Breve storia del femminismo

Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today – Christina Hoff Sommers

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Punti chiave: – il movimento ha ottenuto i suoi risultati finché l’alleanza tra radicali e moderate ha tenuto, poi è diventato qualcosa di folkloristico se non di dannoso – un movimento che nasce come borghese – il ruolo chiave delle storiche femministe moderate, religiose e tradizionaliste – Le tre ondate del femminismo (voto, lavoro, rivoluzione) e le due ideologie  alla base (radicalismo e maternalismo) – tradizioni moralistico evangeliche del femminismo americano – le radicali disprezzano le moderate ma non possono farne a meno, senza di loro non si combina nulla – perché votano contro le donne che votano contro l’eguaglianza – cosa pensa la femminista tradizionalista?: l’angelo del focolare merita di più – le femministe conservatrici di ieri, oggi muse del femminismo islamico – le tradizionaliste sentono puzza di bruciato: perchè fissare per legge diritti che stanno emergendo spontaneamente? Evidentemente per procedere a militarizzare la società –  atteggiamento moderato: ora le donne hanno qualche opportunità in più – le radicali sconfitte: si isolano nell’accademia e sognano la rivoluzione – alle donne non piace lavorare. Che si fa? Si censura? – le differenze fra i sessi sono più pronunciate nelle società avanzate che in quelle primitive – le conservatrici si ritirano e le radicali si prendono il movimento – la nuova tesi: esiste un sistema per opprimere la donna, occorre la rivoluzione – Marx sugli scudi del neofemminismo – il neofemminismo punta tutto su propaganda e militanza – la via di uscita per ogni obiezione: gli stereotipi (una nuova versione della falsa coscienza marxiana) – il movimento diventa partito: il trasversalismo è tabù – Come riformare il movimento? Rimettere al centro: 1) la ragione 2) la felicità della donna 3) le differenze reali tra i sessi 4) il maschio, che non è un nemico a prescindere 5) l’apoliticità e la trasversalità  – il movimento femminista offre oggi un ambiente altamente ostile alla diversità –

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1 FEMINIST FOREMOTHERS: THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES

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Feminism originated in the eighteenth century European Enlightenment amid the growth of a self-reliant middle class.

Note:LE ORIGINI BORGHESI DEL MOVIMENTO

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Egalitarian feminism was progressive, individualistic, and, in the view of many contemporaries of both sexes, radical. It regarded women as independent agents rather than wives and mothers, and aimed to liberate them through appeals to universal rights.

Note:FEMMINISMO EGALITARIO

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Maternal feminism, by contrast, was traditionalist and family-centered. It embraced rather than rejected women’s established roles as homemakers, caregivers, and providers of domestic tranquility.

Note:FEMMINISMO MATERNALISTICO

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Thanks to both modes of feminism, Western women now have the same rights and opportunities as men. But, as maternal feminists have always insisted, free women seldom aspire to be just like men; rather, they employ their freedom in distinctive ways and for distinctive purposes.

Note:DIFFERENZA

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: THE FIRST FEMINIST PHILOSOPHER

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A rebel and revolutionary thinker, Wollstonecraft believed that women were as intelligent as men and as worthy of respect. Her manifesto, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792,

Note:UNA RIBELLE

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In 1776, Abigail Adams famously wrote to her husband, John, urging him and his colleagues in the Continental Congress to “remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”

Note:IL FEMMINISMO PRECEDENTE… APPELLO ALLA BONTÁDELL’UOMO

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Reason, she said, demanded that women possess the same rights as men.

Note:APPELLO ALLA DEA RAGIONE

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Wollstonecraft, like most political radicals of her time, was a great admirer of the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Note:ISPIRATORE: ROUSSEAU E I FILOSOFI RADICALI

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According to Rousseau, “Woman is specially made for man’s delight.” Women, he explained, were not merely different from men—but inferior.

Note:ANCHE SE SUL TEMA ROUSSEAU AVEVA IDEE DIFFERENTI

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Hirsi Ali writes of being “inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft, the pioneering feminist thinker who told women they had the same ability to reason as men did and deserved the same rights.”

Note:EPIGONI

HANNAH MORE AND THE BLUESTOCKINGS

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If Wollstonecraft is the founder of egalitarian feminism, More is the founder of maternal feminism. More was a religiously inspired, self-made woman who became an intellectual peer of several of the most accomplished men of her age.

