Feminist Sociologists Are Out of Touch with Reality

Sociology is supposed to be a social science. Its ostensible objective is to increase our knowledge of the social world. To this end, it is theoretically empirical in orientation. The assertions it makes presumably derive from an accurate evaluation of observable data.
And yet this is not what one perceives when one reads feminist research into the nature of contemporary marriages. These assure us that we are in the midst of an unfinished revolution. Much like their Marxist forebears, these ideologues are convinced that they understand the predestined endpoint of history. As a consequence, they believe it is their job to facilitate the inevitable.
One reason they are convinced of the manifest destiny of their cause is that they believe it is inherently moral. Much as progressives are confident that they are champions of “social justice,” so sociological feminists conceive of themselves as defenders of justice for women. As they see it, they—and only they—possess the correct formula for meeting the proper needs of the vast majority of women.
According to most of these feminists, the relationships between men and women must be based on complete equality. Not only must the genders be morally equal, they must be operationally equal. To be more precise, there must be no distinction between what men and women do, either at work or at home. Thus, when someone like Judith Lorber claims that everything should be 50/50, that is exactly what she means.
With respect to marriage this translates into half of all the housework and half of all childrearing being done by both men and women. This, however, does not mean equal time spent on these tasks. No, it demands equal time on the same set of tasks. Both men and women are supposed to contribute equally to cooking and to tending infants. Moreover, they should engage in these activities in essentially the same way.
Arlie Hochschild, among others, has argued that we are in the midst of a domestic revolution. In her view, marriages are evolving from the traditional, through the transitional, toward the egalitarian. For her, it is the egalitarian marriage that is both necessary and inevitable. Only it meets the essential needs of both genders. Only it is worthy of proselytizing.
One of those who currently subscribes to this agenda is Kathleen Gerson. Her book The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America is an effort to forward the feminist program. Although presented as a report of disinterested research, it is anything but. Not only is its actual goal advocacy, but it engages in this effort with egregious partisanship.
Based on interviews with almost two hundred twenty-something’s, Gerson uses their words to bolster the feminist thesis. What she claims to find is that there is little to decide between different sorts of families. According to her, children can succeed or fail in either traditional or single parent families. As she insists, neither divorce, nor being raised by a single father, are impediments to ultimate happiness.
Although she would probably disagree with this assessment, Gerson leaves the impression that most men are cads. They are described as treating their wives and children so abusively that there is little choice but to exclude them from the household sphere. About the only men she finds admirable are those who raise their own children when their mothers have abandoned them.
Actually, this is not quite right. Gerson customarily attributes these opinions to her interviewees. They are presented as the experts on what went right (or wrong) in their parent’s marriages. It is their interpretation of these and their projections of their own preferred relationships that are presented as incontestable evidence of where marriage is headed.
This, however, is unreasonable on several counts. First, how likely is it that twenty-something’s understand the internal dynamics of their parent’s lives? Indeed, how well does anyone understand the realities of other relationships? Mightn’t the perceptions of the inexperienced progeny of these relationships be shaped by their own roles in these events?
Second, how much do twenty-something’s who are not yet in permanent relationships know about what makes these arrangements work? They may have fantasies based on the unfinished business derived from their families of origin, but can they be sure these will unfold as they imagine? To present their daydreams as the best evidence of what will eventually occur is no more than wishful thinking.
Third, and this is the most damning criticism of her allegations, Gerson’s interviews do not ring true. Despite what allege to be extensive quotes from her informants, these do not sound as if they were uttered by actual human beings. In fact, they sound as if Gerson elicited exactly what she intended to find. In other words, she may have cherry picked to get the results she desired.
This is a strong accusation, but it is based on the fact that much of what these informants say contradicts what other—more plausible—research has uncovered. For example, David Buss’s investigations into mating practices provide convincing evidence that men and women approach these matters differently. His evolutionary perspective suggests that they seek dissimilar qualities in their mates and then utilize distinctive techniques to maintain their consequent unions.
Such documentation makes it extremely unlikely that men and women will one day be interchangeable. Nor is this material consistent with the feminist argument that their objectives are being stymied by male obstinacy. Maybe these men are on to something. Maybe complete equality between the sexes is rendered moot because the sexes differ genetically.
But if the genders do differ—and the empirical evidence of this is substantial—then manipulated projections of a future in which they don’t lose their power to persuade. These verbal gymnastics are revealed to be out of touch with reality. Instead of illuminating fundamental truths about heterosexual alliances, they provide little more than misleading propaganda.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University

