

I profess my complete ignorance in this field, and as such ask any comrades experienced in this field to help me formulate a counter-argument to his claims.

What irked me about his argument was that it ignored any sort of societal influence that might be at play here, as well as that it identified the status quo as perpetual, but beyond that I once again am frankly ignorant as to what to reply.

Thanks in advance comrades!

[islandmilitia]

I would take direct issue with the claim that the biological differences between men and women are such that each are suited for particular roles and that there should be no entry of one sex into the roles reserved for the other. The most obvious evidence against the existence of biologically-derived roles is the fact that, even whilst the sexual division of labour is an important part of how class society is organized, in terms of men and women having different levels of access to certain jobs, the roles of men and women have differed enormously across history, and have often undergone rapid change, especially during the emergence of capitalism, as well as during specific events like wars, when previous gender paradigms about work and the household were challenged through social change. You might also argue that whilst we encounter ideological constructions which do set down different roles for men and women and justify them in biological terms, at almost every point in human history there has been a tension between those constructions and actual lived practice, as with other elements of gender like sexuality and clothing. So, whilst there were often ideological barriers to women taking part in agricultural work in agrarian societies, the fundamental material pressures of rural life often meant that women did actually engage in those kinds of tasks, against official or common-sense ideology. The basic flexibility and instability of the gendered division of labour in social practice is evidence against there being immutable biological differences between men and women which make them good at some tasks but not others.

Whilst I haven't read it, I've been told that this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Mars_and_Venus) book deals at length with the common sense ideology about differences between men and women.

[mew]

the majority of physical labor done in the world is done by women.

also: some women are stronger than some men, just like some women are taller than some men.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The small grain of truth in that is that biological differences may have played a part in the way labor was divided up under different social arrangements. Specifically pregnancy would make arrangements where, for example as agriculture developed, men might work primarily in the fields where women worked sometimes but did other tasks while pregnant.

But this is primarily a social arrangement, not just biological since women can hunt or farm more or less as well as most men - and there's plenty of examples of this. For hunting, you don't need testicles to throw a sling - however it would be difficult to go on a long hunt while pregnant.

But in modern capitalism, the social nature of this arrangement is much more glaring and obvious. Anyone arguing that men and women's work under capitalism are biologically dependent - well just don't know that much about the history of labor - or recent history in general actually. In fact, in the US, women were the first major industrial workforce and mill-work was pretty heavily dominated by women. Apologists today say this is about women having small hands, but that doesn't hold up. Women (and children) often filled these roles because the US proletariat wasn't that big yet compared to small farmers and even artisans. So men did farm-work or a skilled trade, but women were the industrial workers because they were considered non-essential for farm or trade-work. Mill owners would seek workers among the daughters of poor farmers - they would set up same-sex worker's dorms and basically make a deal with the farmer that the woman would be "kept pure" (for marriage later) and her wages would be extra income for the farmer. The industrialist got labor out of the deal and labor that was not considered important (and could therefore be paid minimally) and labor that was basically stuck and dependent on the mill or being released back to her family.

This set-up changed in part due to bourgeois moral reformers at the end of the century (19th that is) who promoted Victorian nuclear family values and sought to end child-labor and some of the worst aspects of female industrial labor - though on moral grounds of course. But none of this would have been possible if it wasn't for the larger changes. Back to the U.S. example, what changed was that industry had outgrown the small pool of extra-labor and began to encourage migration from Europe (or [sometimes unwilling] migration from China to the West Coast). This created a much larger proletarian labor pool and nativism as well as just the language and cultural differences between all the workers allowed the labor pool to be divided and repressed - and whereas the middle class might be upset by stories of mistreatment of 19 year old (anglo/native-born) women they could care less about mistreatment of Irish or Southern Europeans or Asians.

At any rate, the only real connection between gender and work is social, not biological under capitalism. Men and Women can equally be teachers, but women are assigned "support" roles as professionals because of the Victorian-era invention of specific gender traits: men are tough and unemotional whereas women are 'naturally' caregivers. Additionally, many "women's jobs" are divided up that way in order to pay workers less - this is increasingly the case. Sexism means - on average - a workforce of women making 1/4 less than the same workforce of men... so sexism means big bucks.

At any rate, anyone with a shitty mom can tell you these gender roles of "nurturing women and 'serious' men" is a lot of bull; and while many men won't admit it, men can be just as caring, emotional, or sentimental as any woman - it's just that it's not acceptable "manly" to do so.

If jobs were divided along gender on the basis of men are "biologically physically tougher" then most professors and CEOs would be women and all maids would be men.

[RedAtheist]

Ask him if he is in favour of excluding women from the olympics since obviously they are too weak and squishy and will collapse if you ask them to participate in anything athletic (*sarcasm*). Also ask him if he is generally in favour of one group dominating another (e.g. one race dominating another, class divisions, bullies beating up gays, etc.) If he is you are dealing with a deeper problem than an objection to feminism.

If he is not, ask him if he is aware of the way so-called science has been used throughout history to confirm the supposed inferiority of minority races and pointed out that genetics don't mean shit when we're discussing how things should be rather than how they are. For example, even when people are considered to be born psychopaths we do not throw up our hands and say 'Oh well since some people are genetically psychopaths, there's just gonna by pyschopaths in world and we should let them run around killing people, because we can't do anything about it anyway, blah, blah, blah...' We recognise that this particular genetic trait causes harm and we do what we can to discourage people from acting on it in society and the same principle should apply even if it turned out that men and women were born with genes that reinforced their seriously harmful gender roles.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Ask him if biology suddenly went crazy in the US in the 1940s when women became industrial workers during the war. And then did biology just as suddenly revert when the war ended and all the GIs were given the new industry jobs?

Natural "men" and "women's" work in capitalism is nonsensical even from a superficial survey of history.

[Yuppie Grinder]

People like this believe what they believe because it makes them feel good about themselves. They won't be convinced of equality. I wouldn't bother.
Your friend sounds like a dick, by the way.

[Comrade Dracula]

People like this believe what they believe because it makes them feel good about themselves. They won't be convinced of equality. I wouldn't bother.
Your friend sounds like a dick, by the way.

True enough, I've argued with him before on other issues (such as nationalism vs. internationalism) and convincing him of anything is near-impossible. On the said debate on nationalism, he admitted being wrong on several things, but few weeks later just backtracked to his previous positions, rehashing his old arguments ad infinitum and making poor appeals to authority.

More often than not, arguing with him is like beating your head against a wall, ultimately breaking through the wall... Only to find out that there's another wall behind it.

Wouldn't go as far as to call him a friend though. Just a guy I know who's occasionally entertaining to argue with.

Still, thanks for your responses comrades! Now I can actually form a proper argument, for all the good it'll do against this guy.