For the last time, I'm not blogging barefoot in the kitchen!

There's a riot goin' on over at the Periphery that began with the Abyss reading Writing a Woman's Life and raising questions about "women who defy cultural scripts for leading 'a woman’s life' and who thus make newer, freer scripts possible." She quotes remarks of mine about gender dynamics at Yale to support a line from the book that I think is entirely true: Exceptional women are the chief imprisoners of nonexceptional women, simultaneously proving that any woman could do it and assuring, in their uniqueness among men, that no other woman will.

The comments thread is twelve posts long as of this writing; allow me to be so unladylike as to lay into it. To quote one of the Abyss's comments in full:

In HR’s view, I’m pretty sure that preservation of a traditional female gender role means centering one’s life on “the domestic,” rather than “the public sphere” (to borrow some annoyingly fuzzy phrases from Carolyn Heilbrun). I think that most understandings of “the traditional” female gender role tap into realities and situations that predate second wave feminism.

I don’t think it’s impolitic to discuss “a vision of femininity,” but 1) I prefer androgyny to gender roles, and 2) HR certainly has not developed a diplomatic tone or a nuanced argument. I find the idea that the entrance of women into the public sphere feminizes it - or, more specifically, that college men on the debate floor would be unwilling to engage in genuine debate with college women on the debate floor - kind of ridiculous.

First, a clarification. The idea that "college men on the debate floor would be unwilling to engage in genuine debate with college women" is indeed ridiculous. What I meant to suggest when I spoke of dreading the day when the Yale Political Union gets a fifty-fifty gender split is not that men will be unwilling to engage with women but that they will be unwilling to wage unholy metaphorical war on them. There are certain salutary cruelties that men will inflict on other men but not on women, and these are the aspects of YPU culture that I worry would disappear.

The statement "that's no way to treat a lady" has been watered down in recent years, but not altogether. There is something very particular about male group dynamics. If I were feeling bitchy, I would call it a "pissing match" mentality; since I'm not, I'll say that it's a ruthless, competitive (which is to say non-cooperative), and bloody trade in one-upsmanship. It's common in the YPU (and used to be more so) to embarrass someone who's given a bad speech with questions that are intellectually tough, yes, but also meant to be humiliating. Men feel comfortable doing this to other men but not doing it to women. I don't think that debate will cease if YPU women stop being exceptional in the literal sense, but I do think debate would look very different. I've evaluated these differences and decided that I don't like what I foresee.

As for the claim that my vision of femininity means keeping women out of the public sphere, I'll quote two sources before I give my own take. Eve Tushnet first, since I know the Abyss is a fan:

Rosalind, Antony, Lear, Beatrice, Iago, Emilia, Leontes—could any of them exist in a genderless world? I think not; and I think even the apostles of gender neutrality would miss that menagerie when they were gone.

And also: Could any of them exist in a world where women were "angels in the house" and men were Strong Silent Types? Again, no; I can only hope that the apostles of gender rigidity would miss them.

Second is a book I'm halfway through, Partisans: Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal among the New York Intellectuals:

Mary McCarthy, Jean Stafford, Hannah Arendt, and Elizabeth Hardwick all ridiculed "women's lib," as they called it, at various times in their lives. Liberation from what? was their attitude. They weren't victims, at least in their own minds. Indeed, they considered themselves comfortable and happy in their relationships with men. Talk to them today, the few who survive, and a shade of peevishness comes into their voices when you ask about feminism, as if the women's movement had spoiled a perfectly sound state of affairs by making men and women ornery and self-conscious about the most elemental things.

What the author calls "the last generation before feminism" managed promiscuity, literary success, and public action while still embracing femininity. Perhaps they were textbook examples of those "exceptional women" Heilbrun speaks of; if they are, it would explain why I don't mind them.

I'm not sure I could name every way I think it's appropriate for a woman to involve herself in public life—there are too many, for one thing, and such a list would inevitably reflect my own aesthetic preferences as much as my ideas about gender—but my understanding of "a woman's place" is at least expansive enough to contain Camille Paglia. You could point out that Paglia revels in being something of a freak, but observe how little being a freak has impeded her ability to be an influential public voice! Not even the undying hatred of feminists everywhere has kept her down.

