Don't Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice

by Bryan Caplan, Ashruta Acharya (Editor)

Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and New York Times Bestselling author of Open Borders, The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, and The Case Against Education, blogged for EconLog from 2005-2022. His latest book combines an all-new piece, “Don’t Be a A Letter to My Daughter,” with the very best of his EconLog writings on the virtue – and perversion – of justice.
In the title essay, Caplan challenges the conventional view that we treat women less fairly than men. Men predominate at the bottom as well as the top of society. Performance gaps, not unfairness, are the best explanation. Feminism succeeds because it is society cares more when women suffer. Much more.
Later essays debunk the “woke” movement as an Orwellian program of uniformity and exclusion. The alternative is the Beckerian view that free markets foster genuine justice by rewarding employers who put bigotry aside. That is why even xenophobic employers often hire illegal immigrants. Blaming all men, whites, or immigrants for the sins of some is emotionally appealing but economically absurd.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Economics, Essays, Society

250 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 4, 2022

About the author

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He received his B.S. in economics from University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D. from Princeton University. His professional work has been devoted to the philosophies of libertarianism and free-market capitalism and anarchism. (He is the author of the Anarchist Theory FAQ.) He has published in American Economic Review, Public Choice, and the Journal of Law and Economics, among others. He is a blogger at the EconLog blog along with Arnold Kling, and occasionally has been a guest blogger at Marginal Revolution with two of his colleagues at George Mason, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. He is an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

Currently, his primary research interest is public economics. He has criticized the assumptions of rational voters that form the basis of public choice theory, but generally agrees with their conclusions based on his own model of "rational irrationality." Caplan has long disputed the efficacy of popular voter models, in a series of exchanges with Donald Wittman published by the Econ Journal Watch. Caplan outlined several major objections to popular political science and the economics sub-discipline public choice. Caplan later expanded upon this theme in his book The Myth of the Rational Voter (Princeton University Press 2007), in which he responded to the arguments put forward by Wittman in his The Myth of Democratic Failure.

He maintains a website that includes a "Museum of Communism" section, that "provides historical, economic, and philosophical analysis of the political movement known as Communism", to draw attention to human rights violations of which, despite often exceeding those of Nazi Germany, there is little public knowledge. Caplan has also written an online graphic novel called Amore Infernale.

Reviews

[Ndidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bryan Caplan is an American economist known for his contrarian views. This book is mainly a collection of pithy blog posts written over the last several years vaguely relating to the ideas of the "social justice" movement (which the author is generally against), plus one longer essay on feminism.

Well, Bryan Caplan did convince me to stop calling myself a feminist, and to appreciate that maybe women and girls aren't as badly off as I thought!

The rest of the book was more forgettable - partly because I already agree with many of Professor Caplan's views. But there were some witty lines and interesting ways of looking at things. I also like the cover art. I bought this as a paperback soon after it was published, and I'm glad I did.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One new essay (a good article to his own daughter re: why not to be a Feminist, from the perspective of better ways to accomplish the goals of equality, a good life, etc.), combined with ~50 previous blog posts and other essays (usually fairly short, 1-2 pages) covering a variety of topics, mostly from an economists and centrist-libertarian angle. One thing even his critics would probably give him -- he's consistent, applying the same principles to almost every situation, and the areas where I disagree with him the most are also consistent (ignoring the political effects of immigration, and assuming that incremental people do in fact ~almost always have positive net value, even in a political system with universal voting, a high degree of public support, limited rights of private property, etc.)

I'd probably read just the first essay and skip the rest/read them selectively on his blog, rather than reading every one of them (which I did for some reason...sunk cost fallacy applied...). It's a good argument, but I wish it didn't come packaged in a book of mostly filler.

[Yash Arya]

What is Feminism?
The title essay of the book is addressed as a letter by Caplan to his young daughter, to be read when she's old enough to understand it. This essay starts with the an extremely clear definition and methodology.

"To start, what is “feminism”? Many casually define it as “the view that men and women should be treated equally” or even “the radical notion that women are people.” However, virtually all non-feminists in the United States believe exactly the same thing. In this careful 2016 survey, for example, only 33% of men said they were feminists, yet 94% of men agreed that “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals.”
So what? Well, the whole point of a definition is to distinguish one concept from all the others. Any sensible definition of feminism must therefore specify what feminists believe that non-feminists disbelieve."

