A new publication called Fairer Disputations, part of the Wollstonecraft Project initiative of the Abigail Adams Institute, has as its goal the articulation of a new form of feminism “grounded in the basic premise that sex is real.” Gathering a group of scholars and writers who abide by the 18th-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft’s “understanding of rights grounded in responsibilities,” the project seeks to facilitate the study of issues affecting women’s dignity and rights in the contemporary world. Today, there are countless instances where popular feminism has adopted a corporate, overly politicized framework which fails to address the real life-concerns of women – and alienated those who do not share the belief that gender is a choice.
Gender Ideology Erodes Women’s Rights
The editors and writers at FD rightly recognize gender ideology for what it is: a legitimate threat to the hard-won legal and political rights of women, as well as a threat to their physical safety and dignity. Even more so, they see that it’s not so much women have earned some special right to political recognition, but that in order for the law to protect women and their personhood adequately, it must acknowledge the peculiarities and hazards of being a woman and living with a female-sexed body. This is especially apparent in the domains of health and safety, where women’s-only spaces serve not only to give privacy but to protect them from sex-based targeting.There is a reason why men don’t need an OB/GYN – they are not equipped with a woman’s reproductive system, and therefore don’t share their particular medical needs. Whether or not they are pregnant, infertile, or otherwise compromised, women are marked by the reality that in their body’s very structure, down the very last strand of DNA, they are built to bear new life. The new gender regime would do away with these inconvenient facts in order to assuage the emotions of some who experience gender dysphoria, at the expense of women’s health and well-being. There is no reason why those who suffer the feeling of being in the “wrong body” should be affirmed in their belief to the harm of actual women, only to be let down later when the hormones and surgery leave them regretful.
An Antidote to Superficiality
Why is it acceptable that women who have bound their breasts, taken testosterone, and gone under the knife only to experience regret are villainized as traitors, rather than met with sympathy for being led to misunderstand themselves and their personal struggles? How is it different to advise a young adolescent girl, whose body and mind are undergoing rapid change, that she should alter her outward appearance through hormones and surgeries versus donning heavy makeup, embracing plastic surgery or extreme dieting to conform to the world’s standard of female beauty? The basis for questioning this pressure to conform suddenly becomes unreasonable when it is aimed at surgical transition and hormone therapy. The women (and men) over at FD understand the roots of the inconsistency lie in a false understanding of what it means to be male or female. In doing so, they offer a much-needed antidote to the false gospel of gender ideology, and a much-needed remedy to modern day feminism’s temptations to abandon real women in favor of oppression olympics and grievance-based theorizing. Hopefully, in time, more women will come to disdain modern-day feminism’s affirmation of superficiality – the falsehood that being female comes down to mere feeling or appearance, rather than ontological, biological reality.
