A New Social Contract

At the grander manifestation we might be talking about a type of social contract. Let's take a look at it. What is gender? It is an idea, and these ideas are real and transcendent.

How's this for a new social contract? Men and women are fundamentally ideas, as stated. Now, historically these ideas were biologically inseparable. A man had to work and a woman had to stay at home. They say this at its extreme has resulted in the transgender chaos that occurs in circles today, because now that idea is heavily challenged. But let's take a close look at these biological and transcendent realities.

First, one's natural state as man or woman (as an idea) seems to be tightly linked to one's biological state. Second, although there are differences between men and women at both levels (biologically and in transcendent nature), men and women have far more in common than they are dissimilar. If you look at the leading psychoanalytic literature, biological men on average have more masculine qualities, those related to fortitude and stability, than women do. Biological women usually more intrinsic feminine qualities. This means that most biological men are men also in nature of self, and vice versa. It also means that we are indeed mostly similar, in natural self and in body, because although men tend to have more masculine qualities, the difference is actually quite small, and almost not noticeable. The scales "tip" in favor of most biological men toward possessing a preponderance of masculine traits, but on any given trait, there's a good chance a woman might be more manly in terms of the idea of male/female than him! Again, to put it simply, overall in terms of entire being men (both in essence and in body) have more masculine traits, and women more feminine traits, that's only true across all traits considered as one: on any given trait that might not be the case. And even where there are differences in masculine/feminine traits, the differences are usually still quite similar. So, man and woman are definitely realities in nature and in biology, but we have a lot in common, and for most people, if not almost everyone, being a biological woman also means you are in essence a woman, that you possess more feminine qualities or personality traits.

So, what is to be drawn from this? First, it's understandable why historically men hunted or worked and women gathered or sewed. Those are things which are more well suited to the personality traits, considered as a broad whole, to men. Yet, it lacked nuance. It worked for its time, but society has grown in understanding what it means to be a man and a woman, so perhaps it is due for reestablishing that contract, which process seems to be well in the works.

I'll connect this to the main issue at hand. The main issue is rights and responsibility. The conditions that led women to be household are no longer present in America, and most other developed countries today. Now, being accountable for one's actions is inherently a masculine thing to do, because masculinity involves stability and boundaries, like saying when I do this, I need to concern myself with these consequences. Women wish to partake in the process of exercising these rights traditionally reserved for men. So, women can do so, but they must understand the difficulty involved with it and be willing to behave responsibly. Even if it is a manly thing to do, they can do so, because men and women can learn to do feminine and masculine things. Having a nature that is more suited by design for a certain essence does not mean you cannot partake in the opposite essence. Not only that, but man and woman are only so because of the preponderance of their traits; on any individual trait a man may have a feminine disposition and a woman a masculine disposition, and all men and women possess certain feminine and masculine traits, despite overall being more masculine or feminine. This is in line with the psychoanalytic research, to be clear; I am not making anything up, this is all mainline psychological thinking.

What this means is that there are indeed certain women who are going to be better at certain manly things than some men are. So women can not only exercise rights responsibly, but at certain rights, they may be more productive than men. Yet this is only if they learn how to exercise those rights responsibly. Men have a culture of accountability not just because it is natural for us to set boundaries, but because we developed the process of doing so pragmatically over centuries. This is a process that anyone can learn, that some people regardless of gender will excel at more than others, and though overall may suit men more, that is only a small natural boost that is ultimately irrelevant compared to a human's decisions. So women can exercise rights freely, but they must do so responsibly, and men must teach them. It's our fault for not being responsible and instructing them, gently, in that capacity.

If that's true, then they should have articulated that. Their precise concerns. They should have said they were concerned because they did not want to be pressured into exercising civic responsibilities associated with the right. But of course that raises more questions. Why, why did they not want to assume those responsibilities? It was fairly obvious, they were mostly homebodies so they didn't want to join the fire brigade, sign up for the draft and be deployed, and have to get a job and own property. That's fairly reasonable, and the biggest contributing factor to that was probably because they wanted to take care of children, the house, and the nurturing things precisely so that men could flourish and pass laws in the first place.