"What then is a reasonable definition – a definition that identifies the central point of contention between feminists and non-feminists? Something like this: Feminism is the view that society generally treats men more fairly than women."

This is a superior definition because unlike the former definition, it's the one that feminists will broadly agree with, and non-feminists will broadly disagree with.

I can confirm that this definition is compatible with the one in the books We Should All Be Feminists and Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics.

Should We All be Feminists?
Upshot: You should be a feminist if and only if society generally treats men more fairly than women. So does it? This is a complex, confusing question, but we can credibly answer it. How? The best way to tackle complex, confusing questions, as I’ve taught you, is to break them into simpler, clearer steps. Here are the steps I propose.
Step 1: List the main ways that society appears to treat women less fairly than men – and the main ways that society appears to treat men less fairly than women.
Step 2: Weigh the extent to which these fairness gaps are genuine, by correcting for gender gaps in actual performance.
Step 3: Aggregate all the performance-corrected gaps from Step 2.

Skipping step 2 would lead to: "Assuming that if outcomes are unequal, society is unfair." (Which Thomas Sowell refers to as the "Social Justice Vision")

But unequal outcomes for unequal performance/choices isn't proof of unfairness, so our methodology needs to adjust for this.

"To assess feminism, we cannot merely list gender inequalities; we have to figure out why these inequalities exist.
If this sounds hard, it is. Fortunately, I belong to an intellectual discipline that knows how to handle questions like these. My discipline, as you recall, is economics. Our standard approach to gender disparities is to use statistics to compare the results for men and women with identical non-gender traits."

I should add that this would only validate the central feminist concern. Whether their solutions would have the intended effect of uplifting women is a separate matter.

Step 1: List the main ways both the sexes are treated more unfairly
Some important ways in which society appears to treat women more unfairly.
a. Men make more money than women.
b. Men are overrepresented at the top levels of business, government, science, and beyond.
c. Men do much less childcare and housework than women.
d. Non-custodial fathers provide little financial or parental support for their children.
e. Men are the perpetrators, and women are the victims, of the vast majority of sexual violence.
f. Men view women as “sex objects.”

Some important ways in which society appears to treat men more unfairly.
a. Men are overrepresented at the bottom levels of society. They do most of the nasty, dangerous work, are much more likely to be homeless or imprisoned, and much more likely to kill themselves.
b. Men spend much more time on the job than women.
c. The law heavily favors women in child custody and child support disputes.
d. Men are more likely to be victims of violent crime.
e. Men are much more likely to die in combat; in fact, during serious military conflicts, they face military slavery (“the draft”).
f. Women view men as “success objects.”

Step 2: Weigh the extent to which these fairness gaps are a result of oppression vs of different choices and performance
Read chapter 1 of the book for details on this step.

Step 3: Aggregating Unfairness
In the context of at least Western countries, Caplan says:
"What then is the big picture? The fairness of the treatment that men and women receive in our society is remarkably equal. And if there is a disparity, it is probably in women’s favor. This is especially true if we ponder one last gender gap: Men endure far more false accusations of unfairness than women do – and far more intimidation to stay silent or feign agreement in the face of false accusations."

Moving From Problems to Solutions.
Regardless of whether a society is net unfair towards women or men, simply identifying this doesn't yet prove the effectiveness of one's solutions. See:

1. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
2. Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell
3. "Economic Freedom by the Numbers" by LearnLiberty (YouTube)
- Higher economic freedom (i.e. more capitalistic policies) leads to: less unemployment, higher incomes, less poverty, less income inequality, less gender inequality, and less child labor. So socialist solutions that lower economic freedom do not pass the smell test.
4. The Economics of Discrimination

The Economics of Discrimination (Gary Becker)
Later in the book, Caplan poses the following question.

When you see that almost all garbage collectors are male, for example, what should you conclude? Perhaps women and men are equally able and interested in collecting garbage, but employers in the industry dislike women. Perhaps male garbage collectors don’t like working alongside women. Or perhaps customers don’t want women to touch their trashcans. Alternately, perhaps men are better at collecting garbage than women. (Statistically!) Or maybe women dislike this line of work more than men. (Again, statistically!) One of these stories might be the whole truth; all five could have some merit; or anything in between.