Why Poor Women Don’t Marry

There has, in our society, been a recent spike in the number of couples cohabiting. Rather than marry, these folks prefer to live together without the benefit of clergy or a justice of the peace. It is as if they were husband and wife, but they do not have to worry about such troubling matters as a potential divorce.
At the same time, there has been a dramatic spike in the number of children born out of wedlock. Today, just about two out of every five American children arrive into the world in this condition. In these cases, their parents are frequently cohabiting—but sometimes not. Sometimes they merely had sex together.
While these figures are well known—at least among social scientists—there is a tendency to presume that the statistics apply equally up and down the social spectrum. Thus, it is often implied that the middle classes are as likely to be involved in extra-marital relations and births as are the poor. This, however, is not the case. There is a definite skew toward the lower end of the continuum.
In their book Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas document this trend. Drawing on years of ethnographic study in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Camden New Jersey, they use their subjects own words to detail the reasons why so many poor women eschew marriage in favor of unwed parenthood.
Almost everyone, including Edin and Kefalas, considers this a disconcerting development; nevertheless there are substantial differences in explaining why it has occurred. Although some feminists dismiss the matter as evidence of diversity, they are in the minority. Most others look for an explanation in the hope this will provide clues as to a viable intervention.
Edin and Kefalas, as self-confessed liberals, disparage the monetary theories often favored by conservatives. They point out that the trend against marriage has escalated despite the reduction in welfare benefits given to poor women. Nevertheless, while the welfare safety net did not cause the problem, it does facilitate it. Poor women may not become pregnant in order to get welfare, but its availability means they do not have to worry about starvation for themselves or their children.
This may sound trivial, yet it contrasts markedly with the reaction of destitute women several centuries ago. One seldom hears Edin and Kefalas’s informants bewailing their fate as the impoverished did then. They do not issue heartfelt lamentations about what will become of them should they have a child. Nor do they wonder if they will need to support themselves through prostitution. Quite the contrary, most are pleased when they discover themselves pregnant. Indeed, they are convinced that it will validate their status as adult women.
What has occurred, although it is not explicitly identified as such by Edin and Kefalas, is a kind of role reversal. Nowadays most social scientists recognize that the Industrial Revolution undermined the traditional division of labor between men and women. The advent of the machine age transported men from the farm to the factory, whereas it left women behind at home with a shrinking role to play. As a result, because the latter’s contributions to the family well-being declined, they suffered from diminishing social respect.
To put the matter more succinctly, the male role was enhanced at the same time that the female role was devalued. –Only this turns out to be half the story. The familiar scenario applies more to the middle classes than others. More specifically, the poorest classes experienced the opposite of what occurred among their social superiors.
Within the lower orders the female role has been sustained, whereas the male role was diminished. Undereducated men nowadays have greater difficulty obtaining remunerative employment than their predecessors did during agricultural times. Meanwhile undereducated women are still able to maintain their roles as mothers. They continue to bear and raise children; with minimal support from sources such as the government.
Edin and Kefalas themselves claim that their subjects also continue to think of themselves as good mothers. As long as they can feed and clothe their youngsters, they cling to a self-image of social competence. The fathers of their children, however, do not. Their social role as providers and protectors is impossible to preserve when they cannot find dependable employment. As a consequence, parenthood tends to be far more threatening to them than their paramours.
Putting these two pieces of information together, the upshot is a rise in both unstable cohabitation and unwed parenthood. Mothers do not remain with the fathers of their children because these men can do little to make motherhood easier. If anything, they become a drag on the mother-child relationship. And so couples split up. And so motherhood tends to come before marriage.
In fact, as Edin and Kefalas authenticate, marriage is often thought of as a personal achievement; as a sort of “icing on the cake.” It is something that is nice to have, but not what life is about. Bearing and raising children is what counts. No matter that doing so as a single parent almost certainly produces children who are unable to rise out of poverty. The fate of these youngsters is deemed irrelevant. Rather it is validation of the female role that determines their mother’s actions.
If this is so, then the tragedy of unwed parenthood may be difficult to undo. It will entail reversing an entire culture rather than merely redistributing wealth. And this will certainly not be achieved overnight.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University

