I actually agree in parts with all of the parties involved.
—I think Borowski is right in that females do tend to place a lot of weight (considerably more than male counterparts) on being socially accepted and they therefore might be more influenced by what is considered “mainstream”. I think this is a legitimate point (evidently more or less backed by scientific evidence), and a perfectly reasonable explanation to the question at hand.
—I think Skwire/Horwitz make a good point about Borowski seeming to lodge much of the same criticism toward females that conservatives hurl at women all the time (i.e. things that have little to nothing to do with libertarian principles). I also don’t really disagree with the overall point that Borowski is ultimately making fun of and denigrating women, and then asking why more of them don’t jump on her ideological bandwagon. Making a video like the one she made, while it doesn’t pretend to be a marketing spot for libertarianism, doesn’t seem to be so much concerned with actually bringing more women into the fold as it does with simply venting the filmmaker’s personal resentment. While there’s nothing ethically wrong with this (i.e. make any video complaining about women all you want, that’s your business), it isn’t exactly a good advertising strategy…and therefore I agree with the notion that at least part of the answer to the question asked in the video, is answered by the video itself.
—I tend to agree with Woods in his assessment of these so-called “thick libertarians”, in that they seem to believe “if you really want to promote liberty you can’t just oppose the state. You have to oppose ‘the patriarchy,’ embrace countercultural values, etc. Then, once libertarianism has been made to seem as freakish and anti-bourgeois as possible, these same people turn around and blame the rest of us for why the idea isn’t more popular.” It’s similar to the kind of thing encapsulated with the term “lifestyle libertarian” I mentioned here, when speaking of Gary Johnson. I think the piece linked there (and the piece linked in the piece linked there), as well as the definition of “left-libertarian” offered here give a pretty good summation:
[1] Judging by Reason Magazine’s “35 Heroes of Freedom,” “cool and cosmopolitan” encompasses William Burroughs, a drug addled, Beat-Generation wife killer, whose “work is mostly gibberish and his literary influence baleful.” … Madonna Reason has exalted for, as they put it, leading “MTV’s glorious parade of freaks, gender-benders, and weirdos who helped broaden the palette of acceptable cultural identities and destroy whatever vestiges of repressive mainstream sensibilities still remained.” That sounds like the unscrambled, strange dialect spoken by a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies. [Or is it “Wimmin’s Studies”?]
Much as the left does, libertarians-lite divine, in the country’s founding documents, all kinds of exhortations to let it all hang out.
[2] Former Reason magazine editor, Nick Gillespie, personifies this anti-social trend. He praises as “Heroes of Freedom” Madonna, Dennis Rodman, Larry Flynt, and William Burroughs alongside such true heroes as Milton Friedman and Barry Goldwater. Gillespie epitomizes this brand of libertarianism by posing as the angry young man hipster too cool for the rest of us poor unimaginative slobs.
—I agree with Goodman on his assessment of slut shaming. Personally I did get the impression that that’s what Borowski was doing. Granted, as Goodman admits, “all she said was that media promotes casual sex and that casual sex is not empowering. It could be argued that Borowski was just making a point that many feminist media critics have also made.” But also as he pointed out, “Borowski made her point in a way that easily could also be seen as denigrating women who choose casual sex and makeup, thus furthering a cultural climate of slut shaming.” And that’s exactly what I got from it. The overall negative tone (literal and otherwise) with which she made that statement relayed quite clearly to me that she has a problem with causual sex (or at least with females having casual sex), and that anyone who does engage in such activity is inferior in some way. And I’m sure that’s at least partially why Catholic Tom Woods felt the need to defend her on this, as I’m sure he shares that sentiment (as, sexual acts of virtually any kind are considered a sin within the Catholic faith.)
Ultimately I don’t think Woods has a problem with slut shaming because he personally believes casual sex is an immoral act and therefore should be shuned…and any indignation or “calling out” of such behavior is at the very least, appropriate. (This is supported by his sarcastic rhetorical: “Doesn’t Julie know that such behavior, far from being a ‘cause for shame,’ is just one of the ‘complex choices that smart, thoughtful women can and do make’?”)
What’s ironic about this aspect is that it actually emphasizes and illustrates the exact preoccupation with social acceptance that Borowski was talking about: In the very video where she was denigrating women for having casual sex (in all likelihood, knowing how powerful and effecting slut shaming can be), she was also calling women out for being so obsessed with socially accepted norms. So in a way, she was exploiting the very shortcoming she was criticizing them for, to drive her own moral viewpoint directly into the emotional psyche of any women hapless enough to be watching.
It’s actually quite diabolical.
Bottom line is,
Borowski’s reasoning is probably at least partially right…there probably are less female libertarians at least to some degree because libertarianism isn’t mainstream and women have a harder time being associated with things that are not completely — or at least largely — socially accepted. However, her examples to support this conjecture (and the way they are presented) sound a lot less like simple support for her claim, and a lot more like personal judgements against women for personal choices that the narrator disagrees with. At the same time, as Woods tangentially implies (but never actually says), there’s certainly nothing wrong or “unlibertarian” about that. Borowski is perfectly within her rights to denigrate whomever she wants, for any reason. But at the same time, one can’t deny that such denigration isn’t going to be found very inviting to would-be libertarian females…the kind Borowski is lamenting the lack of. And finally, one does have to consider just how moral or ethical such denigration is when it pertains to behaviors that do not violate NAP.
While I can understand a religious person’s condemnation of perfectly ethical behavior (by libertarian standards) on moral religious grounds, I don’t quite see how doing so is very beneficial to liberty, or its growth in popularity and acceptance. As Goodman points out, at least in this case, it is quite harmful, not only to the health of the philosophy in society, but to individuals themselves.