"One of the main insights of this Beckerian framework is that discrimination creates profit opportunities. That includes employer-on-worker discrimination, worker-on-worker discrimination, and consumer-on-worker discrimination. If most employers dislike workers in group X, depressing their wages below their productivity, employers who feel differently can profit by hiring them. If most workers dislike workers in group X, similarly, employers can profit by giving the disliked workers “a firm of their own.” If most consumers dislike workers in group X, employers can profit by keeping disfavored workers out of the public eye. This doesn’t mean that market forces transform bigots into models of tolerance, though perhaps they do that too. What the Beckerian framework implies, rather, is that market forces help neutralize bigotry’s effects. With the right incentives and strategies, intolerance can be both prevalent and impotent."

This relates back to one of his observations in the first chapter regarding claims about a Gender Pay Gap.
"If it were really true that women were paid, say, 20% less than equally productive men, every business would have a no-brainer get-rich-quick strategy: Fire all your men and replace them with women, cutting labor costs by up to 20%. If this strategy really worked, it would have swept the economy ages ago. Why complain about “unfairness” when you can become a billionaire by counteracting it?"

In Conclusion: Should We All Be Feminists?
Contrary to the message of popular feminist books, Caplan would argue that we shouldn't all be feminists. We should only be feminists:
1. In a society where women are treated more unfairly than men.
2. If feminist solutions actually uplift women (and people in general).

The answer to 1 isn't the same across all countries, and the answer to 2 isn't the same across all of feminist literature (which is dominantly anti-capitalist).

In my view, Socialist Feminism is anti-woman and anti-human. Capitalist feminism is redundant since all of its benefits come from capitalism. We should all be capitalists - to uplift both women and men.

If you prefer to hold on to another label, so be it. But ask yourself: why should the label be feminism instead of, say, "masculinism"? If the answer is "because women were/are treated more unfairly than men in this country", then this is at best a contingent label that may change across time and place. Will you call yourself a feminist in one country and a masculinist in another? Will you call yourself a feminist today, and if the scales were to tilt in the other direction, a masculinist tomorrow? Can you honestly promise yourself that you'll remain objective throughout? Or will life get in the way and prevent you from updating your label as time changes?

Instead, why not adopt a label that always refers to the desired ideal instead of the current deviation from the ideal? I contend that this label is "capitalist" or "classical liberal." Try to understand for yourself what capitalism is and why it's the best/only system to promote the flourishing of all people regardless of their sex, race, ethnicity, etc.

So if someone asks me "are you a feminist?", here's my reply: I am a capitalist. I'm an advocate of a complete, unhampered, free-market capitalism. I believe in each person's inalienable right to their life, liberty, and private property. I believe every interaction between adults must be by mutual consent (legally) and to mutual benefit (ethically). I believe that the only legitimate function of a voluntarily funded government is to protect people and their private property against acts/threats of coercion (violence/fraud). Is your definition of feminism compatible with this view? If so, then you may call me a feminist.

Selected quotes
The essays in the rest of the book are more broadly about Social Justice, and not necessarily about feminism in particular. But they do address much of the same kind of mindset.

Stand up for the truth, but politely: Every child knows the basics of politeness. Talk nicely. Don’t yell. Don’t call names. Listen and respond to what people literally say. Don’t personally insult people. Don’t take generalizations personally. If someone’s meaning is unclear, don’t put words in his mouth; ask him to clarify. And of course, don’t escalate. If someone’s impolite, the polite response is to end the conversation, not respond in kind.

Choose intellectual honesty: If someone politely tells you you’re wrong, you should listen carefully and calmly. In a word, rationally. If someone angers you, you should strive to treat them carefully and calmly. In a word, justly. Some feminists may dismiss rationality and justice as “male” virtues, but that’s one of the greatest insults to women even uttered. Rationality is not a male virtue. Justice is not a male virtue. They are human virtues. And I trust you will practice them. After all, Vali, you are my daughter.

"What’s wrong with the best feminists, in short, is that they casually accept the conventional view that women’s suffering counts much more than men’s – and interpret their impressive knowledge through that] distorted lens."