Note:IL FERRP DI LANCIA DEL FEMMINISMO MATERNALE

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More was a friend and admirer of Burke, a close friend of Samuel Johnson and Horace Walpole, and an indispensable ally and confidante to William Wilberforce, a father of British abolitionism.

Note:ISPIRATA DAI CONSERVATORI

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More was a British patriot and a champion of constitutional monarchy, and an admirer of Burke, but she was no defender of the status quo. Writing at the height of the Evangelical Revival, she was one of those calling for revolutionary change—not in politics, but in morals. In her novels and pamphlets, she sharply reproached members of the upper classes for their amorality, hedonism, indifference to the poor, and tolerance of the crime of slavery.

Note:MORALISTA DI FERRO

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Historians have referred to More as a “bourgeois progressivist,” a “Christian capitalist,” “Burke for beginners,” and the “first Victorian,” but she was also the first maternal feminist.

Note:DEFINIZIONI

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she believed the sexes were significantly different in their propensities, aptitudes, and preferences, but she was a great proponent of empowered femininity.

Note:DIFFERENZA TRA I SESSI

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It is hard to overstate the positive impact on the fate of women of the widespread volunteerism preached by More.

Note:IMPATTO

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Fortunately, her ideals and her style of feminism are well represented in the novels of Jane Austen…Austen’s heroes—men like Mr. Darcy, Captain Wentworth, and Mr. Knightley—esteem female strength, rationality, and intelligence…

Note:JANE AUSTEN S’ISPIRA A LEI

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Egalitarian feminists like Wollstonecraft (and later John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor) are enshrined in the present-day canon of feminists, but they never attracted a very large following among the rank and file of women of their time.

Note:INEFFICACIA DEI RADICALI

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Hate is the right word. The influential Marxist social historian E. P. Thompson accused More of fear mongering and brainwashing the working class. In one memorable 1975 attack, another radical historian calls her a “necrophiliac . . . opportunist.”

Note:LA PIÚ ODIATA… MA INDISPENSABILE

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Kowaleski-Wallace speaks for many of her sister theorists when she describes More as a case study of “patriarchal complicity”

Note:COMPLICE DEL NEMICO

FRANCES WILLARD: “SAINT FRANCES OF AMERICAN WOMANHOOD”

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Willard served as president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) from 1879 until her death in 1898.

Note:UN’ALTRA MORALISTA A 18 CARATI

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under Willard’s inspired leadership, the WCTU developed into a powerful and effective movement that promoted causes as diverse as prison reform, child welfare, and care for the disabled in addition to suffrage and temperance.

Note:LE CAUSE TIPICHE A CUI SI DEDICÓ LA MORALISTA

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In 1895, Massachusetts held a referendum on women’s suffrage: both men and women were allowed to vote. The initiative lost, with 187,000 voting against the franchise and 110,000 in favor…why, given the opportunity, didn’t women flock to the polls in support of their right to vote?…

Note:PERCHE’ VOTANO CONTRO LE DONNE CHE VOTANO CONTRO

Anthony and her co-author offered an answer in their 1902 history of women’s suffrage: “In the indifference, the inertia, the apathy of women lies the greatest obstacle to their enfranchisement.”

Note:REAZIONI ALLA PROPOSTA FEMMINISTA DELLE RADICALI: TIMORE, INERZIA E DISINTERESSE

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Degler and other historians believe that because the vote was associated with individualism and personal assertiveness, many women saw it as selfish and an attack on their unique and valued place in the family.

Note:VOTO ASSOCIATO AL RADICALISMO

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The companionate marriages described by Jane Austen were the American domestic ideal. Alexis de Tocqueville commented on the essential equality of the male and female spheres in Democracy in America (1840).

Note:LE DONNE SI SENTONO GIÀ EGUALI

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If the American women’s movement was going to move forward, it needed new arguments and new ways of thinking that were more respectful and protective of women’s role. Frances Willard showed the way. Willard was proud of the woman’s role as the “angel in the house.” But why, she asked, limit these angels to the home?

Note:NUOVA LINFA PER IL FRONTE DEL MOVIMENTO

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Susan B. Anthony admired Willard; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a religious skeptic, was leery. Both were startled by Willard’s ability to attract unprecedented numbers of dedicated women…They formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association and elected Stanton president….

