FAQ: Objections & Clarifications (new)

This page clarifies the most common misunderstandings about the Left-Female Equivalence, or LFE. For a brief introduction to the theory, begin with Start Here. For definitions of its main concepts, see the Glossary.

I. Does the LFE claim that all women are leftist—and is it merely the voting gender gap?
II. What counts as a natural female preference?
III. Why not simply say that female interests influence leftism—and does the equivalence imply conscious female control?
IV. Why speak of “leftism”—and are so-called far-left movements more leftist?
V. Is a predominantly female domain automatically leftist?
VI. Is the Left-Female Equivalence a circular theory?
VII. What would weaken the LFE?
VIII. Do rightisms coincide with anti-leftism?
IX. Is the LFE a normative theory—and does leftism necessarily benefit women?

I. Does the LFE claim that all women are leftist—and is it merely the voting gender gap?

No. The voting gender gap is a direct consequence of the LFE, not the theory itself.

More generally, the LFE does not reduce femininity to biological sex alone. First, because no woman embodies the totality of natural female interests and behaviors. Second, because individual variability guarantees that some men are more feminine than some women, and vice versa. The LFE thus predicts that the preferences of leftist men correspond more closely to female preferences than those of non-leftist men. Sometimes, even more closely than those of non-leftist women.

The existence of so-called strongly leftist traits illustrates this idea. These are natural female traits adopted more frequently by leftist men than by right-wing women. In survey form, such a trait often follows the pattern:

left-wing women > left-wing men > right-wing women > right-wing men

In that case, political orientation, that is feminine values according to the LFE, clearly outweighs biological sex. This is why the LFE fully accepts the distinction between sex and gender.

Several American datasets confirm this pattern, using Republican and Democratic identification as an imperfect but useful approximation of rightism and leftism. This is the case, for example, with the belief that women still face significant obstacles to advancement, the principle that the decision to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman, and support for gun control. Even more amusingly, skepticism toward male-only social spaces is a strongly leftist trait… just like heightened support for their female analogues.

II. What counts as a natural female preference?

Une préférence féminine est une préférence, un intérêt, un comportement ou une sensibilité qui appartient à la féminité naturelle : quelque chose que les femmes désirent ou tendent à préférer en moyenne. Il peut s’agir d’un objet, d’une activité, d’un hobbie, ou encore d’une exigence envers elles-mêmes ou l’autre sexe.

De plus, une préférence peut très bien être représentée à part égale chez les hommes et chez les femmes. La préférence serait alors à la fois masculine et féminine, donc, au niveau sociétal, (génériquement) droitiste et gauchiste. Dans ce cas, l’EGF n’expliquerait alors pas grand chose : si tout le monde s’accorde sur une préférence, alors il n’y a aucun besoin d’invoquer la féminité pour expliquer les décisions des société socio-libérales qui institutionnalisent cette préférence universelle.

C’est pour cette raison que les écarts de préférences entre hommes et femmes sont instructifs. Même lorsqu’une préférence n’est pas adoptée ou soutenue par une majorité de femme, s’il existe un écart significatif entre homme et femme, alors il est possible que cette préférence soit effectivement avantagée par le gauchisme. Notamment, parce que les comportemenst féminins sont moins variables que ceux masculins. Résultat, un comportement présent chez une part significative des femmes, tend à l’être chez une majorité de femmes, bien qu’à des degrès divers.

Quant au terme naturel, il désigne les préférences qui se révèlent dans des environnements relativement peu contraints, c’est-à-dire dans des sociétés riches, libres et sûres. L’environnemnet compte donc. C’est par exemple le cas des désordre psychologiques : ce sont ceux féminins qui accompagnent la gauchisation.

III. Why not simply say that female interests influence leftism?

Because the claim that female interests merely influence leftism is too weak.

To say that female interests influence leftism would be to make them one factor among others, on the same level as economic, religious, or national interests. The LFE claims much more: in an ideally leftized society, there is a perfect correspondence between female preferences and leftism.

Conversely, if leftism grants more empathy to suffering people than to accomplished people, the LFE invites us to look for a corresponding female trait. In this case, a tendency to value suffering for its own sake rather than for the reaction to it. The trait thus inferred must then be confirmed independently rather than deduced solely from its political expression.

Cette thèse plus forte n’implique toutefois pas que les femmes aient consciemment conçu chaque loi, chaque marché ou chaque norme culturelle gauchiste. L’EGF décrit une équivalence structurelle, non un complot ni un projet politique coordonné de manière centralisée.

