Experience and its Modes: A Method of Analysis for Conservative Feminists
Feminism and conservatism are not two spheres of thought that are seen as complimentary to each other. It is not without good reason. Recognition of, and opposition to, the structure of patriarchy is essential to the typical mode of analysis found in modern feminist thought. There are, of course, many methods of feminist analysis. Viewing the power dynamics between the patriarchy and women as a class is by far one of the most popular in modern western society. By the nature of conservatives wishing to conserve traditions, institutions and ideas that are seen as patriarchal by feminists, there can be no way to bridge to gap between conservatives and feminists. There have been attempts to bridge this gap in the United States. These attempts have never caught on in the way traditional left wing feminism has. They have also failed to be meaningfully conservative and instead fall into the category of Libertarianism. These movements do not espouse conservative values, they espouse values and ideas that are more accurately described as liberal rather than conservative.
Is it the case that conservatism and feminism will be forever in opposition to each other? What is needed for there to be a bridging of this gap is a new method of analysis that can reconcile the conservative need for tradition with the feminist need to criticise gendered injustices. Conservative philosophy has always been at its best when it has looked to the past and synthesised and systemised preexisting ideas. I will now tentatively attempt to provide a synthesis of thought by focusing on the work of the conservative figure Michael Oakeshott.
Michael Oakeshott was a 20th Century conservative British philosopher. His most famous work ‘Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays’ criticised the notion of fixed ideologies and naive rationalism that he believed pervaded politics at the time. I shall be focusing on ‘Experience and its Modes’ as providing the means to bridge the gap between feminism and conservatism. Experience and its Modes puts forward the idea that the way we examine the world always has us look through a particular mode, i.e that we always have a perspective with preexisting assumptions. We give these perspectives names. We have the mode of natural science, the mode of history, the mode of aesthetics and so on. These modes are essential to us being able to analyse but they also constrain us. We cannot meaningfully analyse how beautiful a painting is by talking about it historically. We cannot use the empirical methods of natural science to discuss the nature of Alexander the Great’s character. It’s here that a bridge can be built to feminism.
We cannot meaningfully have a ‘true’ view of society, gender or traditions while we view the world through the mode of ‘man’ or ‘woman’. The experiences we receive through these modes are different and the assumptions from each mode of experience are entirely different. What Oakeshott failed to recognise is the fact that gendered modes of experience exist. When talking about modes I can only analyse them through the presumptions that occur either due to my gendered socialisation or my biological nature. These different modes of experience bring up the fact that there are long built up gendered traditions that came about due to gendered modes. This sets the foundation to conservative feminism.
Conservative feminism therefore becomes a method of analysis based on preserving traditions, values and ideas that have come from the female mode. The mode of analysis formalises a preexisting critique of contemporary feminism of ‘destroying what it means to be a woman’, ‘turning women into men’ or even ‘leading women into subsuming patriarchal values’. It adds a simple Burkean structure about the preservation of the female tradition as something worth defending.
This is distinct from traditional conservatism in that it recognises the information gap between men and women on the subject of their own gender and forces meaningful dialogue and synthesis between male and female values in the public sphere. It requires women to exclude men from conversations about what they should fight for. It is not something for the equality of all. Feminism is by women, for women in spite of men. This can only be done by women because they are the ones who meaningfully hold their own traditions. This changes the basic nature of feminist analysis towards one that is genuinely focused on a positive notion of ‘womanhood’ that is defined by women rather than men, rather than a mode which only talks of oppression.
