I am not sure that I "fear a lie" in my query of Christian feminism- I wonder if you have misread some of my concerns with that discourse. I also would not suggest, nor have I anywhere suggested, that motherhood should "take the place" of education. Lots of interesting things to ponder here, for sure. It is always a pleasure to be read closely enough to be thoughfully engaged.
I don’t think you “fear a lie” either! You strike me as remarkably brave. If anything, that remark was directed at myself rather than you. Thanks for reading and commenting, I appreciate it.
Partway into this essay it feels like the topic switched from what a woman is to what it would be good for a woman to be. I strongly suspect the reason for that seems to feed right back into why the question was asked.
Women (ignoring the elephant), have long been adult human females. The only reason the word means something more than the sexual, biological and maturity elements implied by that... is because being a woman is strongly correlated with a wide array of additional preferences, plus some other non-sexual physical implications.
Why can't we just let women have preferences, note down what those preferences are when revealed, and move on? One guess would be that one of those correlates is a much stronger preference to be socially desirable and a very strong intuition for what that means. I suspect, then, that women find themselves trapped in the very strong social desirability preference (the "good", as you put it) suppressing their other common preferences.
I absolutely do believe all women who say they prefer something statistically unlikely. It's just that it's hard not to further suspect that she arrived there via social conditioning. That she was driven by a preference that she doesn't realize men don't feel as strongly, and that men don't easily comprehend in their theory of mind.
It does seem clear, in talking with some women -- without judgement, I hope you can believe -- that they are at war with themselves.
I don’t think you should conflate “the good” with social desirability. Wanting to do something worthwhile is not the same as wanting people to like you. Everyone already likes Eowyn, for example; we are told that the people love her and would select her to lead them when Theoden and Eomer are away fighting.
In the context of The Lord of the Rings, I think the word “honour” can be particularly confusing in this regard. We sometimes use the word to mean “social respect.” A knighthood is an “honour” because it conveys that you are respected by the people in charge. That’s not how Tolkien means it, though. He’s using it to mean an internal sense of rightness and self-worth — “honour” as in “my honour compels me not to hide that I have erred,” for example.
Sure, replace "the good" with "the socially desirable thing" then. When people describe their preferences in a way that appears pro-social they'll try to show that what they want is "good"
When we are discussing The Lord of the Rings it makes sense to note that its author is a moral realist who actually does believe that there is such a thing as "good." Replacing "good" with "the socially desirable thing" in such a context will make nonsense of what the author is trying to say.
In the real world, you can of course claim that there is no such thing as "good" except as a subjective personal and/or social construction (although, as you might remember from some of our earlier conversations, I certainly do not take this for granted). Even then, however, people do not always make that construction (if construction it be) in such a way as to consider it the same thing as "the socially desirable thing." So if you just replace one with the other, you won't get an accurate sense of what people are really experiencing and intending.
I don't mean to replace "good" with "the socially desirable thing" in the context of what the author or any other people say. Only in the context of my own comment. There are ways that these concepts can overlap more or less depending on who is talking, certainly.
I do propose that anyone talking about "good" must be doing so believing their audience agrees with their "good" (or at least is trying to convince them of it). It's not so easily extracted from social desirability.
I am not sure that I "fear a lie" in my query of Christian feminism- I wonder if you have misread some of my concerns with that discourse. I also would not suggest, nor have I anywhere suggested, that motherhood should "take the place" of education. Lots of interesting things to ponder here, for sure. It is always a pleasure to be read closely enough to be thoughfully engaged.
I don’t think you “fear a lie” either! You strike me as remarkably brave. If anything, that remark was directed at myself rather than you. Thanks for reading and commenting, I appreciate it.
I have created a multi-voiced AI reading of this post, let me know if you are OK with this being a thing that exists:
https://askwhocastsai.substack.com/p/a-woman-according-to-oxford-by-gemma
Upon reflection, yes, that seems entirely fine. Thank you for your courtesy in asking!
Partway into this essay it feels like the topic switched from what a woman is to what it would be good for a woman to be. I strongly suspect the reason for that seems to feed right back into why the question was asked.
Women (ignoring the elephant), have long been adult human females. The only reason the word means something more than the sexual, biological and maturity elements implied by that... is because being a woman is strongly correlated with a wide array of additional preferences, plus some other non-sexual physical implications.
Why can't we just let women have preferences, note down what those preferences are when revealed, and move on? One guess would be that one of those correlates is a much stronger preference to be socially desirable and a very strong intuition for what that means. I suspect, then, that women find themselves trapped in the very strong social desirability preference (the "good", as you put it) suppressing their other common preferences.
I absolutely do believe all women who say they prefer something statistically unlikely. It's just that it's hard not to further suspect that she arrived there via social conditioning. That she was driven by a preference that she doesn't realize men don't feel as strongly, and that men don't easily comprehend in their theory of mind.
It does seem clear, in talking with some women -- without judgement, I hope you can believe -- that they are at war with themselves.
I don’t think you should conflate “the good” with social desirability. Wanting to do something worthwhile is not the same as wanting people to like you. Everyone already likes Eowyn, for example; we are told that the people love her and would select her to lead them when Theoden and Eomer are away fighting.
In the context of The Lord of the Rings, I think the word “honour” can be particularly confusing in this regard. We sometimes use the word to mean “social respect.” A knighthood is an “honour” because it conveys that you are respected by the people in charge. That’s not how Tolkien means it, though. He’s using it to mean an internal sense of rightness and self-worth — “honour” as in “my honour compels me not to hide that I have erred,” for example.
Sure, replace "the good" with "the socially desirable thing" then. When people describe their preferences in a way that appears pro-social they'll try to show that what they want is "good"
When we are discussing The Lord of the Rings it makes sense to note that its author is a moral realist who actually does believe that there is such a thing as "good." Replacing "good" with "the socially desirable thing" in such a context will make nonsense of what the author is trying to say.
In the real world, you can of course claim that there is no such thing as "good" except as a subjective personal and/or social construction (although, as you might remember from some of our earlier conversations, I certainly do not take this for granted). Even then, however, people do not always make that construction (if construction it be) in such a way as to consider it the same thing as "the socially desirable thing." So if you just replace one with the other, you won't get an accurate sense of what people are really experiencing and intending.
I don't mean to replace "good" with "the socially desirable thing" in the context of what the author or any other people say. Only in the context of my own comment. There are ways that these concepts can overlap more or less depending on who is talking, certainly.
I do propose that anyone talking about "good" must be doing so believing their audience agrees with their "good" (or at least is trying to convince them of it). It's not so easily extracted from social desirability.