Note:L‘ALLEANZA

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Willard and her followers brought the suffrage movement something new and unfamiliar: electoral victories.

Note:VITTORIA

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When Willard died in 1898, her younger feminist colleague Carrie Chapman Catt remarked, “There has never been a woman leader in this country greater than nor perhaps so great as Frances Willard.”

Note:LA PIÙ GRANDE?

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Today’s women’s movement keeps its distance from Willard’s notion of feminine virtue and has little sympathy with her family-centered philosophy.

Note:DOPO: PRESA DI DISTANZE

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In her 1990 book, In Search of Islamic Feminism, the late Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, a University of Texas Middle Eastern studies professor, described a new style of feminism coming to life in the Muslim world. Traveling through Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, and Iraq, Fernea met great numbers of women’s advocates working to improve the status of women. There have always been Western-style egalitarian feminists in these countries, but they are few and tend to be found among the educated elites. The “Islamic feminists” Fernea met were different. They were traditional, religious, and family-centered—and they had a following among women from all social classes.

Note:MUSE DEL FEMMINISMO ISLAMICO

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Thomas Carlyle once ascribed the insights of genius to “cooperation with the real tendency of the world.”53 Like Hannah More before her, Frances Willard cooperated with the world

Note:IL GENIO PER CARLYLE

2 THE SECOND WAVE: SINCE 1960
THE GREAT CONVERGENCE

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According to popular wisdom, the great victories of second-wave women’s liberation were won by bra-burning, street-protesting radicals in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Note:LA VULGATA STEREOTIPATA

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the second wave actually began in the early 1960s and was moved by a coalition of Republican and Democratic women (and men). The radicals came later—after several landmark victories had been won.

Note:LA STORIA SI RIPETE ANCHE PER LA SECONDA ONDATA: RUOLO CHIAVE DEI CONSERVATORI.

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Basic employment laws were enacted in the early 1960s. The reformers were a group of Republican and Democratic female lawyers, commissioners, and legislators—mostly

Note: SE PRIMA ERA IL VOTO, ORA E’ IL MONDO DEL LAVORO

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Those who preferred paths other than wife and mother, and those who found the stereotypes of femininity stultifying, remained limited in their opportunities for fulfillment. These frustrations found a powerful voice in Betty Friedan’s bestselling 1963 manifesto, The Feminine Mystique.

Note:IL PROBLEMA AFFRONTATO DALLA SECONDA ONDATA

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courts were busy striking down one discriminatory state law after another. The Supreme Court, at the time all-male and Republican dominated, ruled that husbands could no longer hold complete control of community property (1971);

Note:L’AMBIZIONE DELLE RADICALE: ZERO DISCRIMINAZIONI INCOSTITUZIONE

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A coalition of conservatives, liberals, and radicals converged around the idea of amending the U.S. Constitution to guarantee women full equality with men. The proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first introduced to Congress in 1923, read simply: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Note:LA GRANDE COALIZIONE ANTI DISCRIMINATORIA

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ERA

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In the beginning, Republican leaders were as enthusiastic about the ERA as their Democratic counterparts, if not more so. Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford endorsed it.

Note:ENTUSIASMO ANCHE DA DESTRA

THE FORMIDABLE MRS. SCHLAFLY

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In a recent history of second-wave feminism, When Everything Changed, New York Times writer Gail Collins confirms Schlafly’s argument that the goals of the ERA had already been achieved. According to Collins, “[B]y the mid-70s, between the courts and the legislatures, most of the laws that the ERA was intended to vanquish had already been eliminated or neutralized.”70 Legislators were eager to pass the amendment, says Collins, because they viewed it as a gesture of goodwill toward women: it was symbolic rather than substantive.

Note: MA QUALCUNO  NON CI CASCA… PERCHE’ FISSARE IN COSTITUZIONE DIRITTI CHE STANNO EMERGENDO SPONTANEAMENTE

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But, as Schlafly showed, the ERA was much more than a symbol for its most ardent supporters: it was a blueprint for a radically new society.

Note:IL MARCHIO DEL RADICALISMO

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Much of the feminist literature, for example, took a dim view of women’s prevalence in the domestic sphere. In The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan had called the suburban home a “comfortable concentration camp”

Note:LA CUCINA COME CAMPO DI CONCENTRAMENTO

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Schlafly had a straightforward reply to the assault on housewives, which angered many feminists but rang true with great numbers of women.

