Feminism (l–r) Gloria Steinem, and Glenn Close, Eve Ensler Freedom Freedom used to stand n f e b r u a r y 10, 2001, 18,000 women filled Madison Square Garden for one of the more notable femi- at the heart of feminism, nist gatherings of our time. The event—“Take Back the Garden”— but modern feminists centered on a performance of Eve Ensler’s raunchy play, The Vagina have succeeded in M o n o l o g u e s . The “Vulva Choir” sang; self-described “Vagina Warriors”—including OGloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Donna Hanover erasing history (Rudolph Giuliani’s ex-wife)—recited pet names for vaginas: Mimi, Gladys. Glenn Close led the crowd in spelling out the obscene word for women’s intimate anatomy, “Give me a C…!!!” A huge banner declared christina Hoff sommers the Garden to be a “RAPE FREE ZONE.” The mood grew solemn when Oprah Winfrey came forward to read a new monologue called “Under the Burqa,” which described the plight of Afghan women living 52 tHe aMeRIcan sPectatoR July/august 2008 under the Taliban. At its climax, an nist Camille Paglia put the matter even actual Afghan woman named Zoya, more bluntly: she described women’s who represented RAWA—the Revo lu- studies as “a jumble of vulgarians, tionary Associ a tion of the Women of bunglers, whiners, French faddicts, Afghanistan—appeared on stage covered apparat chiks, dough-faced party-liners, from head to toe in a burqa. Oprah pie-in-the-sky utopians and bullying approached her and, with a dramatic sanc timonious sermonizers. Reason­­ sweep of her arm, lifted and removed it. able, moderate feminists hang back and The crowd roared in delight. keep silent in the face of fascism.” Later, an exposé in the progressive The embarrassing spectacle at American Prospect would reveal that Madison Square Garden, the erratic state RAWA is a Maoist organization whose of women’s studies, the outbreak of femi- fanatical members are so feared by nist vigilantism at Duke University may Afghan women that one human rights tempt some to conclude that the women’s activist has dubbed them the “Tali- movement in the United States is in a babes.” According to the Prospect, when state of hopeless, hapless, and perma nent Ms. magazine tried to distance itself from RAWA disarray. Perhaps American feminism has become in 2002, a RAWA spokeswoman denounced Ms. as hysterical because it has ceased to be useful. After all, the “mouthpiece of hegemonic, U.S.-centric corpo- women in this country have their freedom; they have rate feminism.” But on that magical February night achieved parity with men in most of the ways that at the Garden, few knew or cared about Zoya’s politi- count. Why not let the feminist movement fade from cal views or affiliations. the scene? The sooner the better. Good riddance. The evening was a near-perfect distillation of contemporary feminism. Pick up a women’s studies h a t i s a n understandable b u t unwarranted textbook, visit a college women’s center, or look at reaction. Women in the West did form a move- the websites of leading feminist organizations and Tment and did liberate themselves in ways of you will be likely to find the same fixation on inti- vital importance to the evolution of liberal society. mate anatomy, combined with left-wing politics, and Feminism, in its classical phase, was a critical chap- a poisonous antipathy to men. (Campus feminists ter in the history of freedom. For most of the world’s were among the most vocal and zealous accusers of the young men on the Duke University lacrosse team Women in America have their who were falsely indicted for rape in 2006.) Con- temporary feminism routinely depicts American freedom; they have achieved society as a dangerous patriarchy where women parity with men in most of the are under siege—that is the message of the “RAPE ways that count. Why not let the FREE ZONE” banner in the Garden. It therefore presents itself as a movement of “liberation,” defying feminist movement fade from the patriarchal oppressor and offering women every- the scene? The sooner the where the opportunity to make contact with their “real selves.” better. Good riddance. But modern “ women’s liberation” has little to do women, that history has just begun; for them, classi- with liberty. It aims not to free women to pursue cal feminism offers a tried and true roadmap to their own interests and inclinations, but rather to equality and freedom. And even in the West there re-educate them to attitudes often profoundly are unresolved equity issues and the work of femi- contrary to their natures. In Professing Femin ism: nism is not over. Who needs feminism? We do. The Edu cation and Indoctrination in Women’s Studies world does. Women everywhere need the liberty to (2003), two once-committed women’s studies pro- be what they are—not, as contemporary feminism