Men know what it’s like to be a woman more than women do
I know this guy. Let’s call him Max.
Max has a prestigious degree from a prestigious law school, and he likes to bring this up in conversation as much as possible. What he doesn’t like to mention is that his law license has been suspended for over a year.
Max also likes to talk a lot about how much money he makes investing in stocks. What he doesn’t like to mention is that he’s half a million dollars in debt, and that “his” house actually legally belongs to his mother.
Max also likes to talk a lot about feminism. Specifically, how much he knows about feminism. More specifically, how much more he knows about feminism than women do.
I’m deeply grateful to Max for informing me that my work in the sex industry in no way gives me knowledge of feminist issues.
“Taking one’s clothes off,” Max explained, “does not qualify one as a feminist.”
Max also explained to me that if you don’t know who Carol Gilligan is, this “basically precludes you from all knowledge of feminism.”
When Max first asked me if I had heard of Carol Gilligan, I said “no.”
What Max doesn’t know is that I lied.
Do you want to know why I lied, Max? Because I know men like you.
I know how much you like to feel smart, especially smarter than women. I know how much you like to feel educated, especially more educated than women. I know how threatening it is to men like you, Max, when you realize that a woman might know as much as you do about any topic, even *gasp* more than you do.
Let’s set aside for a moment, Max, the thousands of years of feminist thought that came before Carol Gilligan was even born. Let’s pretend for a moment that Gargi Vachaknavi, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Jane Addams never even existed. Let’s focus on Carol.
Do you want to know my current opinion about Carol Gilligan, Max?
I think she makes a crucial mistake. Gilligan thinks that men and women approach ethics differently because women are more caring and empathetic. She thinks that women focus more on responsibilities and relationships, while men focus more on moral rules.
I do like care ethics, but personally, I think that this particular position of hers is steeped in biological essentialism and reinforces false gender binaries. Sometimes women care more about rules and men care more about relationships. Why? Because people’s philosophical positions aren’t dictated by their hormones and genitals.
But you wouldn’t know that, would you, Max? Because even after you “introduced me” to (the still incredibly admirable, despite my disagreements with her) Carol Gilligan, you never asked me what I thought.
Once, when Max was within earshot, I made a joke.
Max and I went to the same college to get our Bachelor’s degrees, and my GPA was just a little bit higher than his. Since Max went on to a prestigious law school (he’s about twelve years older than me), I joked that maybe I could get into the same law school as him.
Max was deeply offended. He told me that “there was simply no need for that, in any context.”
I was confused. What’s so troublesome about the idea of a woman getting into the same law school as you when she went to the same undergraduate school and studied the same stuff there and ended up with a GPA higher than yours?
I still don’t get it. But maybe I just don’t understand feminist issues.
There are a lot of men like Max out there, and they all need to feel certain of one thing: that even when it comes to movements that were created to give women equality, men are still superior. And they need to make sure that women are certain of it too.
Thanks for educating us, Max. I don’t know what we’d do without you.
Originally published on medium.com on February 2nd, 2022.
Esoteric Epistemology 