Note:LA ROTTURA CON IL FEMMINISMO CONSERVATORE

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In a 1973 debate between Schlafly and Friedan over the ERA, an irate Friedan said to Schlafly, “I’d like to burn you at the stake.” The unflappable Schlafly advised audience members to take note of the “intemperate nature of proponents of the ERA.”

Note:SCLAFLY/FRIEDAN… LO SCONTRO

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Schlafly was certain that members of Congress and state legislatures had not meant to ratify Betty Friedan’s angry worldview or NOW’s increasingly radical agenda. She saw clearly that the amendment could be used in ways never dreamed of by its congressional supporters. The goal was radical egalitarianism. No exceptions. No compromise. She was determined to blow the whistle as loud as she could.

Note:INCONSAPEVOLEZZA DEL PARLAMENTO

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Her sense of humor and flair for political theater did not hurt either. She would create havoc at meetings with feminists by first saying, “I want to thank my husband Fred for letting me come.”

Note:”RINGRAZIO MIO MARITO PER AVERMI FATTO VENIRE”

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When Schlafly spoke to the state legislatures, ERA enthusiasm waned. For the first time, states began to vote the amendment down—Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma.

Note:EMENDAMENTO RESPINTO... VITTORIA DELLE MATERNALISTE

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The ERA campaign ended in the summer of 1982. Its champions had failed to garner enough votes, and the clock had run out. Schlafly’s genius was to figure out as early as 1972 that the forces behind the ERA did not represent American women. And, against all odds and with the unintended collaboration of the ERA forces, she prevailed.

Note:VITTORIA

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as historian Jane Mansbridge explains in Why We Lost the ERA, by the mid-seventies most feminist leaders held that “the ERA would require the military to send women draftees into combat on the same basis as men.” They did so, she says “because their ideology called for full equality with men, not for equality with exceptions.”

Note:L’IDEOLOGIA RADICALE DI UN PROVVEDIMENTO EGALITARIO SENZA ECCEZIONI VIENE SCONFITTO

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Once the hard egalitarian goals of the ERA were unmasked, the constitutional amendment was doomed to fail. And the one who unmasked them was the formidable Mrs. Schlafly, maternal feminist par excellence.

Note:LA SMASCHERATRICE

WOMEN UNDER FREEDOM

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It is time to leave the question of the role of women in society up to Mother Nature—a difficult lady to fool. You have only to give women the same opportunities as men,

Note:LA POSIZIONE DEL FEMMINISMO CONSERVATORE DOPO I PARI DIRITTI… CLARE BOOTHE LUCE

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By examining what women have and haven’t chosen to do, we can begin to discern who was closer to Mother Nature

Note:LA SCELTA

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gender roles persisted. Majorities of working mothers (62 percent) still “say they would prefer to work part time,” according to a 2009 Pew Research Center survey, which also found that “an overwhelming majority [of working fathers] (79 percent) say they prefer full-time work.92 Only one in five say they would choose part-time work.” Phyllis Schlafly’s claim that “most women want to be a wife, mother and homemaker and are happy in that role” carried more than a grain of truth.

Note:ALLE DONNE NON PIACE LAVORARE? INCONCEPIBILE

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These realities are reflected not only in women’s preference for part-time work but also in their predominance in the caring professions. Even today, at a time when hardline egalitarian feminism is dominant in education, the media, and the women’s movement, women continue to far outnumber men in fields like nursing

Note:ALLE DONNE PIACE LA CURA

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The egalitarian dream of an androgynous, gender-integrated society, still celebrated in books such as Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, has shown no sign of materializing.

Note:FALLIMENTO DELL’ANDROGINO

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In all the countries studied, women tended to be more cooperative, nurturing, risk averse, and emotionally expressive; men were more competitive, reckless, and emotionally flat.

Note:DIFFERENZE

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personality differences between men and women are the largest and most robust in prosperous, egalitarian, post-industrial societies…personality differences between men and women are smaller in traditional cultures like India’s or Zimbabwe’s than in the Netherlands or the United States….

Note:ED ECCO LA SORPRESA

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what if gender difference turns out to be a phenomenon not of oppression but rather of social well-being?

