This is Part 1 in a series on gender roles and feminism. For more see Part 2 Social Constructs, Part 3 Christian Hedonism, Part 4 Christian Gender Roles, and Part 5 Proof of the Existence of God(s).

A good way to carefully address disagreements is to be precise about three things: system, goal, and method[1]. A system is the context in which you are working- the facts that you are assuming to be the case for the sake of addressing a specific goal. I hope that goal and method are self-explanatory[2] . It is generally better to first start with goal and system, and then figure out the best method for attaining said goal given the system.[3]

I am going to compare two ideologies- Feminist Egalitarianism and Christian Complementarianism- and I am going to argue that, contrary to popular belief, they largely agree on method and only disagree on goals. I believe this is important because realizing this will help us avoid wasteful arguments about method.

Many Feminist Egalitarians criticize the Complementarian ideal of giving women rights and privileges through the methods of Patriarchy and Chivalry, however, I will argue that the methods advocated by Feminist Egalitarianism are nothing but disguised Patriarchy and Chivalry. Then we can move on to the real issue, which is the disagreement about which goals we should be pursuing with the already agreed upon methods of Patriarchy and Chivalry.

The System
I am going to start by outlining a system that most[4] people can agree on in which to address these issues of Feminist Egalitarianism and Complementarianism. The system includes the fact that there exists a power disparity between men and women. The simplest way to frame this issue is to divide power into two types: Raw Power and Economic Power. By Raw Power I mean that men are somehow physically stronger, better fighters, better armed, or anything else that gives them the brute power[5] to murder, beat, or rape women. By Economic Power I mean the power men have that comes from controlling industries and social structures minus their Raw Power.  This is an important point because some people will argue that Economic Power is fully reducible to Raw Power, and that economic and social power structures would not hold any sway if it wasn’t for them being backed up by the threat of violence or Raw Power. The rest of this essay’s argument should still work regardless of your views on the question of to what extent Economic Power is reducible to Raw Power, as long as the conceptual difference between the two is clear.

I don’t think the goal or the system I’ve outlined should be too controversial for either Complementarians or Feminists to accept. Let’s start by analyzing the Raw Power disparity. The rate of male on female rape, assault, and murder is, and always has been, much higher than the reverse.[6] The extent to which men commit violent crimes against women is the most obvious problem that most people think of when it comes to the Raw Power disparity. Men generally have power over women at the most primitive level of conflict; if men and women fought to the death for control, men would win. Of course, Raw Power disparity is only a problem if the people with the power have the intent to use it for malicious purposes. For example, consider a small child whose parents sacrifice their immediate best interests for the child. Clearly, the parents have the Raw Power in that they could easily overpower and kill their child if they wanted to and their child wouldn’t stand a chance of defending itself against two adults. However, most parents choose to sacrifice for their children instead of abuse them, so we must also consider intent.

A similar analysis applies to the issue of the Economic Power disparity between men and women; whether or not the disparity hinders women from accomplishing their goals depends on the intent of the men with the Economic Power. Once again we can use the example of a small child whose parents clearly hold the Economic Power and yet use their Economic Power primarily to help their child succeed.

The Method
Both the Complementarians and the Feminists share the general goal of seeking to create certain rights and privileges for women in the context of the system outlined earlier. Although they differ in their goals of which specific rights and privileges to create for women, I will show that their method of pursuing these goals is essentially the same. In order to see this we first understand that there are three possible methods of dealing with a system where men hold the upper hand in Raw Power and Economic Power.

Method #1 Equalize the power dynamic: This could mean equalizing the Raw Power dynamic by somehow making men physically weaker ( preventing them from training to fight, giving them growth stunting drugs, disarming them, and so forth) and/or by making women physically stronger (making them weightlifters, training them to fight, giving them more weapons, and so forth). Most Feminists argue that this is not their goal, and that to say that Feminism is about turning women into aggressive bodybuilders is nothing but a ridiculous strawman of their position.

Another way of taking this approach would be equalizing the Economic Power dynamic by having an equal number of women as men in positions of economic, social, and political power. This position requires believing that Economic Power is largely not reducible to Raw Power: otherwise getting Economic Power for women wouldn’t change the real power structure. This position would also require making stay-at-home mothers the enemy, as they would be preventing women from equalizing the Economic Power dynamic. Once again most Feminists are clear that all they want is for women to have the option of becoming CEOs or Senators or doctors but that there is nothing wrong with women choosing to stay at home with their children. So we have shown that the method of equalizing the Raw or Economic Power dynamic between men and women is not going to fit with the stated goals of most Feminists.

