I’m a Libertarian Man, and I Support Feminism.

I’m A Libertarian Man, and I Support Feminism

I want to discuss a topic that I feel all libertarians should be supporters of – Feminism! Let’s face it, libertarians need to stop being so freaking anti-feminist, once and for all; though I think most libertarians are pro-feminist deep down inside. Feminism in its original meaning is 100% a libertarian/capitalist movement.

First off, let’s just say why feminists – in the original sense – should hate government.
Governments used to not allow women to own property or businesses of any kind. Literally setting it up so that (in many states) if a woman was married to a man, and didn’t have a male son when the man died, she would likely be forced to give the business to the closest male relative, likely without any compensation for it.

For many years, women were not legally allowed to vote in America. Women were denied access to schools for most of history. Many governments would even be able to shut down a business just for hiring and using women workers, if complained about.
Occupational licensing was made difficult to obtain, and women were denied the right to become things such as lawyers, doctors and more. Women were put in many situations where their property and rights weren’t respected. Up until the 1950’s, many states didn’t even care if a man casually beat his wife as long as no serious damage was caused.

There was a discriminatory agent around and, holy sh*t, it was the government. The government, being a male created tool which blocked women’s rights (they did not have voting rights), created a male only majority that damaged the rights of women.
They did this with Jim Crow; they did this to the Native American community; they did it to women; from this, it’s easy to say women were treated poorly by society and viewed as tools in male oppression.

We can’t just say “Oh, that was the past, today is what counts”; It’s called all f*cking history, compared to the last 50 damn years! For most of American history, women had very few rights compared to men. We did live in an anti-female society. In world history, for 99% of the time, women didn’t have an equal say. We are living in the [maybe] .3% that they do. This is something I see libertarians pretend isn’t the case and that is morally and historically just a total wasteland of wrong. What caused this to end? Well, like most problems, it was the market.
Let me list what the market did to help women’s rights.

 

Changes in Labor
The movement of manual labor economies to white collar jobs: with the rise of technology, people aren’t cutting down trees, farming, or doing a lot of other jobs which, from a physical perspective, women aren’t as capable of doing. More people in the early 20th century moved into jobs where they worked in an office, developed things with their minds, and from that, the door was opened, and women were needed in that pool of the labor market.

 

Modern Medicine
Another was the rise of modern medicine, and women not dying as frequently while giving birth. Everyone having a mom is new to history. If a person lived before the 20th century, there was a good chance their mom died giving birth to them, or giving birth to their siblings. The older women were, the more likely it was to happen. This is why women, for most of history, would be married at a very young age and asked to have children at about 15-18 years old.
Modern medicine made it so that giving birth at age 30 isn’t a death sentence anymore. This opens options for new career choices.

 

A Rise in Wealth and Education
The rise of women in education and early careers, caused a rise in wealth. People had more money, and America got an expanded labor force, allowing for care services which make parenting – while both parents work – a real thing and not a financial impracticality.
For the first time, it is profitable for both parents to work, even if that requires housekeeping or day care services.
The market did something very new when it moved people away from farms and into cities. People came for factory jobs and, as the need for child labor dropped, the rise of public schools began. Women got the invite to join, and for the first time in history, lower, middle, and upper income girls were able to attend schools. This was likely the greatest thing ever to aid in the rise of women in the economy.
Birth Control
Birth control and the greatness of Roe vs Wade… here is a simple fact, being pregnant as a choice rather than it being obligatory, is a great thing!

 

So where does this bring us?

• Women now make as much money as men – when they don’t have children and are in the same field of study.
• Women (before having children) usually make more money than men.
• More women now are educated than men.
• There is still a problem with domestic abuse, but it’s smaller than it’s been at any point in history, laws clearly stop it.
• A woman, for the first time, almost became a president! She was just too robotic for many people. However, Meg Whitman, Liz Warren, Nikki Haley, Kamala Harris, Susanna Martinez, Tulsi Gabbard, Mia Love and many others seem set on one day getting into the Oval Office.

 

Why are women still complaining?

• In many states, women have limited access to birth control or abortion rights.
• While women working in the same fields make the same as male counterparts, there seems to be a cultural issue where women regularly choose lower paying jobs.
• Most men in culture, I believe, just [deep down] believe they are superior to women and see them as objects or tools.
• Rape culture is a thing! It’s not as bad as some say, but it still does happen where harassment is taken casually; sexual abuse does happen to maybe 2-5% of women, and it’s very often ignored.
• Men and women have children, but the cultural norm is men get less responsibility in actually raising the children, women take those on.

Feminists do have a point, these problems exist, and there are two sets of solutions.

The first solution is culture: shows such as Jessica Jones, or Legend of Korra, that are geared towards a male audience but turn women into these non-sexualized, awesome characters (who say what they’d like, have relationships with who they want, and kick-ass) are honestly doing more to change the stigma in how men treat women than any protest has. Culture and actions in media are changing this culture to the benefit of women.

The second solution is capitalism: women make less than men on average due to chosen career paths? Libertarians have a solution for that – eliminate government backed student loans. Banks will still loan money, but not to poorly performing majors and people will now financially be forced to pursue higher earning fields such as math or science. In this, they will also see a decline in older, lesser earning majors slowing down the new supply of labor in that pool and opening other options.

Women complain about birth control and abortion rights? Libertarian have a solution for that. It’s called deregulation where birth control is easier to obtain and lower FDA times to get approvals on new drugs.

Women complain about men being abusive? Libertarians have a solution for that. Just imagine how much better the police would function without the war on drugs, without so much time/money going to victim-less crimes and more attention going to real abuses.

Libertarians have solutions to female problems, and female problems in culture do indeed exist. Why a woman gets called a slut for having sex with twenty people, but a man gets called awesome is confusing. Why so many parents tell their daughters to marry wealthy men at a young age is genuinely sad. Solutions do exist on both a personal and government level.

I’m tired of libertarians failing and failing hard. We are turning our movement into something which sees Milo Yianhoweveryouspellit say women shouldn’t pursue science and we go “Hahaha that’s funny!” We are seeing many in the liberty movement casually bash feminist and instead of saying “We see your problems as real, and we have answers for you!” we stay in this male bubble of bashing women. It’s why libertarians don’t succeed. When we ignore the problems and just bash the idea that the problems exist – we lose a voter! We lose a supporter! We lose a volunteer! We lose a libertarian! We create a communist!

So, I support feminism, and libertarianism is 100% a feminist friendly movement.