hich is the correct point of view regarding women?  Is it the perspective that goes under the rubric of feminism?  Or, is it the perspective that Dr. Laura Schlessinger embraces?  Of course, it would be surprising if any one perspective correctly comprised all that is true regarding women.  So it is regarding social issues generally.  People can be equally committed to equality and yet differ sharply in terms of their approach. 

On the one hand, feminists are certainly right to point out that women have been oppressed in society.  Once upon a time, women were not allowed to enter Ivy League colleges.  Indeed, there was a time when women in the United States did not have the right to vote. 

On the other, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is certainly right to point out that the biological differences between women and men make for a non-trivial difference between women and men.  And it is sort of striking that many feminists do not concur, since nowadays the argument for gay rights is made to turn almost entirely upon their being biological disposition to be gay.  If people of the very same gender can act in fundamentally different ways owing to differences in genetic make-up (that is, gay genes versus non-gay genes), then surely it has to be true that there are significant and importance biological differences between women and men owing to the substantial biological differences between them in terms of their genetic make-up.

Of course, people can flail about as to what the significant differences between women and men amount to.  However, there is simply no way to contend that there are none.  And it is this simple truth that is at the heart of Dr. Laura’s view regarding women. 

Now, from an evolutionary perspective, it is no surprise at all that it is the female who is more invested in her offspring than the male is.  This is because the gestation of an infant typically takes place in the female body; moreover, it is the female who puts her life at risk in birthing the child.  Robert L. Trivers, the distinguished theorist of evolution at Rutgers Universitry, has shown this in his 1972 essay “Parental Investment and Reproductive Success”. 

Well, once again, the issue of homosexuality is profoundly instructive.  Supposedly, gays are being true to themselves in acting accordance with their given biological disposition as a gay person.

Well, if the maternalistic instinct is quite natural, then what is wrong with women embracing it?  And if gays harm themselves in some way by going against their instincts or at least refusing to acknowledge those instincts, do not women do precisely the same thing by going against or, in any case, refusing even to acknowledge their maternalistic instinct?

Many feminists seem to go ballistic over any talk about a maternalistic instinct.  Indeed, it seems that some think that talk of this very sort is sexist and so contributes to the oppression of women. 

But this invites the question of how does it turn out that talk about biological instincts and impulses is so very affirming in one instance, as with talk of gay rights, and so oppressive in another, as with talk of the maternalistic instinct for women?

If talk of gays and non-gays, and the corresponding differences in biological impulses does not in any way undermine social equality between gays and straights, then how can it be that talk of the biological differences between women and men thereby undermines social equality between women and men?

Whatever else is true, Dr. Laura does not believe that any and all women should become mothers. That is, she does not think that biology obligates women to become mothers.  She believes in fact that mother is and should be a choice.  In this respect, then, Dr. Laura is more open-minded than the line of feminist thought that denounces motherhood as a form of oppression.  In particular, she believes that in choosing to become a mother, then there are certain responsibilities that a woman has voluntarily taken on and should accept, just as in choosing to become a professor there are certain responsibilities that I have voluntarily taken on and should accept.  Let me note that Dr. Laura regards that the capacity to bear children as a moral power, and not as a curse.   

Can there be perfect and complete symmetry between heterosexual women and men?  When I taught feminism at Syracuse University in the fall of 2007, there was one observation that I made in this regard that everyone woman in the class found riveting.  I noted that in the matter of sex women trust men in a way that men do not to trust women; and that this is owing to the differences in body size and physical strength in favor of men.  Just about any man can overpower a woman. 

The preceding simple observation gets to the very heart of Dr. Laura’s perspective regarding women. At its very best, the female-male relationship is not about power, but about trust.  All the power in the world is no substitute for trust.  There issue is not whether power is important.  Of course, it is.  But just as power is not what is definitive of friendship at its best, power is not what is definitive of a relationship of love between a woman and a man, when that relationship is at its best.

The issue is not whether a person can abuse her or his power.  This is undeniably true; and this is why Dr. Laura argues that we must be enormously circumspect in our choice of a marital partner.  Besides, from the fact that a person can abuse her or his power, what surely does not follow is that trust is irrelevant to deep and satisfying relationships.  Nothing has ever replaced trust.  Nothing ever shall replace trust. 

Accordingly, it can be readily conceded that in the past men have abused their power.  However, it is simply a mistake to think that every thing will be wonderful between two people if, above all else, they are equal in power.  Without trust, each must be concerned with whether the other is out to shift the balance of power in her or his favor; and a relationship plagued with that concern is about as emotionally satisfying as having a dog urinate on one’s shoes. 

If marriage is the greatest of all friendships, then precisely what marriage is about is not two people being exactly like one another.  Rather, marriage is about two people who bring their differing strengths to the advantage of the life that they have forged together.  And when never ending trust is the service of that end, marriage is transformed into one of the most majestic institutions on the face of this earth. 

Any view that is anchored in the majesty of trust is, other among things equal (as they say), automatically superior to any view that discounts trust.  I do not claim that all of Dr. Laura’s views regarding women are flawless.  Nor, for that matter, do I claim that all of my view on the subject are flawless.  What I do know, however, is that Dr. Laura’s views are rightly anchored in the majesty of trust.