September 15, 2023
Catholic critics of feminism often start from the premise that “first wave” feminism, led by 19th century figures such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was fundamentally good and did not contradict Catholic teaching. It was not until the late 1960s and 1970s, according to this theory, that the movement was “hijacked” by “radical feminists.”
The only problem is that if you actually look closely at earlier forms of feminism, whether it be the feminism of Stanton or Anthony, or even Mary Wollstonecraft before them, you find clear continuities with so-called “radical feminism.”
At the level of thought, we see the Enlightenment’s individualism, rationalism, and egalitarianism attacking the natural institutions of marriage and family and the God-ordained hierarchical structure of the Church as oppressive.
On a personal level, feminism was, from the beginning, the brainchild of miserable, traumatized women whose relationships with the men in their lives had gone horribly wrong, and whose ideas were enthusiastically supported by men like Percy Shelley who “liberated” women in order to exploit them.
Carrie Gless returns to the show to talk about her book The End of Woman: How the Defeat of Patriarchy Destroyed Ustells the stories of feminist pioneers, from Wollstonecraft, Stanton, and Shelley to Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.
link
Carrie Gless The End of Woman: How the Defeat of Patriarchy Destroyed Us https://www.regnery.com/9781684514182/the-end-of-women/
Dawn Eden, “On the Eve of Deconstruction: Feminism and John Paul II” https://www.catholicity.com/commentary/eden/03324.html
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