This past week, the George Washington University was graced with the presence of Christina Hoff Sommers, an author, former philosophy professor, academic and scholar from the American Enterprise Institute. On a fairly liberal campus, there is nothing surprising about the expressed opposition that showed up to the event. And while many of them were frustrated and aggravated by the context of her lecture, overall, left or right, her rationality far superseded the cries of opposition in the room.
Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary feminism- but on a more important note, she supports the revival of equity feminism- also known as classical liberal feminism, "a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology" (Steven Pinker).
While I hesitate to title myself as a "feminist" due to it's complete regression from the original version of feminism from the Enlightenment, I seek equal legal rights for women and men. So, in essence, I am an equity feminist. I, however, do not seek to counteract historical inequalities based on gender, or what "feminism" has become. The effective women's movement, hidden deep within the shadows by disingenuous facade of third wave feminism, needs to be rescued.
We need to stop focusing on irrational oppression of women in the United States. This battle for equality and opportunity in the U.S. has been fought and largely won. The third wave of intersectional and oppressive feminism hurts not only women who seek empowerment in America but unmistakably damages women's groups across the globe who struggle to survive violent oppression. The true movement of equity and "freedom" feminism cannot recede because it has come short in its worldly mission. The work of classical liberal feminism remains unfinished.
Men and women should not be opposing each other. Freedom feminism is for all and it affirms for all what we need all across the world: fairness, the "pursuit" of happiness, and personal liberty.
We need to bring back feminism, freedom feminism, that does not suppress but provides modes of opportunity to empower women and men across the political spectrum and the world, not the other way around.
It's time to take back feminism.