Politics Turned Upside Down

Think about it!
The political parties seem to have traded places. Where once the Democrats were the party of the people, they now seem to be the party of Big Government. Similarly, where once the Republicans were the party of big government, they have apparently transformed into the party of the People.
Consider how the parties began. The Democrats were founded by Thomas Jefferson. He adamantly opposed large government and sought at almost every turn to reduce its size. His ideal was a nation of yeoman farmers who managed their own affairs on their own plots of land. The goal was therefore to prevent the government from interfering with their freedom.
The Republicans, in contrast, got their start under the auspices of Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, a Federalist, believed in a more robust central government. He sponsored a central bank and the federal assumption of state debts in the hope that this would promote economic growth. Later on, Henry Clay, then designated a Whig, promoted what he called the American System intending to do the same. He believed that government sponsored roads and a federal university would promote commercial development.
Today things are remarkably different. Nowadays it is the Democrats who sponsor additional government programs. Thus, they want Washington to administer health care and to coordinate an aggressive energy policy. Nor do they have any compunctions about increasing federal spending to prime the economic pump. Indeed, to hear them tell it, this is the central duty of any government.
The Republicans, to the contrary, favor decentralization. They intend to cut federal spending and to delegate greater authority to the states. Likewise, if they get their way, government regulations will be reduced so as to allow individual citizens more latitude in making independent decisions. To hear them tell it, the less government the better.
Further evidence of this switch can be found in the party’s attitudes toward ordinary people. The Democrats seem to have lost faith in them. As the party of big government, they are supported by trial lawyers and crony capitalist companies such as General Electric. Ordinary citizens, however, when they take to the streets to protest government actions are derided as “Astroturf.” They are dismissed as airheads and potential terrorists.
Now it is the Republicans who express more faith in the common Joe. They disparage the pointy-headed intellectuals who run things from Washington, showing instead a preference for the man and woman on the street. If you ask them, regular Americans are more prudent in spending their own money than are government functionaries. They do not have to be protected from themselves as the Democrats repeatedly allege.
How then did this happen? What brought about this political world turned upside down?
The culprit seems to the Industrial Revolution. Paradoxically, the economic growth that the early Federalists favored has altered the emphases of the respective parties. It has changed their fundamental focus because it has changed the nature of the society they supervise.
Where once the United States was primarily agricultural, nowadays it is post-industrial. As a result, new theories arose to protect people against this threat. Perhaps the most important of these was the collectivism inherent in socialist systems. These promised to tame industrialists by making them subservient to the people. Since elected representatives were smarter and better situated than ordinary folks, they would act as stand-ins for their constituents. Their decisions would, therefore, be more democratic by being more elitist.
The Republicans, in contrast, noticed the changes in how post-industrialism was organized. They realized that proprietor-entrepreneurs no longer ran big companies. Instead professional managers had taken over. As importantly, most new jobs were being created by small business owners. It was, therefore, these more professionalized individuals who had to be cultivated. Their decisions, because they were closer to ground-level, were more sensible than those of far-away bureaucrats. So too were the choices of ordinary people who were the best stewards of their own resources.
Putting all of this together, it is evident that the political landscape has become quite different from what many people suppose. Today, it is the Democratic politicians who are arrogantly dedicated to centrist policies. Meanwhile, it is Republican politicians who are liable to be the sons and daughters of working people. More fundamentally, this is the reason the little people are beginning to gravitate toward a party that was once perceived as scorning their interests.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University