Below is a good visual representation of this quote which is especially true in Western countries.

Source: @BrianAtlas on X

Avoid argumentative definitions: "Suppose I define socialism as, “a system of totalitarian control over the economy, leading inevitably to mass poverty and death.” As a detractor of socialism, this is superficially tempting. But it’s sheer folly ... What’s the problem? The problem is that I’ve provided an
argumentative definition of socialism. Instead of rigorously distinguishing between what we’re talking about and what we’re saying about it, an argumentative definition deliberately interweaves the two."

Other examples: To define feminism in terms of misandry, or to define anti-feminism in terms of misogyny. The definition itself only refer to "what we're talking about", not "what we're saying about it."

Criticize your own group first: "If you really want to improve your group’s image, telling other groups to stop stereotyping won’t work. The stereotype is based on the underlying distribution of fact. It is far more realistic to turn your complaining inward, and pressure the bad apples in your group to stop pulling down the average."

"Good intentions are not enough; if you really want to do good, you have to calmly weigh the actual consequences of your actions."

"This is going to be a great year starting today if you choose to make it great. And if you postpone happiness until society gets its act together, you’ll be waiting for a lifetime."

[Mehrnoosh Chamani · Rating 1 out of 5]

i just cant believe it! its all straw man.

[Lance Hillsinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t be fooled by the title. Don’t Be a Feminist, by economics professor Bryan Caplan is not a book about extreme feminism but is a collection of essays that examine issues, including gender inequality, from a fresh angle.

With respect to gender equality, Caplan points out that men greatly outnumber women in jail, that men are more likely to be victims of violent crime than women, and that men, but not women, must register for the draft. (Further, as an economics professor, Caplan must be aware that women consume more health dollars, but unlike car and life insurance, where men pay more, by law, women pay the same rate). Caplan correctly points out that gender inequalities that favor women get little play in academic circles.

In one chapter, Caplan deftly compares the loyalty oaths of the 60s with mandatory university pledges for diversity. Caplan moves beyond academia with far-ranging discussions on immigration, crowd behavior during natural disasters, and even circumcision. In a few chapters, he uses hypothetical dialog to make his point. His imaginary conversation between Socrates and Pericles about war should be required reading for high school students in Israel AND Palestine.

Some chapters, however, left this reviewer wanting. The points Caplan was trying to make were too academic or could have been made more forcefully. However, all chapters are quite short, so the occasional not-so-great chapter doesn’t take much of one’s time.

In conclusion, while the title is misleading and there are some so-so chapters, as a good professor should, Caplan makes the student (aka the reader) think.

[Paul Sand · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

I guess I'm a Bryan Caplan fanboy. I purchased this book (on dead trees) mostly just to show my support, because I've read nearly all its content over the years on the EconLog blog. He has since moved on to his own Substack, Bet On It. But most of the stuff here seems timeless.

("We are living in the future" aside: I ordered the book from on September 12 of last year, and the back page informs me the book was printed on September 12. Very cool.)

The lead essay here, "Don't Be a Feminist", is apparently new, though. It's an open letter to Caplan's daughter, Valeria. He takes on (for example) the male/female "wage gap" shibboleth, with the standard observation: if you control for relevant variables, most of the "gap" vanishes. Other examples of how women are treated unfairly because of sexism are discussed and debunked. Provocative!

Other than the initial essay, the articles collected here are mostly short and (seemingly) translated mechanically from the original blog posts. Links have been converted to footnotes. At one point (page 211) we're instructed to "prove me wrong in the comments". I noticed a missing-word typo on page 143 ("If you wisely try to get out Dodge…") which was in the original blog post. (Amusingly, it was quoted verbatim by Ilya Somin at the Washington Post, Reason magazine, and the Foundation for Economic Education.) If I notice one, I assume there are more.

Typos are inevitable on a blog. I assume I have accumulated hundreds over the years. I keep noticing them anyway. But… come on, it's a book. That I spent money for.

Caplan's viewpoints are firmly in the libertarian camp. I'm (therefore) very sympathetic. I remain not totally convinced by some of his opinions. He's a fervent backer of open borders; I'm dubious. He is a thoroughgoing pacifist; I suspect that pacifism is an impractical course for a country that doesn't want its citizenry to be dominated and oppressed by less-pacifistic aggressors. On a related matter, he's an ardent anti-nationalist; which is fine in theory, but not much use in navigating the world as it is.

