Sommers, Christina Hoff. Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2013.
Seventy percent of women do not consider themselves “feminists.” Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, says that is because “to identify oneself as a feminist is to claim association with a dire worldview.”[1] This is unfortunate, considering that women’s suffrage has become a triumph of Western civilization.[2] Additionally, women of the world look to America for freedom, as have many different groups before them.[3] Something has caused a rift between modern and original feminism that has driven them apart and given popular feminism an entirely new face. Sommers writes that we must rescue and redeem effective feminism.[4]
Historically, Sommers argues, there have been two types of feminism: egalitarian feminism and maternal feminism.[5] She writes that egalitarian feminism, progressive and secular in nature, conflicts in principle with the traditional and family-centered stance of maternal feminism, but that they actually complement each other in practice.[6] In fact, “history records defeat in every instance where one branch failed to recognize the valid arguments of the other.”[7]
Maternal feminism originally became the most popular and influential of the two, founded by Hannah More. She was religiously inspired and, notably, a friend of William Wilberforce, the weight behind the attack on the British slave trade.[8] This certainly goes against the secular message of modern feminism. More held that women should apply their gifts to society at large, not the family only, but she did not reject the idea of a special women’s sphere out of hand.[9]
Today, modern feminist rhetoric does not only seek to raise up and inspire women, it also seeks to denigrate men. It is not enough for modern feminists to open the doors of opportunity for women; they appear to have to take opportunities from men, this win-loss scenario is effectively a zero-sum game of ideas—women gain dignity only if men are stripped of theirs. But More and other maternal feminists did not take this view. In fact, some very prominent and lasting figures such as Jane Austen adopted liberating ideas for women while also holding a chivalrous view of men, both of which are reflected in the characters of her books.[10] Austen’s view could be described as a positive-sum game where men and women can create a cooperative surplus of opportunity, while modern feminists merely redistribute that opportunity.
Sommers points out that one problem with modern feminism is that it has removed elements such as “feminine virtue” and “family-centered philosophy” that are attractive to women not wanting to abandon traditional roles. This causes a problem for many women who want to be wives and mothers. Sommers writes that “these are precisely the traits that make [maternal] feminism so relevant to women across the developing world.”[11]
During the attempted passage of the Equal Rights Act (ERA) in the early 1970’s, Phyllis Schlafly exposed the growing liberal feminist movement as more than merely justice for women—she saw it and the ERA as “a blueprint for a radically new society.”[12] She warned that such an ambiguous amendment as the ERA would “impose an eccentric agenda on an unsuspecting nation,” possibly bringing about state-funded abortion, ridding the country of other forms of “segregation,” and even leading to women registering for the draft.[13] Today, each of these things has come true.
As recently as 70 years ago, women were still bound by stereotypes that restricted their choices. There was much discussion about what it was within women’s nature to do. Sommers quotes one former member of Congress as saying:
You have only to give women the same opportunities as men, and you will soon find out what is or is not in their nature. What is in women’s nature to do they will do, and you won’t be able to stop them […] but what is not in their nature […] they will not do, and you won’t be able to make them do it.[14]
We have come to a point where we can see the results of this thought experiment, and Sommers writes that “gender roles have persisted,” and that “most women want to be a wife, mother, and homemaker and are happy in that role.”[15]
What Sommers calls “freedom feminism” (that is, “the moral, social, and legal equality of the sexes”) has a track record of success stories regarding women’s equality, but liberal feminists refuse to see it.[16] The primary reason for the success of maternal (or freedom) feminism over liberal (more egalitarian) feminism, Sommers writes, is that maternal feminism appealed to universal rights, not just limited ones.[17] Liberal feminism, by casting aside these practical universal anchors, helped cause feminism to devolve into a “one-party system.”[18]
Feminism is supposed to open new choices and opportunities to women. But if the opportunities of housewife and mother are stripped away and the only choice open or encouraged to women is the full-time workplace, that is not opportunity. Favoring choices when there is only one choice is not favoring choices at all. Supporting one opportunity for all women is not supporting women’s opportunity everywhere. Freedom with one prescribed path is not freedom.[19]
Culture is just a marketplace of ideas, as competitive as any big business. Modern feminism has sold the idea that theirs is the only product and that there is a limited supply. Freedom feminism, writes Sommers, must “take back reason.”[20] We must recover the successful history and lost appeal of freedom feminism and “make the movement attractive once again.”[21] Women do not all want to be “liberated from their femininity—or from their fathers and brothers, husbands and sons.”[22] Essentially, we must reintroduce another selection into the not-quite-yet monopolized market of ideas.
ENDNOTES
[1] Sommers, Christina Hoff. Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why it Matters Today (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2013), 4.
[2] Sommers, Freedom Feminism, 2.
[3] Ibid., 5-6.
[4] Ibid., 6.
[5] Ibid., 10-11.
[6] Ibid., 12.
[7] Ibid., 40.
[8] Ibid., 19.
[9] Ibid., 22, 24.
[10] Ibid., 10.
[11] Ibid., 35.
[12] Ibid., 50.
[13] Ibid., 52.
[14] Ibid., 58.
[15] Ibid., 59.
[16] Ibid., 6, 72.
[17] Ibid., 69-70.
[18] Ibid., 91.
[19] Ibid., 96-97.
[20] Ibid., 94.
[21] Ibid., 101.
[22] Ibid., 101-102.
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