"Treat women like women ..."

That is from Ann Althouse. Here is a bit more of what she had to say:

You know, it's fine with me if we just start treating women like people. We women are not a team. And this isn't a game. 

The larger context is about partisan politics which I don't discuss here but if you want to read it here is the link.

The important issue for me is "treat women like people". It seems to me that the primary reason that second generation feminism has faded is because it has the problem Althouse identifies here. Women are people and not a class of people with shared interests, except the interest in being treated like people that we all have. (The same can, and should be, said about different racial groups.)

By the way, want to read something really subversive? Here it is:  If women really want to be free, they need to recognize that other women are their rivals. Do you know where you can see this truth most clearly demonstrated? In Chick lit.  Pick up any four or five novels by Sophie Kinsella or Emily Giffin. In every case the heroine solves her problems by recognizing that her best friend forever is actually a rival. Is actually someone she cannot trust with her every secret and hope.

It's one of the few advantages men still have over women. No one is telling us we should form some deep emotional bind with other men just because they are also men.