The Abyss and I probably agree more than my rhetorical clumsiness would lead her to think. The same cannot be said of commenter Marjorie:

I don’t believe in gendered virtues. The things that are virtues in men are also deeply important in women: strength, honesty, responsibility–and maturity. It’s fairly easy to do a gender swap on your list and make it address age-old problems in the behavior and attitudes of some men: Marriage is not an enslavement of a man to a woman’s agenda; fatherhood is not a burden to flee from (I agree with Periphery that parenthood really is a burden, and one that needs to be accepted responsibly); promiscuity is dangerous and ungentlemanlike; women should not be treated as animals or sexual playthings; sex ought not to be an expression of contempt for anyone’s body. These statements take their gendered character from the history of relations between the sexes (men being viewed as rapists is a less important problem than rape; if we’re speaking in terms of ideals, though, the point is that nobody ought to be sexually assaulting anyone). As goals and virtues they apply evenly.

I blogged very early on about whether virtues are universal or whether they fall into certain incompatible bundles, so I'll be incredibly gauche and quote myself, not because I put it especially well but because it's just the easiest thing:

Agee's Night of the Hunter is a lot like his novel A Death in the Family; both deal with what happens when innocence, in the form of a young child, is confronted with absolute evil, in the form of a murderous preacher and the sudden and senseless death of the child's father. Our expectation is that it will harden the child and force him to transition from innocence to experience a little earlier than usual, but in Agee's world children confronted with absolute evil remain innocent. They are able to identify evil, but can neither comprehend it nor become aggressive enough to protect themselves against it. (One of the lessons of Night of the Hunter is that it is the responsibility of old, wise people to protect the innocent who should not have to sacrifice their innocence in order to protect themselves. Never has this looked better than Lillian Gish holding a big shotgun.)

It is a choice to protect one's innocence, and a decision that everyone under a certain age should make, regardless of their circumstances. At the end of the film, young John Harper is asked by the judge to point at the man in the courtroom who tried to kill him. John can't do it, not because it would be contrary to his conscience to finger Robert Mitchum but because it would be contrary to his innocence. Robert Mitchum should be punished, but John shouldn't be the one who does it. This also explains the part of the movie that always puzzled me, which is why John reacts the same way to the police hauling off Mitchum at the end as he does when the police haul off his father at the very beginning.

Innocence is more complicated than not knowing about evil. It's a kind of purity, like chastity — there's something wrong with a world where everybody does it, but for certain people (children under the age of twelve and those with vocations for it) its preservation is worth every sacrifice. It is true that innocence/wisdom is more fluid than masculine/feminine, but that doesn't mean they aren't the same kind of thing.

"I don't know what courage looks like, but I know what Achilles looks like." I can't remember who I cribbed this from (MacIntyre?), but it makes the valuable point that virtues need to be embodied in characters if we're going to learn how to live them. Character relies on type, type relies on coherence, coherence demands coming down on one side or another of various virtue spectra (i.e. justice/mercy). There are no gendered virtues? Are there the virtues appropriate to a patriarch versus those appropriate to a dutiful son? General versus footsoldier? Friend versus brother?

I'll end on an exchange to which I have nothing to add. Commenter "DXL" offers this creed:

1. Marriage is not slavery.
2. Motherhood is not a burden.
3. Modesty is a virtue which does not preclude achievement.
4. Promiscuity is dangerous and unfeminine (see Paris Hilton).
5. Men should not be treated like animals or sexual playthings (see the “hook-up culture”).
6. Men should not be treated like potential rapists (see Catherine Mackinnon).
7. Heterosexual sex is not “a formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies” (see Andrea Dworkin).

To which the Abyss herself responds very astutely:

Actually, I think (based on observing and reading about new mothers) motherhood is a burden. Perhaps, DXL, item number one should read: people ought to center their lives (or life-choices) on an acceptance of burdens as meaningful rather than terrible.