The argument would have been something like, "As women, we deeply admire men going out and working diligently and with prudence, and passing laws that effectively regulate a complex society. Notwithstanding, it is this admiration that necessitates in this instance you do not pass a law giving us the right to vote along with its responsibilities, because that might pressure us to perform those responsibilities. Just as you men, we women have a deep desire to perform the tasks we hold to be dear, and there are those of us women who would pressure ourselves to sign up for the draft or get a job in order to vote, because we believe that having certain rights also gives us a duty to perform them.

"There are women among us who would see that we have the right to vote, and pressure us to exercise it, and so pressure us to join the draft. But if we did join the draft, we could not take care of the home, and if we did not take care of the home, there would be no one to work, no one to regulate society with laws in the first place. We therefore ask you abstain from divesting the vote and its civic duties to us at this time, that society may cooperate more effectively in the midst of an agreement to delegate various responsibilities. If you must give us the right to vote," the women in this story continue, "please do so very cautiously. We are aware there is a minority of suffragists who try to compromise on behalf of the overwhelming majority of us.

"They argue the problem can be solved by giving women the right to vote without having to perform any civic duties. We vehemently reject this, and perhaps more so than the idea of being given it with. A paradigm like this would fracture the nature of society. If we can vote without restriction but men must exercise responsibility for it, this demeans the meaning of the vote, and demeans the value of men's voices to enhance ours. But we care about the home precisely because we care about society. It's not a sound idea to take away the responsibilities of voting but to force men to. This would call into question the value of voting in general, demean the value of the vote for men. It would teach men that the vote is not very valuable, and us likewise. It would teach men the value of the vote is not as valuable as we thought, and eventually they might advocate for abolishing civic responsibilities for them performing it!

"But this is not what we want. We admire the voice of men precisely because it comes from a willingness to act bravely, to fight for one's community, and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard. If voting becomes something without responsibility, the very thing we admire in men, their civic voice backed up by action and immersion in the community, will cease to exist. We will no longer care about providing for the home or doing these things, because men will no longer contribute to their communities, since that duty will have been removed to make voting equal to women, which itself will have been done to fulfill a phony request by those slim group of people who don't represent most of us women.

"In other words, if you give us the right to vote without the responsibility, that will distort the nature of the vote and teach us not of its value. If that wasn't bad enough, men will eventually understandably outcry against that discrepancy, why someone who does not contribute to the community with such outer boldness should have a voice as loud as they who do. This will remove civic responsibilities from men, which will make men not as committed to contributing to their community because A) they no longer have to but perhaps more importantly B) there is no longer any evidentiary value in it. If men no longer contribute, that which we admire so much about them will cease to exist, and we will not be able to do what we love so much, which is caring for the home, for children, etc.

"This is not to say that women do not desire societal privileges, we do, but we desire them on terms most beneficial for society; there are women who do own property, for example, despite it being technically illegal, because they deeply understand the nuanced consequences of it. Yet this does not apply to the overwhelming majority of us, would have ruinous consequences for us and men, destroying society. Please, for our own sake and for yours, do not ruin our and your lives by giving women the right to vote under any circumstances."

Had women spoken up like that, the problem might not have happened. Yet, why didn't they? Women did not want the right to vote, but why did a very slim group of radical suffragists voice their opinion much louder than them? Certainly they must have cared about these things, so why didn't they speak up? This is not about blaming, but identifying the root issue so a new and better social contract that prevents everything can be established, with everybody on board. It must have something to do with the fact that although women cared about these things in society, themselves and men, they did not understand the consequences not speaking up would effect. If they did, they would have spoken up. Why didn't they understand those consequences? If men's problem was their lack of responsibility in not being responsible enough to allow women to behave responsibly, then what, quite simply, was women's issue? Not accountability, but foresight? Intuition?