The Idea - Chapter Outline
The Idea is a systematic argument that women's equality is the most important idea in all of human history.
Part I: On the Equality of Women
The argument starts with the history of the idea of women's equality: what it is, where it has come from (the lived experiences of women), and where it has not come from (our so-called Great Philosophers).
1. A Bold Claim about a Bold Idea
Why should we try to identify "the most important idea"? How does this argument fit into our larger social and intellectual context?
2. Women's Equality as Fact and Idea
Women's equality is a simple truth. It is a scientific and moral fact. The idea of women's equality is the recognition of this fact, just as the discovery of gravity is the recognition of an underlying physical reality.
3. Our Great Moral Philosophers
Western philosophy was born in the patriarchal and misogynistic world of ancient Greece. On the subject of women's equality, The Great Philosophers made essentially no progress in the ensuing two and a half millennia.
4. A Moment of Enlightenment
One of the few bright spots in our philosophical history was a brief flowering of the idea of women's equality in the revolutionary moment at the end of the 18th century.
5. A Revolutionary Tea Party
The real movement for women's equality emerged from the practical work of activist women who came together in the campaign against slavery.
6. The Three Waves
The rise of the idea of women's equality is traditionally framed in terms of three waves: the movement for suffrage; the push for employment equality; and most recently, the recognition of intersectionality.
7. Who Could Possibly Disagree?
Despite the successes of the women's movement, there remain powerful social and institutional forces still arrayed against the idea of women's equality. In particular, the complementarian worldview continues to insist that women can be "different but equal." This approach inevitably devolves into the oxymoronic notion of "subordinate but equal."
Part II: On Purpose
Part Two takes on the task of identifying a common and paramount human purpose. This might seem a daunting undertaking, but I reject the notion that the central purpose of life is obscure, or even just widely different for different people. Setting out this single clear life-purpose establishes a core premise for my argument.
8. A Philosophy of Common Purpose
The core purpose of life is not complicated or unknowable. Contrary to the seemingly reasonable expectation that the rich diversity of human life would prevent agreement on a single most-important purpose, there is, for most of humanity, a common and paramount human purpose that is both empirically observable and important for social cohesion.
9. The Possibilities for Purpose
In this chapter and the next, I consider some of the obvious candidates for a common and paramount human purpose. I organize this review around three broad worldviews: naturalism, supernaturalism, and humanism. Naturalists draw from the scientific perspective to emphasize the sense of purpose that would arise from evolutionary selection. Supernaturalists find purpose in religious and god-centric principles.
10. A Humanist Perspective
Humanists draw on the social sciences, and also find evidence of a common and paramount purpose in the collective expressions of our art and literature. This body of work points clearly towards a single purpose that rises above all others. Interestingly, it is reasonably consonant with the naturalist and supernaturalist worldviews, as well.
11. The Primary Facts of the Matter
Identifying a common and paramount human purpose is surprisingly simple. Apart from our great philosophers and theologians, everyone knows that the central purpose in life, for most people, most of the time, is to love and be loved.
Part III: On Love
Part Three turns to love. What is love? What is its relationship to equality? While these abstract concepts can be complicated, their essential meanings are not that difficult. Nonetheless, philosophy has failed in this area precisely because of its inability to appreciate the equality of women.
Once our blinders about the basic personhood and equality of women are taken away, authentic love between men and women becomes possible for the first time. This makes women's equality the most important of all human ideas.
12. What is This Love of Which You Speak?
An essential element of love, philosophers and theologians agree, is taking the interests of another as your own. Among the different kinds of love, partnership love is particularly central to human purpose.
13. On Love and Equality
Taking the interests of another as your own requires seeing the other as an equal. "Equality" is itself a sometimes abstract and difficult concept. We can be pretty sure, however, that it can't mean "subordinate but equal."
14. The Failure of Philosophy
It remains puzzling that our great philosophers have recognized the centrality of love, and the necessity of equality for authentic love, but have not seen the possibility that women could be equal to men.
15. Something New Under the Sun
Because it requires the acceptance of women's equality, authentic partnership love is something new in the human experience. This leads to the sometimes uncomfortable implication that what we have thought of as the great loves of history and literature probably were not examples of authentic partnership love. That, alas, goes for most of our own grandparents and other ancestors as well.