Les préférences féminines peuvent s’institutionnaliser par le vote, la demande des consommateurs, la production culturelle, les incitations bureaucratiques, les décisions judiciaires, la sollicitude masculine ou la sélection progressive de normes héritées. Une loi peut même devenir gauchiste par sa simple persistance, puis par son évolution ultérieure, alors même qu’elle avait initialement été adoptée pour des raisons entièrement différentes. L’origine historique d’une règle ne détermine donc pas son orientation politique au sens de l’EGF.

L’EGF ne prétend pas non plus expliquer l’histoire complète ni le calendrier précis de chaque décision politique. Les contraintes économiques, la technologie, les institutions, la religion, les guerres et les intérêts concurrents continuent d’influencer les résultats politiques. L’équivalence décrit l’ordre atteint à la limite gauchiste, ainsi que la direction dans laquelle les sociétés socio-libérales tendent à évoluer.

IV. Why speak of “leftism”—and are so-called far-left movements more leftist?

Very concretely, because social liberalism and progressivism belong to the political family conventionally identified with the left. The use of the term leftism acknowledges the continuity between this political family and the abstract limit toward which social-liberal societies appear to converge.

This terminology is also justified by a deeper reason. Because of the asymmetries of homogeneity and solidarity between the sexes, female preferences aggregate more easily than male preferences. They therefore form a relatively unified political pole. Male preferences, by contrast, remain more heterogeneous and give rise to several competing political expressions. Hence leftism is singular, whereas rightisms are plural.

Movements conventionally described as far left are not necessarily closer to ideal leftism in the LFE sense. Marxism, radical environmentalism, radical feminism, and similar movements rationalize an isolated part of femininity and apply it systematically beyond its natural range. Yet this radical rationalization is a typically masculine behavior. These movements therefore emerge through the masculinization of a female preference.

They consequently combine a female preference with a typically masculine mode of rationalization. Because that preference is pushed beyond its natural range, the resulting system no longer faithfully expresses natural femininity; and because rationalization is not itself a particular male interest, it is not automatically rightist either. The LFE describes such generalized hybridizations as communisms. Moving further toward the conventional far left does not therefore imply moving closer to ideal leftism.

V. Is a predominantly female domain automatically leftist?

No. Strictly speaking, what is leftist is not an activity or domain in itself, but the treatment that socio-liberal societies reserve for it. This political treatment is classified according to its alignment with natural female interests and behaviors, rather than according to the demographic composition of the domain concerned.

An activity can therefore be mostly, or even exclusively, practiced by women without itself being leftist. This is notably the case with prostitution, grid girls, and trade-show hostesses. These activities primarily respond to male preferences because they embody a form of femininity shaped by the male gaze. Favoring them would therefore be generically rightist.

Conversely, an activity can be mostly practiced or consumed by men and still be leftist. Electric and autonomous vehicles, for example, are still bought disproportionately by men. Their favorable political treatment nevertheless expresses natural female interests in safety, comfort, and environmental protection, all of which are more feminine than masculine. Socio-liberal parties and left-wing media are likewise mostly led by men, yet still give respond to female preferences. They are therefore leftist in the sense of the LFE.

Even norms imposed on men should converge toward female preferences. In aesthetic norms, for example, the gradual decline of suit-and-tie seems to reflect a female preference for smart or business-casual attire. Likewise, virtually no leftist politicians nowadays wear thick beards, which seems, here too, to reflect a female preference for clean-shaven faces or controlled stubble.

VI. Is the Left-Female Equivalence a circular theory?

Like every equivalence, the LFE can be used circularly if used carelessly. If leftism is identified only from femininity, and femininity only from leftism, the theory loses its explanatory value. To avoid this, the two sides of the equivalence must first be anchored independently, even if only roughly.

On the leftism side, this independent anchor is made possible by the leftward drift: independently of any claim about femininity, rich, free, and safe societies tend to converge toward similar laws, norms, markets, and political trade-offs. This convergence defines a limit-leftism that can be inferred without first invoking female preferences.

On the female side, the independent anchor is the study of female preferences themselves, through polls, market studies, scientific literature, consumption data, occupational choices, and aesthetic preferences. Even ordinary intuition is often enough, provided it is used cautiously.

It is only when these two independently identified sides coincide that the LFE proves correct. Three methods are possible for establishing this correspondence.

1. The first method is by direct verification. In this case, female preferences and political expressions are identified independently of one another. If the two coincide, the LFE is strengthened. If not, one side has to be revised.

