MICHAEL LEVIN
In response to:
Did anyone see the news story this morning on CBS or ABC, about the woman F-14 pilot who splashed her plane last month?[I]n chapter 11 of his book Feminism and Freedom (Transaction Books, 1987), Michael Levin notes how putting women in combat inevitably leads to lowering of standards. Women cannot meet the standards being required of men, which leads to them being challenged by feminists as having "disparite impact," and hence "sexist." So the standards are lowered for women, so that women can qualify for the previously all-male jobs. "11 percent of the females tested for the WITA (Women in the Army Policy Review) study could lift 100 pounds, as opposed to 92 percent of the mentested", etc.
By the way, if I recall
correctly this pilot didn't just "splash her plane," she "bought the farm"
as well. Reminded me of the story from the last Olympics about the woman
skier who, having "won" after enormous feminist agitation the "right" to
go down a fearsome route that had previously been 'male only', well, died
when allowed to do so. Well, they wanted to be "equal"....
Mr Sheaffer also suuplied this comentary, from the back of the book:
Combining philosophical rigor with detailed knowledge of a wide range of subjects, Michael Levin presents a thorough examination of feminism as both a theory and as a generator of social policy. His book provides a much-needed counterweight to uncritical feminist scholarship prevalent in so much social science writing. Levin argues that feminists deny that innate sex differences have anything to do with the basic structure of society. He shows how this denial leads feminists to interperet observable differences between male and female roles as the result of discrimination and restrictive social conditioning rather than as the free expression of basic preferences. Levin concludes that feminist proposals for remedying this imaginary oppression systematically thwart individual liberty.
The first chapters of Feminism and Freedom show the conflict between feminist ideology and recent developments in anthropology, neurology, child psychology, and behavioral genetics, as well as basic principles of scientific method. The author then moves to a wide-ranging discussion of affirmatice action, comparable worth, and the impact of feminism on education, military manpower policy, language, family life, and sports - showing in each case how feminist policies run counter to classical liberalism.
Michael Levin is professor of philosophy at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of City University of new York. He is the author of Metaphysics and the Mind-Body Problem, and has written extensively on ethics, epistemology, and the foundations of science and mathematics.