Gender Roles, Sex Work, Feminism and More on Bloggingheads.tv

This tells you about all you need to know about me, but as soon as I found out what Bloggingheads.tv was, I really, really wanted to go on. It was even more fun than I thought it would be. I have to thank TownHall Managing Editor Kevin Glass for inviting me on, and even more for asking me some really fascinating questions.

From the description:

On Rational Actors, Kevin talks to Cathy about her efforts to synthesize feminism and libertarianism. Can libertarian economic policies help change gendered expectations for women? Does the libertarian movement have a woman problem? Is legal sex work compatible with individual freedom? Turning to Ken Cuccinelli’s recent defeat in Virginia, they consider why married and unmarried women vote so differently. How can the GOP reform itself to be more appealing to women in general?

Be sure to follow Kevin Glass on Twitter.

3 Comments

  1. Seth MacLeod

    Great discussion! I especially liked the part where you pointed out extending property rights and thus their protections to sex workers.

    Something occurred to me about many libertarians’ take on gender roles. Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” is a very famous libertarian science fiction novel, and in it he explores how the family structure could have emerged under conditions where women are scarce in comparison to men. Considering how popular the novel is with libertarians, it’s a little strange that more libertarians don’t have the imagination to see how our own structures emerged and how they could change, especially since libertarians typically do use their imaginations to think through how something might work in a free market.

    Also, though this is more relevant to racism, when Kevin Glass kept asking you about more immediate solutions instead of cultural changes, it reminded me of Booker T. Washington’s observations and solutions in “Up From Slavery”, specifically chapter 10:

    The making of these bricks taught me an important lesson in regard to the relations of the two races in the South. Many white people who had had no contact with the school, and perhaps no sympathy with it, came to us to buy bricks because they found out that ours were good bricks. They discovered that we were supplying a real want in the community. The making of these bricks caused many of the white residents of the neighbourhood to begin to feel that the education of the Negro was not making him worthless, but that in educating our students we were adding something to the wealth and comfort of the community. As the people of the neighbourhood came to us to buy bricks, we got acquainted with them; they traded with us and we with them. Our business interests became intermingled. We had something which they wanted; they had something which we wanted. This, in a large measure, helped to lay the foundation for the pleasant relations that have continued to exist between us and the white people in that section, and which now extend throughout the South.

    • Thank you Seth! I agree it’s very strange. I think the kinds of libertarians who are libertines and who have imagination are more likely to be less stuck in an old mindset when it comes to gender roles. It’s conservatarians who have trouble seeing past what’s always been. Hopefully 🙂

  2. Rod Van Mechelen

    “Women are expected to do more in the home than men” seems to be an expectation perpetrated by female choices. In Shere Hite’s Women and Love, Hite talks about how “women see the dust” both in relationships and in the home. Guys tend to be more relaxed about housekeeping than women, so women end up doing more housework. (Obviously, this is a generalization.)

    While some women are very career oriented, most women, including most of the women who are more career oriented, prefer men whose focus lies outside the home and who are very career oriented. Hence, women’s (free market) choices predispose them to relationships in which they end up doing more in the home.

    The dictionary definition of feminism is a lie. Feminism has nothing to do with equal rights. Feminism casts everything in terms of power and as such requires the implied gun of the government to solve every problem. Where the dictionary definition of feminism belongs is in one of the definitions of libertarianism.

    The effort to reconcile feminism with libertarianism is doomed to fail. It pollutes the libertarian message.

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