   
   For example, women are on average attracted to introspective practices, emotional language, and various forms of therapy. Meanwhile, modern societies seem to be evolving precisely in a direction that gives ever greater importance to mental health, feelings, vulnerability, and so-called emotional intelligence. To the point of introducing empathy classes in schools.

2. The second method proceeds by deduction, from female preferences to leftism. This is often the most useful direction. When two preferences are clearly ordered on the female side, the LFE predicts that the corresponding political expressions should be ordered in the same way. If women prefer wine to beer, for example, socio-liberal societies should then treat wine more favourably than beer, whether in its public image, in scientific studies, or in the tax code.
   

   The LFE can thus explain, and even uncover, political asymmetries that would otherwise remain unexplained. And if no political translation yet preserves this female order, the LFE becomes predictive. This is precisely what makes the LFE above all a theory of leftism, rather than a theory of femininity.

3. The third method proceeds by induction, from leftism to female preferences. This is the most delicate direction. Sometimes a political asymmetry is clearer than its corresponding female preference. In such cases, the LFE can reveal a female trait that has not yet been properly measured. But this use does not validate itself. The trait thus inferred must then be confirmed independently, through data, observation, or other evidence.
   

   Socio-liberal societies, for example, tend to treat true crime with more indulgence than first-person shooter games. The female attraction to true crime may therefore not be a mere fashion trend, but the expression of a natural preference.

Avoiding circularity is not enough: the LFE must also avoid cherry-picking. This is why the deductive method is ideal. It identifies a female ordering without knowing in advance the corresponding leftist ordering on the societal side.

In any case, each side of the equivalence thus constrains the other, allowing the two sides to test and correct each other. This is how the LFE avoids becoming a circular and empty theory.

VII. What would weaken the LFE?

The LFE would be weakened if rich, free, and safe societies systematically converged toward laws, markets, and cultural norms that protect male preferences incompatible with female preferences. The mere protection of a male preference would not weaken the LFE, since that preference may also be female.

It would also be weakened if supposedly leftist political expressions repeatedly failed to correspond to any independently identifiable female preference.

Une divergence isolée ne suffirait pas, à elle seule, à réfuter l’EGF, puisque les sociétés existantes n’ont pas atteint le gauchisme idéal et demeurent façonnées par l’inertie historique, les intérêts concurrents et des contraintes politiques temporaires. En revanche, des échecs répétés dans plusieurs domaines indépendants et au sein de plusieurs sociétés convergentes ne pourraient être indéfiniment écartés comme de simples manifestations d’une gauchisation inachevée.

More concretely, the LFE would be severely weakened if socio-liberal societies began to dismantle one of the most important female preferences: the monopoly of pregnancy.

VIII. Do rightisms coincide with anti-leftism?

No. A rightism is the political expression of a specific masculine preference. By contrast, anti-leftism is defined exclusively by its opposition to leftism, independently of any affinity with masculinity.

This is the case, for example, with subsidizing female contraception. On the one hand, such a subsidy increases women’s control over conception, thereby strengthening the monopoly of pregnancy; on the other hand, it allows men to avoid unwanted fatherhood. Such a measure is therefore both leftist and rightist.

The same applies to a right to repair limited to tractors and industrial machinery. By strengthening private property and technical autonomy, this limited right to repair clearly satisfies a masculine preference. Yet the act of repairing also satisfies a female desire for preservation and waste reduction. The measure is therefore both rightist and leftist. It is not anti-leftist.

Conversely, a political decision can be anti-leftist without being rightist. Leftism, for example, taxes spirits more heavily than beer, and beer more heavily than wine. An anti-leftist inversion of this order would therefore tax wine more heavily than beer, and beer more heavily than spirits. Yet such an inversion would satisfy no masculine preference. It would merely mechanically invert a feminine preference.

More amusingly still, pushing this inversion to the extreme, by subsidizing spirits and beer but not wine, would end up becoming rather rightist. What would make it rightist here, then, is not the radicality of the inversion, but the fact that it would answer a masculine interest for beers and spirits.

IX. Is the LFE a normative theory—and does leftism necessarily benefit women? (relire/reprendre tout)

No. The LFE is primarily a descriptive and classificatory theory of politics. Calling a political expression leftist neither endorses nor condemns it. Likewise, calling a preference natural does not make it rational, healthy, or morally desirable.

Nor does the LFE imply that leftism always serves women’s interests, or even that it is necessarily favorable to them. After all, a natural behavior can very well harm the person who expresses it. Female preferences may also conflict with one another or impose costs on third parties.

The empirical question of whether a political expression is leftist must therefore be kept separate from the normative question of whether it ought to be adopted. The LFE, by itself, does not answer the latter.