Part IV: On Society
Women's equality is the most important of all ideas because it enables authentic partnership love, and thus the fulfilment of human purpose. Nonetheless, in making the case for women's equality as the most important idea of all time, it is useful to highlight some of the other benefits we have derived, both individually and collectively, from women's equality.
16. Health
Healthcare for women is obviously improved through a greater respect for women's particular health needs. There is also evidence that empowering women enhances the health of their partners and children. Moreover, we all stand to benefit from the increasing number of women who are moving into the highest levels of professional healthcare.
17. Wealth
In the developing countries, the dramatic effects of improving the status of women on economic growth are well-established. In highly developed countries as well, expanding the labor pool to include women has led to significant growth in our individual and collective economic well-being.
18. Wisdom
Our collective wisdom benefits from having women in the thinking professions. But more than this, women's equality changes how we think and the kinds of things we think about. Other than in its long-standing support for patriarchy, philosophy has paid relatively little attention to how we live together in families, despite this being a critical dimension of human life.
Part V: On Religion
Women's equality has especially profound implications for the world's great religions. The founders of these traditions purport to have received divine guidance on how we should live. All our great religions emphasize love. A true god would emphasize the equality of women as both a simple truth and the key to authentic partnership love. Yet, none of the prophets and divines have chosen to pass this along to their followers.
19. The Volumes That Speak Silence
The silence of the leading religious scriptures about women's equality renders them unable to provide appropriate guidance on human love and family relationships. This failure is highlighted by the dismal record of our major religious traditions in answering two basic questions.
20. The Wrong Answer to an Easy Question
Our major religions have consistently given the wrong answer to the question of how many women a man should marry. Support for polygamy is rife throughout these traditions and is clearly incompatible with women's equality. Alternatively, monasticism has also undermined the status of women and the moral meaning of partnership love.
21. The Wrong Answer to an Even Easier Question
The second question should be even easier: is violence against women acceptable? Several of our major religious scriptures have openly endorsed the beating of women. Others have simply been silent. As with slavery, this is an issue of such moral significance that silence is not an acceptable response from those who claim to know the darkness in human hearts and to offer divinely inspired moral guidance.
22. The Failure of Religion
Patriarchy and misogyny have left our major religious traditions blind to the nature of authentic partnership love. In this chapter, I review the magnitude of this failing and look at some of the possible counterarguments, especially the argument that revelation must be understood in terms of its cultural context.
23. Love, Equality, and Epistemology
Love is a lever for understanding and assessing moral truths. Our major religious and philosophical traditions have always understood this and have understood the importance of equality for authentic love. They just haven't applied these principles to the relationship between men and women. The idea of women's equality forces us to do that. In this way, love and women's equality combine to give us a definitive epistemology for assessing religious and moral claims.
Part VI: Onward
Prioritizing women's equality carries far-reaching implications for individuals and society. Traditionalists worry that women's equality undermines the family as our bedrock social institution. This is exactly backwards. Women are no longer willing to accept an artificial and imposed subordinate status. Thus, it is the denial of women's equality that now threatens the integrity of the family. In these last chapters, I particularly focus on the important efforts that will be required of men to realign our social institutions and make these long-overdue changes.
24. Male Pattern Blindness
"Contact theory" holds that prejudice and misunderstanding can be mitigated by repeated interactions. This effect is not much seen in the history of relationships between men and women. Men have consistently failed to observe and acknowledge the equality of the women they know best and claim to love.
25. How Should We Then Live?
At the personal level, men are responsible for making the changes necessary to give women true equality. The emerging science on companionate relationships provides some specific recommendations for living more equally. There are also lessons about gender equality in partnership love that can be drawn from same-sex relationships.
26. A Collective Revolution
Women's equality must be brought to the forefront of our social institutions. Significant institutional and collective changes are required in the workplace, in politics, and in religion to facilitate the development of personal relationships that can finally fulfill the core human aspiration for authentic partnership love.
27. Towards a Conclusion
There are four likely counterarguments that need to be considered. Two of these are weak: an ad hominem question about my qualifications to make this argument; and a claim that I have fallen into the trap of presentism--that is, judging the past by modern standards. Two counterarguments merit more serious attention. The first is that the idea that all people are equal is prior to and more important than the equality of women. The second is that the implications of women's equality for the lives of women are more important than its implications for relationships between men and women. I address these important concerns, but maintain that the idea of women's equality remains paramount.
The book concludes with a few reflections on the tragedy of our long history of love constrained by inequality.