fessors, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, describe insists, liberation from what they are. This we how the feminist classroom transforms idealistic can see if we look back at the history of women’s female students into “relentless grievance collec- liberation—not as it is taught in women’s studies tors.” In 1991, the culture critic and dissident femi- departments, but as it truly was. July/august 2008 tHe aMeRIcan sPectatoR 53 FeMInIsM anD FReeDoM The classical feminism of the 18th and 19th cen- turies embodied two distinct schools of thought and social activism. The first, egalitarian feminism, was progressive (in the view of many contemporaries of both sexes, radical), and it centered on women as independent agents rather than wives and mothers. It held that men and women are, in their essential nature, the same, and it sought to liberate women through abstract appeals to social justice and univer- sal rights. The second school, conservative feminism, was traditionalist and family-centered. It embraced rather than rejected women’s established roles as homemakers, caregivers, and providers of domestic tranquility—and it promoted women’s rights by rede- fining, strengthening, and expanding those roles. Conservative feminists argued that a practical, responsible femininity could be a force for good in the world beyond the family, through charitable works and more enlightened politics and government. Of the two schools, conservative feminism was much the more influential. Unlike its more radical sister, conservative feminism has always had great appeal to large majorities of women. By contrast, egalitarian feminists often appeared strange and Mary Wollstonecraft frightening with their salons and little journals. It is not, however, my purpose to denigrate egalitarian Wollstonecraft’s demand was a dramatic break feminism—quite the contrary. Historically, propo- with the past. In 1776, Abigail Adams famously wrote nents of the two schools were forthright and some- a letter to her husband, John, urging him and his col- times fierce competitors, but their competition leagues in the Continental Congress to “remember sharpened the arguments on both sides, and they the ladies…and to be more generous and favorable to often cooperated on practical causes to great effect. them than your ancestors.” Adams was appealing to a The two movements were (and will remain) rivals in tradition of chivalry and gallantry that enjoined male principle but complementary in practice. Thanks to protectiveness toward women. Sixteen years later, in egalitarian feminism, women now have the same her Vindication, Wollstonecraft was doing something rights and opportunities as men. But, as conservative markedly different. She was not urging legislators in feminists have always insisted, free women seldom France and England to “remember the ladies” or aspire to be just like men, but rather employ their free- appealing to their generous or protective impulses. dom in distinctive ways and for distinctive purposes. Reason, she said, demanded that women be granted the same rights as men. She wanted nothing less than g a l i t a r i a n f e m i n i s m h a d i t s historical begin- total political and moral equality. Wollstonecraft was nings in the writings of the British phil os- perhaps the first woman in history to insist that biol- Eopher Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797). ogy is not destiny: “I view with indignation the mis- Wollstonecraft, a rebel and a free thinker, believed taken notions that enslave my sex.” that women were as intelligent as men and as worthy For Wollstonecraft, education was the key to of respect. Her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman female liberation: “Strengthen the female mind became an instant sensation. She wrote it in the spirit by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obe- of the European Enlightenment—whose primary dience.” She was a proponent of co-education and principle was the essential dignity and moral equality insisted that women be educated on a par with of all rational beings. However, Wollstonecraft’s insis- men—with all fields and disciplines being open to tence that women too are rational and deserving of them. In the opening lines of Vindication, she the same rights as men was then a contentious thesis. expresses her “profound conviction that the neglect- 54 tHe aMeRIcan sPectatoR July/august 2008 cHRIstIna HoFF soMMeRs ed education of [women] is the grand source of the Virginia Woolf once said that if she were in charge misery I deplore.” of assigning names to critical historical epochs, along Wollstonecraft led one of the most daring, with the Crusades, or the War of the Roses, she would dramatic, and consequential lives of the 18th cen- give a special name to that world-transforming period tury.