Method #2 Chivalry: Neutralize the Power Dynamic. Teach men not to rape, murder, or attack women in order to neutralize the Raw Power disparity and/or teach men to use their economic power to help women so as to neutralize the Economic Power disparity. I will call this method Chivalry[7] because it fits with the general idea of teaching men not to act on their power for their own gain but to use it to help others.

Method #3 Patriarchy[8]: Use some men to protect women from the other men. This might require a change in intent but it deserves a separate category because it doesn’t necessarily require that men have good intentions overall, only that some men have good intentions and use their power to protect women from the men with bad intentions.

The approach of the vast majority of human societies throughout history has been to employ some combination of Chivalry and Patriarchy; men were generally taught to protect a certain group of women such as those in their family, tribe, race, social class, or religion and they were taught to change[9] their intent towards those women so as to repress any violent inclinations towards them[10]. The general Christian Complementarian method is one of using Chivalry and Patriarchy by teaching men not to lust after, rape, seduce, insult, or hurt women and by teaching men to protect, love and serve women and to honor and sanctify the idea of women as nurturing mothers. Feminists often complain that this is oppressive because it isn’t about “real rights” and is nothing more than the oppression of Chivalry and Patriarchy , because men still hold the Raw and Economic Power. Through this they presumably insult women by acting like women need to be protected and cared for. But what exactly are Feminists doing differently? Don’t Feminists advocate teaching men not to rape, insult, or hurt women? Don’t Feminists advocate teaching men not to talk over, pass over, ignore, or degrade women in the workplace? So they are using Chivalry just as the Complementarians are. Don’t they also advocate passing strict anti-rape laws, anti-domestic abuse laws, anti-discrimination laws, anti-“deadbeat dad” laws, etc.? And who enforces these laws? Why men with Raw Power and Economic Power of course. Who gives the state its authority and its Raw Power and Economic Power to enforce Feminist legislation (or any other legislation) on the people? Men in the military, men in the police force, men in the arms industry, men in all weapons technologies industries- essentially all armed and/or physically strong men who will use violence to protect the women that the Feminist legislators want protected and of course the men who hold the Economic Power that is used to support the state.

So the feminist movement must use Patriarchy and Chivalry as much, if not more, than the Complementarians. That being said, it is important to acknowledge that there are feminists who make roughly the same point that I’m making, and who argue that, if there is ever going to be “true equality”, feminists must equalize the Raw Power or Economic Power dynamics. Some of these voices, although not all, also argue that in order to truly free themselves from the patriarchy feminists must all become lesbians.[11] However, if you told the average feminist today that feminism was all about turning women into aggressive lesbian bodybuilders they would rightly criticize you for strawmanning feminism; most feminists today want to allow women to be feminine, but want them to be treated as equals and not be harassed, abused, and discriminated against. They might not realize it, but as long as they aren’t trying to overturn the Raw Power or Economic Power dynamic, their method is the same as the method used by Complementarians. 

Some feminists might object that their method is different because they are fighting for “true equality” and “real rights”, whereas Complementarian women just want to be “pampered princesses”. But this is missing the point because that would be an argument about which rights or privileges women should be seeking and that is an argument over goals not over method. The method is the same. The real disagreement that must be addressed is about which rights and privileges women should have, given the agreed upon methods of Patriarchy and Chivalry.

To be clear, there are two other options Feminists can take in order to avoid this conclusion.

One: They could deny that there is a difference in Raw Power or Economic Power between men and women. Of course, this flies in the face of all empirical data and leaves them in the awkward position of trying to explain what exactly the problem is if they believe that there is already true equality between the sexes at the most basic level of power.

Two: They could endorse the equalization of Raw Power and/or Economic Power as the goal of their movement. This would vindicate the common criticism of feminism that it is really just movement to make all women into men and to demonize stay-at-home mothers. An open admission of this by feminists would drastically lower their support among most people.

For more see Part 2 Social Constructs, Part 3 Christian Hedonism, Part 4 Christian Gender Roles, and Part 5 Proof of the Existence of God(s).