Women might very well be morally superior to men. At any rate, there is an argument in evolutionary theory that might deliver this very conclusion. From the standpoint of survival, evolution entails that women are naturally disposed to have greater powers of discernment than men. Why? Because bearing a child is an extremely serious commitment on a woman’s part. Accordingly, it is in her interest to choose a man who will do right by her and her children. This means, in effect, that she needs to grasp the difference between the man who really wants to be there for her and the man who merely wants to have sex with her.
This is where the powers of discernment enter into the picture. Of course, men have been known to say just about anything—to utter any lie—that will deliver to them the opportunity to have sex with the woman whom they are pursuing.
A discerning woman looks not just as what a man says. She also considers how what a man says fits in with the way he lives his life. And if she does not know enough to make a reasonable extrapolation that he is worthy as a sexual partner, then prudence on her part entails that she has to obtain more positive information before she grants him sexual success.
What makes a man worthy as a sexual partner (during a woman’s fertile years)? From the standpoint of evolutionary theory the answer frighteningly simple: A man is worthy as a sexual partner only if he is unequivocally prepared to do right by her and their child should she become pregnant, whatever they might have intended to happen while have sex.
It might first be thought that evolution surely requires that men be equally discerning, since there is nothing to be said for having a woman who will not make a good mother. Alas, this is not quite right owing to the biological asymmetry between women and men. Only women carry and bear children. This fact gives them an independent reason to be discerning that no man can ever have.
Now enormous powers of discernment require considerable intellectual ability. So we know that whatever else true, it follows from the very powers of discernment that evolution has accorded women that they must also have considerable intelligence. The very idea that women are somehow less intelligent than men has no basis in evolutionary theory; and, as I have just indicated, this can be seen from a rather unusual perspective, namely the powers of discernment that evolution accords women.
Now, the asymmetry between women and men that has a deep biological basis points to why a man might be bothered by a so-called loose woman. It is not just that she is having lots of sex. It is also the case that she is not being as attentive as she should be to her own well-being; for in having lots of sex, the woman takes on a risk that no man does.
As we all know, birth control and abortion has made things far less risky for women. Alas, we can also ask another question. Have these abortion and birth control also numbed the moral powers of discernment on the part of women, since the exercise of those powers is inextricably tied to the asymmetry between women and men with regard to the matter of pregnancy. And what we know is that any power not used at crucial points of development rarely attains the secure development that it should attain.
If people stopped speaking at the age of adolescence, their powers of communication would drop precipitously. I can see no reason why powers of discernment should be any different.
This raises a most fascinating issue with regard to feminism. If I am even close to right, then it has to be a serious mistake for the moral and intellectual development of young females in the very throes of physical development to have them adopt the behavior of males. That is rather like having a healthy adolescent lie in bed throughout her or his adolescent years. That would be just horrendous for the development of a healthy adolescent’s body.
Women and men are moral equals as well as intellectual equals. But these two dimensions of equality do not entail that women and men are identical physically. And any theory of womanhood that ignores this truth misses the mark at a most fundamental level.
It goes without saying that, on a variety of fronts, feminism has done much that is wonderful for women. But if I am right, the insistence that women should act just like men is very profound mistake, because that piece of counsel is damaging to the very moral development of young women.
Equality with men is one thing. Being identical to men is quite another. Some feminists have confused the two supposing that the only way to have the first is to have the second. And that is a profound mistake. Carol Gilligan, Claudia Card, and Annette Baier are three feminist women who seem to have grasped this point.
I believe that the above three women have marvelously understood that embracing womanhood in the use of their bodies rather than trying to be identical to men is profoundly affirming to them as women without at all sacrificing their moral equality to men.
There is a way of being coy that is part of the moral development of women that has no parallel in the moral development of men. And this is necessarily tied to the considerable differences between the bodies of women and men. Coyness, of course, can be mean. It is also a part of what can make a woman quite attractive to a man, precisely because it reveals a certain moral quality about the woman. And this is part of the reason why the courting process between women and men is, in general, the way it is.
We do not need to change that process for, in the final analysis, it has nothing at all to do with any inequality between women and men, but just the simple fact that the bodies of women and men are not identical. Not surprisingly, nor is the sense of self that each has.
Any form of feminism that insist upon women acting like men is misguided and in the end does women more harm than good. This points to why sexual liberation, when women behave sexually in the way that men do, has hardly been the boom for women that many supposed it would be. On the other hand, it has been quite a boom for men; though, unfortunately, not in terms of having respect for women.