Or I could be wrong. Because I realize that Caplan's arguments are pretty good even when I disagree.

I reported on Caplan's previous blog dumps here and here. His books are also very good; see here, here, and here.

[Dhananjay Tomar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only 33% of men said they were feminists, yet 94% of men agreed that “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals.”
If you're a feminist (which I guess most of my friends are) and wanna understand what seems like a discrepancy in the statement above, then read the 1st essay in the book. It's usually a good exercise to listen to the other side every once in a while.

With that being said, this book is actually not about feminism except for the very first essay and some reference to feminism in the next few essays...so maybe 20-25% of the book is about feminism. The rest is about Bryan's views on various topics like open borders, free markets, libertarianism and so on.

I wasn't sure if I should rate it as a 3-star book or a 4-star one, but since some chapters were thought-provoking, I think 3 stars are not justified (personally for me).

I disagree with a lot of things he says in the book, and I'd have preferred references, especially for the first essay, but this book is mostly philosophical in nature anyway.

[Aayush Kucheria · Rating 5 out of 5]

As recommended elsewhere, reading the first essay here should be enough if one is looking for Caplan’s core arguments for why not to be a feminist. The essay is titled “Don’t be a feminist: A letter to my daughter.”

Sometimes he’s a bit harsh, but I generally quite like and agree with his points. A core difficulty I have with this topic is figuring out how to disagree with the feminist movement while still letting especially my female friends know that I care deeply about them and their experiences. Discounting the former doesn’t imply discounting the latter. Some stupid examples being you don’t have to be an EA to care about impact or a rationalist to care about the truth. The former are simply one of the many lenses to look at the latter.

My current plan is to trust actions where I cannot words. Maybe it’s easy to show people you care for them (the way they want you to care for them) rather than tell them you do. I don’t know, let’s see.

[Fin Moorhouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

The titles of Caplan's other two recent essay collections are a little corny, but this one is more egregious: given that the contents are varied and thoughtful and mostly not screeds against the foundations of feminism, it's mildly embarassing to display or talk about a book called "Don't Be a Feminist", and I expect more people will be put off from reading it who'd benefit from reading it than readers reeled in by intrigue.

Title aside: this is another few dozen of Bryan's selected EconLog blog posts, this time focused around social issues like discrimination. They're mostly compelling, and always clear.

[Alexej Gerstmaier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lacks overarching structure due to it being a collection of essays, but some of the individual essays are very good.

"Laws against discrimination really are like laws against burning money; a witch-hunt against an offense that, properly measured, barely exists."

"One of the best ways to help impulsive people reach decent long-run outcomes is to give them a lot of strong short-term feedback" <-- need to figure out how to give myself strong short term feedback

[Frazt Des · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title, only about 25% of this books is about feminism, the rest is about open borders, free markets and various essays of Bryan Caplan. Though those 25% are quite good, especially recommended for those who think you have to be some right-wing, uneducated asshole to oppose feminism, the author shows that this is not necessary the case.

[Manish · Rating 4 out of 5]

The eponymous essay must be essential reading for everyone grappling with the terror of 'Diversity and Inclusion'. Caplan makes some sharp arguments primarily by mentioning that the hardships faced by men - homicides, dangerous jobs etc blunt many of the positions taken by feminists.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A week ago, I thought I was a feminist. Now, I'm not so sure

In this collection of essays, Bryan Caplan convincingly argues against many positions that are taken for granted, on the left and the right. It's refreshingly candid and clear, an easy and enjoyable read.

[Mark Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

refreshing and thought provoking

This is written in a friendly manner that is easy to read. This collection of several essays entertains with each offering an interesting viewpoint. It won’t hurt you. I got some good ideas to ponder.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bryan is one of my favorite thinkers, and I enjoyed this book immensely.

[Akash Goel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The article on feminism was fine, most of the other ones bundled here however were quite irrelevant.

[Brittany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Link to review to come.

[Nicolas S Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caplan is one of the few public intellectuals who thinks out of the box. Unfortunately, feminist dogma still dominates, and Caplan does a good job of debunking it.