In today’s New Statesman, Courtney Martin issues a brief, ringing creedal defense of feminism. If reason, scripture and tradition were Hooker’s three-legged stool of Anglicanism, Courtney’s three-legged stool is educated choice, genuine equality, and radical authenticity. It’s her explanation of the last that had me sayin’ “amen”:
Radical authenticity: This facet of feminism gets talked about far too little in my opinion. A visionary twenty-first century feminism should aim to support both men and women to be their most authentic selves in the world, shedding prescribed gender roles and really getting in touch with their authentic desires, passions, and ethics. Feminist workplaces, for example, would nurture both men and women having present relationships with their children and fulfilling work lives. Men should be empowered to express a complex range of emotions, just as women must learn how to handle conflict healthily and assertively and take care of themselves, not just everyone else.
The most exciting thing about feminism, is that it is ultimately about leading more fulfilling, ethical, joyful lives, characterised by more healthy and genuine relationships. Who could argue with that?
Yes, yes, yes.
In my Humanities class (focusing on “Beauty, the Body, and the Western Tradition”) in the spring, I’ll be assigning Courtney’s book. I reviewed it here.
This is how I see feminism too. It’s letting people be who they really are instead of stuffing them into societal, cultural, and church stereotypes.
I’m very skeptical about ideals of “authenticity.” I think it too easily presumes that there’s a complete, immutable, preexisting “real you” lurking somewhere underneath a pile of false and disposable social/cultural accretions. But I think that, while people are certainly not infinitely plastic, the effects of our social environment and personal history go “all the way down” (which is good, because the pre-social basis we’re built on is hurtful and scary as often as it’s loving and egalitarian). I’d rather talk, perhaps, about wanting people to live lives that they value rather than authentic lives.
Well, I think Christians — and a great many non-Christians, such as your average Platonist — would argue that there is “real us” deep within, that that “real us” is our truest self, and though that “real us” is often obscured by both biological impulse and culture, it is a good thing for us to connect to it. Ultimately, the soul — the true self — is inherently Good, even if it is touched by depravity.
See, I’m very skeptical (to put it mildly) of Christianity and Platonism. I lean much more toward the Existentialist view on this issue.