Note:DIFFERENZA E BENESSERE

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Freedom feminists appreciate that efforts to obliterate gender roles can be just as intolerant as efforts to enforce them.

Note:L’INTOLLERANZA DELL’EGALITAROSMO

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Activists may have lost the battle over the ERA, but in the wake of that defeat they won the political infrastructure of feminism.

Note:LE RADICALI SI IMPOSSESSANO DEL MOVIMENTO

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mortified and angered by their loss, many retreated into advocacy groups, research centers, and feminist theory enclaves in the universities, where they used their considerable skills to pursue their agenda by other means. In their academic isolation, they expanded their analysis of the patriarchy that they insist holds millions of American women in its thrall, unconscious of their servitude.

Note:DOPO LA SCONFITTA LE RADICALI SI ISOLANO NELL’ACCADEMIA E SI RADICALIZZANO ANCORA DI PIÙ… GENDER STUDIES

3 CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM AND A WAY FORWARDNote:

FEMINIST THEORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS

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In the summer of 1985, Virginia Held, a professor at the City University of New York, announced in a premier philosophy journal that feminist theorists had initiated an intellectual revolution comparable to those of “Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud.”98 Indeed, said Held, “some feminists think the latest revolution will be even more profound.” What they had discovered was the “sex/gender system”—a pervasive system by which men oppress women.

Note:LA SCOPERTA DEL FEMMINISMO CONTEMPORANEO: UN SISTEMA OCCULTO PER OPPRIMERE LA DONNA

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The theory drew inspiration from the egalitarian writings of Wollstonecraft, Mill, and Stanton. But it also grew out of the radical politics of the 1960s and is informed by the philosophy of Karl Marx and his heirs, such as Herbert Marcuse, Frantz Fanon, and Michel Foucault.

Note:NUMI ISPIRATORI

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There are serious scholars in women’s studies. UC Davis anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Brandeis sociologist Janet Zollinger Giele, UCLA literary scholar Anne Mellor, and Hunter College classicist Sarah Pomeroy—to name only a few—are models of academic excellence.

Note:NON MANCA LE PERSONE SERIE

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Here is a typical passage from Thinking about Women, a popular introductory text: Because liberal feminism is based on the concept of equal access to social institutions, it does not provide a criticism of the very structure of those institutions as a source of women’s oppression. . . .

Note:LA CRITICA AL PASSATO

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What about the idea that feminism is authentic only when it is revolutionary? This claim both denigrates the vast achievements of more moderate traditions of reform and disregards the dangers inherent in radical social transformation.

Note:MITO DELLA RIVOLUZIONE

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Freedom feminists, unlike their radical sisters, do not see patriarchal domination “everywhere.”

Note:FREEDOM FEMINIST VS RADICAL FEMINIST

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American college women are among the freest, most fortunate people in the world. But in many feminist classrooms they are taught that they inhabit an oppressive society where women are conditioned to subordination.

Note:PARADOSSI E ASSURDITÀ DEL NEOFEMMINISMO

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In their eye-opening book Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women’s Studies, two once-committed feminist professors, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, describe the “sea of propaganda” that overwhelms the contemporary feminist classroom.

Note:PROPAGANDA

FEMINIST MS.INFORMATION

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Consider the highly praised Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (2009), by academic feminist Joni Seager…One color-coded map illustrates how women are kept “in their place” by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. On this score, the United States is ranked with Somalia, Uganda, Yemen, Niger, and Libya….Seager’s logic? She notes that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman as his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same rating because “State legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001.”…On another map, the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Uganda and Haiti….

Note:ESEMPIO DI DISINFORMAZIONE

Reasonable people can always debate statistical findings, but feminist textbooks do not seem interested in debate.

Note:NO AL DIBATTITO

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In her examination of women’s studies textbooks, Christine Rosen found that all of them uncritically repeat the claim that the wage gap between men and women in the United States is caused by workplace discrimination….When economists consider the wage gap, they find that pay disparities are almost entirely the result of women’s different life preferences—…women are more likely than men to leave the workforce to take care of children or older parents….

