Fighting Words

The sex talk pundits can't handle

Virginia Postrel from the November 1997 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Law school professors' probing questions, their verbal jousting with students, "looks to many women like ritualized combat," say Guinier and co-authors. Socratic teaching, they suggest, forces women to become "social males," competitive, rational, quick-thinking, and sharp-witted. Even though law school exams are graded without names and class participation barely counts in course grades, women earn lower grades than men with similar admissions qualifications.

The authors' conclusion: "There is something about the law school environment that has a negative academic impact on female law students. Although some have said in response to our data that perhaps most women are not well suited to law school or should simply learn to adapt better to its rigors, we are inclined to believe that it is law school--not the women
--that should change."

This conclusion is a demand that law schools cease to foster certain virtues--the virtues associated with doing rather than feeling, with public rather than private life, and, yes, traditionally with men rather than women. One could imagine a law school pursuing a curriculum based on traditional feminine virtues: patience, fidelity, modesty, harmony, orderliness, sensitivity, beauty, and manipulative cunning. It would not turn out many trial lawyers or keen legal scholars, but the law is a big field with room for many different sorts of people. That sort of pluralism would not, however, satisfy Guinier and her allies. It would still allow old-fashioned Socratic teaching in other places. They want every place to be the same.

Our public debate tends to insist on the one best way for everything--in this case, the one best way to be a man, a woman, or an androgynous human being. When we talk about sex roles, the debate also mixes up two different disputes: The first is over whether, and in what roles, women should be allowed to pursue traditionally "masculine" public virtues. The second is over whether such virtues are worthy of pursuit, or whether they are "patriarchal," or just not nice, and should therefore be eliminated. (There are similarly confused, though somewhat less prominent, arguments about traditional feminine virtues.) Both traditionalists and feminists tend to switch arguments to suit their short-term political or rhetorical purposes.

People whose job it is to discuss "women's issues" can rarely be trusted with such matters. They are too busy spinning, too driven by preconceived notions, too dedicated to a uniform vision, and just plain too narrow to accept--much less appreciate--the diversity of individual personalities and preferences, strengths and aspirations. They cannot speak frankly. They have to follow their scripts.

That is why nonprofessionals like Liz Johnston and James Black can address issues of standards and sex more forthrightly than official commentators. And it is why audiences resonate more to the admitted fiction of G.I. Jane than to the supposed truths of Crossfire.