Once again I find myself screaming at the odious Harriet Harman to, in short, stop trying to help. From the ‘they do it to us so why can’t we do it to them?’ school of ad hominum attacks, she tells us that men cannot be trusted in power, and argues that the Labour Party should always have one woman and one man as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, or something.
It comes down, as always, to a collectivist interpretation of feminism and a individualist’s interpretation.
The collectivist likes to think in terms of collectives. So women are a collective, and to that collective are attributed lots of wonderful characteristics that are generally found in woman. Being caring. Being empathetic, etc. Each member of the collective, then, is assumed to have these general characteristics and therefore an individual woman in a position of power would bring said characteristics to the job.
Which is, of course, total bullshit.
The one true hard generalisation you can make about members of the ‘female’ collective is that they all know what it’s like being a member of that collective. The same can be said for the men in the ‘male’ collective, and I suspect this is the one that Harman is interested in.
To argue that leadership should have a representative from each of these collectives is typical of a collectivist mindset – that people belong to groups, and from those groups emerge leaders to represent their interests as a group. If those leaders advocate something, then it’s good for the collective even if the individuals within it suffer.
So is it a surprise that someone like Harman slurs men as a collective group, or that she believes both ‘groups’ should have equal representation? No. I mean, it’s the least surprising thing ever, after sliced bread selling more than un-sliced bread. It’s amazing it made even made the news.
Let’s now consider the individualist’s perspective on the whole issue of gender, of minority rights and everything else – take each individual on their own merits. That’s it. Race, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality – these are rarely relevant to whether or not a person is able to do a job.
“Ah,” cry collectivists. “People don’t though!” they argue, again generalising all human beings into yet another collective. “Ah ha!” I reply. “Perhaps if you stopped promoting collectivism and thus treating people as groups rather than as individuals, we wouldn’t have this problem?”
If only it were that simple – well it is that simple – if only it was that simple to smack such people over the head with the reality stick like that. Collectivism is the alpha and omega of racism, sexism, nationalism. “Ah but” they say. At this point another knock on the conk with the reality stick might be useful.
At completely the opposite end of the political spectrum from Harriet Harman and nearly 50 years ago, Ayn Rand – not someone I’m especially pleased to be referencing – wrote a book where the main character is a woman whose main dream in life is building rail roads, not the perfect white wedding or acquiring a pair of Manolo Balonicks.
Not only is this character technically competent (and good at maths) she’s accepted by her peers not for her appearance, but on her merits, for what she has achieved. The fact that she’s a woman is neither here nor there.
Perhaps if Hollywood ever does make a film version of Atlas Shrugged, Dagny Taggart will be transformed into a hard-working mum, struggling to juggle her career and her duties as a mother. Luckily the state helps her out by providing child care help, which allows her to go off and do her job properly. When she finally comes face to face with John Galt, she explains how without the state’s childcare help she’d never have been able to build the John Galt line, so basically he’s wrong and must be stopped – they end up having a bit of a gun fight and in the end Dagny blows John out of the airlock, saving the country. All the other industrialists, brought to tears by Dagny’s tale, return to work with cheer in their hearts.
Annnyyyyway….
See, I’d like to see a world where women were judged purely on their merits (and, in fact, see men judged on their individual merits too), and perhaps we’re getting there. But the answer, surely, cannot be Harriet’s way – the sense of entitlement as a ‘leader’ of a collective. The answer has to be for women to show what ability they have and, in short, not give a flying fuck whether or not men – as a collective – accept women – as a collective – as their equals. It simply doesn’t matter – what matters is the individual and the individuals they deal with whether you’re a man, chicken, goat or whatever.
Martin said...
2 Aug 09 at 3:19 pm
I’ve always found that these anti discrimination groups that rely on a collectivist approach are actually, consciously or not, perpetuating the prejudice that they claim to fight against. There’s a good episode of Bullshit that covers this. Features a Mexican Midget!
Stu said...
2 Aug 09 at 3:36 pm
And you really wonder why you’re the top female blogger in the UK*, Charlotte? Really?
I remember you saying that you thought that was odd, because you don’t talk about women’s issues particularly. I think that’s rather the point, isn’t it. Male bloggers never talk about men’s issues (I’m sure some would argue that we haven’t got any), they talk about people’s issues. That’s what you do, too. Normally.
Anyway, yes clearly Harriet Harman is being a complete bloody idiot, and everything you say is true. The idea that just having a woman in a position of power will mean equality is utterly baseless, and of course ignores the fact that it was not the Labour Party, with their grand talk of ‘equality’, who supplied Britain’s first female Prime Minister – and it’s not entirely clear whether Ms Harman feels her cause of feminism was well served by that particular administration…
* Source: Wikio…
Ian B said...
2 Aug 09 at 3:41 pm
I’m just here because Charlotte is so delightful when she gets her pretty little head in a tiz about the mens’ world of politics.
Caron said...
2 Aug 09 at 4:10 pm
I do think that there are active examples of discrimination against women in society – you just have to look at the boards of top companies, the House of Commons and the Judiciary to see a huge imbalance. There is a glass ceiling and there is undeniably institutional sexism within organisations and in society.
I’ve come up against it and I’ve even seen it in action in the Liberal Democrats.
We do need to think about how we deal with it because it’s not a good thing.
However, Harman’s approach is just appalling tokenism which won’t help anyone. In fact, the danger is that they’ll think they’ve done something so they don’t need to do any more.
Why are we all so bothered about this, though? In the end of the day it’s an internal Labour Party thing and it’s up to them what they do.