Note:ESEMPIO DEL WAGE GAP

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Women’s groups do occasionally acknowledge that the pay gap is explained by women’s life choices, as the AAUW does in its 2007 Behind the Pay Gap.124 But this admission is qualified: they insist that women’s choices are not truly free…Aren’t most American women free and self-determining human beings? The women’s groups need to show—not dogmatically assert—that women’s choices are not free. And they need to explain why, by contrast, the life choices they promote are the authentic…

Note:SCELTE TELECOMANDATE

THE FEMINIST BRAIN TRUST

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Basch’s insistence that women have only one place, the workplace, surprised many readers and even the debate’s moderator.

Note:L’UNICO POSTO DELLA DONNA: IL POSTO DI LAVORO

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But is it necessarily discrimination, constraints, inequality, and “attacks” that explain where women are today in the United States? Or might it instead be that, in following the feminist dream of “not being at the mercy of the world, but as builder and designer,” women do things their own way?

Note:IL DUBBIO CHE LE RADICALI NON SI PONGONO MAI

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compare the alleged bravery of Sandra Fluke (the Georgetown University law student then in the news for demanding that the university’s health insurance cover birth control) to that of Burmese dissidents—praising women who are “assuming the risks that come with sticking your neck out, whether you are a democracy activist in Burma or a Georgetown law student in the United States.”

Note:LA TRISTE COMPARAZIONE

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Feminism has devolved into a one-party system. But a flourishing women’s movement needs both conservative and liberal wings.

Note:IL FEMMINISMO COME PARTITO ANZICHÈ COME ALLEANZA

CONCLUSION
1. TAKE BACK REASON

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There is an urgent need to correct more than forty years of feminist advocacy research.

Note:UNO… CORREGGERE LE RICERCHE FARLOCCHE

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Fortunately, there is a growing body of serious empirical research on these issues, much of it by women. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist in the U.S. Department of Labor, has written a trenchant analysis on the wage gap

Note:LE STUDIOSE SERIE PER LA RETTIFICA CI SONO

2. BE PRO-WOMEN BUT NOT MALE-AVERSE

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The current women’s lobby thinks of men as a rival camp. Not only are men denigrated, but their problems are ignored or explained away.

Note:USCIRE DALLA LOGICA MARXISTA

3. PURSUE HAPPINESS

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Consider the Netherlands. Dutch women are among the freest, best-educated, and happiest women on the planet…More than 70 percent of Dutch working women work part time… Is it because they are held back by inadequate child-care policies? No, even childless women and those with grown children abjure full-time employment. “It has to do with personal freedom,” says Ellen de Bruin, a Dutch psychologist and the author of Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed….

L’ESEMPIO DELLE OLANDESI

A United Nations gender equity committee recently censured the Netherlands for the “low number of women who are economically independent.”

LA CENSURA COME REAZIONE DI DEFAULT ALLE OBIEZIONI

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“Women in the Netherlands work less, have lesser titles, and a big gender gap, and they love it.”

Note:METTERE LA FELICITÀ AL PRIMO POSTO

4. RESPECT FEMALE DIVERSITY

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Twenty-first century feminism must learn to accept women as they are, not as they were supposed to be according to egalitarian specifications drawn up in 1978. Women are various.

Note:ACCETTARE LE DIVERSITÀ

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What is feminism? she asks. “Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy, and smug they might be.”

Note:LO SPIRITO GIUSTO

5. NO POLITICAL LITMUS TESTS

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Freedom feminists can be liberal, conservative, or libertarian.

Note:APOLITICITÀ DEL MOVIMENTO

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Consider Eve Ensler again. Her twisted lectures such as the one at Harvard, and the violent portrayal of heterosexuality in her famous play, The Vagina Monologues, have alienated many. But her work in the developing world is a different story. Over the years, she has been personally active in promoting women’s rights in forbidding places such as Rwanda, Haiti, and Afghanistan.

Note:SAPER DISTINGUERE ANCHE NEI CASI ALL’APPARENZA DISPERATI

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What if the modern heirs to Hannah More and Frances Willard were part of an ecumenical coalition? Today’s feminist movement is a hostile environment for faith-based, family-centered, conservative women.

Note:FEMMINISMO: OGGI UN AMBIENTE OSTILE PER LA DIVERSITA’

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One final suggestion. Should a pollster ask, “Are you a feminist?” say, “Yes, I am a freedom feminist!”

NON BUTTATE IL BAMBINO CON L’ACQUA SPORCA