Feminist social explanations are wrong

To see this is also to see why the popularity of radical forms of feminism has declined so sharply among the next generation of women: the contradictions are no longer so sharp and many others seem beyond resolution in difficult economic times (for example, the conflicting demands of work and children). Nevertheless, feminism of more moderate forms survives and flourishes because our inherited paternalistic social order and the codes of masculinity that attend it remain dysfunctional in the sense outlined above. (This is the rational kernel in the much-discussed "crisis of masculinity''.)

If a name is to be given to this alternative explanation, it could be called the theory of dysfunctional paternalism. However it is described, what matters is that it offers a coherent alternative to the oppositional model inherent in feminism. It thereby provides space for overcoming the misplaced mistrust that has soured relations between the sexes. It also does the great service of clearing space for more insightful explanations of social disorders than can be fitted into feminism's narrow explanatory frame. In particular, it encourages the thought that social practices attributed to male misogyny may also be explicable by reference to some form of social dysfunction.

Consider, for example, the problem of female circumcision. Feminism assumes that practices of this kind exist because of male control over, and subsequent cruelty towards, women's bodies -- that the cause is oppressive patriarchy. But this view will not stand up. The first problem is that female circumcision, where it occurs, is commonly performed by the older women, rather than by men. It thus seems to be a reasonable candidate for secret women's business -- that is, a rite that grows up wholly within the separate sphere of female life and ritual – rather than a male-established institution. Second, it occurs in societies that not untypically also practise male circumcision, including sometimes equally extreme practices, such as subincision. These practices are thus not restricted to women, nor is it only non-dominant males who have their family jewels redesigned. So it is implausible to think that these practices can be explained by relations of power and domination. A fresh angle is needed.

Here is one. Circumcision and such practices seem to flourish (if that is the word) in desert cultures. Life in desert or semi-arid environments is life lived close to the edge, where a society's survival depends on a delicate balance between food supply and population. Where there is no way of increasing food supply, population control is a necessity; where population control is necessary, sexual self-control will be valued; no less importantly, so will symbolic representation of sexual self-control. Further, given that a society's future population is a function of the pregnancy rate of the women, we can expect that the pressure for such self-control, and therefore for symbolic representations of its presence, might be felt more keenly by the women -- and that competitive pressures among them lead to their magnification. In this way, we can imagine the more extreme forms of circumcision growing up over time -- and thereby learn to see female circumcision as comparable to the often life-threatening rites of passage endured by boys in desert and other societies in which adult life is a constant struggle for survival.

An advantage of this explanation is that it encourages a more nuanced response to societies in which it is practised. It encourages us to be cautious in our criticism of the societies, but without having to approve of the practices or having to tolerate them in our society. Social practices that arise over time in the face of extreme necessity are not simply to be condemned by the non-necessitous -- that is, just to add insult to injury -- but neither are they to be tolerated in circumstances where such necessity does not exist.

This is one example of the benefits that accrue once the feminists' one-dimensional oppositional model is set aside. Similar benefits will obtain in other examples routinely but wrongly attributed to oppression or misogyny, such as Chinese footbinding. The most important point, however, is that, confronted by strange foreign practices, feminism has led us into uncritical acceptance of oppositional assumptions about relations between the sexes. But those assumptions, on closer scrutiny, reveal themselves to be just that: assumptions.

Once this is recognised, the possibility of a real improvement in relations between the sexes also emerges. The sense of opposition can be replaced by a sense of rough compatibility of outlook, but complicated by other factors: that human beings do not make history under circumstances of their own choosing; that their attempts to bring the physical (and social) world under control frequently has unanticipated side effects that can elude control; and that these difficulties are compounded by rapid social change. In other words, existing tensions between the sexes can be seen to owe more to our lack of control over history than to the fanciful nightmare of Machiavellian males (or maleness) manipulating history to the disadvantage of women.

To conclude: we need to resist the simplistic solutions offered for our social problems. Not least, we need to resist the quasi-animistic tendency to look for someone to blame. If we do, there is genuine space for social hope: the chance to render our social relations less dysfunctional and less paternalistic.

The latter task will be the harder because paternalistic (protection-based) authority endures wherever safety is insecure and so will survive for as long as our social order falls short of Kant's dream of perpetual peace. This should not worry us overmuch, however. If, as I have supposed, the safety of the people is the supreme law, then paternalism, where it is necessary to that end, is justifiable. Feminism, to be relevant, needs to recognise that its proper target is not paternalism but dysfunction – including, of course, paternalism, where it is dysfunctional.

This is, incidentally, the standard appealed to by those who criticise feminism for going too far: to go too far is to provide a cure no better than the disease, to substitute new dysfunctions for old. This criticism, in its proper sphere, is fair enough; but it is also implicitly to suppose that, in other respects, the House of Feminism is in good order. That supposition is mistaken. Feminism's excesses spring, in the main, from its oppositional model – and from the anxieties thereby nourished. It goes too far because, as social theory, it goes badly astray.