Michael said...
2 Aug 09 at 4:19 pm
Perhaps Harriet has an individualist mindset on these matters but, being fully aware of her own weaknesses, assumes that, all things being equal, she will never get the top job she craves. Now, if it was in the rules that one of those two jobs had to go to a woman… after all, since Cabinet reshuffle there is little other genuine competition.
Sara Scarlett said...
2 Aug 09 at 5:45 pm
Another brilliant post! Completely agree – 2 why not 3 or 4 – she’s just plucked numbers out of thin air. Urgh! Does she honestly think this is doing women in politics any favours?!
Liberal Neil said...
2 Aug 09 at 6:38 pm
Not a bad post (for a girl!).
Harriet Harperson is an idiot.
Oranjepan said...
2 Aug 09 at 11:50 pm
That’s the problem with collectivists – they’re all the same, they’re all in it for themselves.
Stereotypes, hmmm.
As a great hairy ginger ape I obviously know nothing about men and women, so I can’t comment about the battle of the sexes, but I do wonder what HH’s special insight is which qualifies her opinon on this subject to be taken higher than anybody elses.
Charlotte Gore said...
3 Aug 09 at 12:04 am
Ah, Oranjepan… Collectivists have no problems with being stereotyped and treated as one single blob of stupidity, do they?
Of course, if they do, then they’re more than welcome to have a go at me for using a straw collective as target practice. I’ll expect a 500 word essay on why you should treat people as individuals rather than members of collectives though.
There are hard generalisations that can be made about collectivists – things that apply to them all, such as the belief in organising people into groups and having representatives from those groups lead them in the best interest of the group as a whole. If one cannot even assume that much then ‘collectivist’ isn’t the word I’m looking for.
Of course knowing you you’ll have some notion of a moderate half-way between collectivism and individualism. Good luck with that
Oranjepan said...
3 Aug 09 at 12:57 am
I think we may be crossing swords unnecessarily, Charlotte.
I take the secular view that it is better not to say than to be caught on the hop half-way between two stools or be trapped on one.
In a democracy we depend on converting our opponents to our cause by argument, so it strikes me as perverse to try unify opponents against attack when we could be driving a wedge into them by showing a bit of love instead.
My point was in agreement with yours that the ‘collectivist’ argument is wrong, but on slightly different grounds. Paradoxically ‘collectivists’ aren’t wrong because they deny individualism, but because when we subject them to closer inspection they reaffirm it. The reverse is equally true.
Andy said...
4 Aug 09 at 9:18 am
Unsurprisingly the Guardian has a suitable pro-Harriet CiF post up on its site – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/02/women-mps-equality-gender
As a man, I’m not allowed to know whether this is a) batshit insane or b) at least partially correct. Thoughts, Charlotte?
Charlotte Gore said...
4 Aug 09 at 9:41 am
I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of formimg your own conclusion about the basic quality of her argument, which is that she doesn’t actually have one – she assumes that it’s taken as read that equal representation is a necessary thing with ‘obvious’ benefits, and then argues her case around that.
The nice little patronising bit at the end where I get called a ‘poor lamb’ is a particularly nice touch I though.
M said...
5 Aug 09 at 8:18 am
Charlotte, thank you so much for this article. I am surprised how much HH and others think they can get away with in the name of the ‘equality before quality’ approach.
She’s clearly quite a sexist person, unfortunately, and is offending a lot of men, some of them because they fear change but a lot because she doesn’t seem to give a damn about men.
The way you explained it, in terms of collectivism, is very clear.
I do think that we would be better off with more women in parliament but not for any ‘men can’t be trusted’ reasons.
We must be missing out on a lot of women who could do some great work in parliament.
However, we’re also missing out on a lot of great men, so for me the question is much broader than ‘we need more women’. Such an arbitrary measure, but obviously, much easier and more clear cut than fixing things.
Someone on the Guardian page that you mentioned described it as:
“You’re in a car with 4 people:
1 drunk man
1 drunk woman
1 sober man
1 sober woman
You don’t have a driving license. Do you:
a) demand that the sober people take turns to drive
b) demand that men and women spend equal amounts of time at the wheel”
(apologies to daddycoo1)
What I’m wondering is, if we want to take the first choice (same result, less likelihood of death), how can we get better at ‘breathalysing’ people?
Do you have any thoughts?
Until we’ve answered that question (and hopefully implemented it) we’ll never hear the end of the ‘superficial by-the-numbers equality’ brigade.
Charlotte Gore said...
6 Aug 09 at 10:58 am
Ah, I see… how do we measure ability properly in order that the best person gets the job?
That’s a tricky one, and I’m afraid we’re actually up against a culture that thinks measuring people by ability is morally wrong, that ‘ability’ is something you’re born with (not true) and therefore it’s unfair to discriminate on the grounds of something people cannot help (true but the argument’s still false because ability is something that can be improved through practice).
sammy said...
6 Aug 09 at 11:36 am
Agreed with most of it but you did ramble on a bit.
And I never like bloggers who swear – because it’s cool. It really does nothing for society.
Charlotte Gore said...
6 Aug 09 at 11:39 am
Ah well, at least you’re honest.
M said...
6 Aug 09 at 12:51 pm
Hi Charlotte,
Yeah that’s what I was getting at- assuming we accept that ability is what counts, how can we measure the relevant ability for people entering parliament (or anything that touches government)?
I’m sure that if we could do that properly then we’d have a far more representative parliament.
But how? :^|