American feminists gradually went along with the logic of capitalism rather than resisting it. This is a particularly useful description because it’s happened so consistently across the last few decades: Whenever there’s a dispute within feminism about a particular social change or technological possibility, you should bet on the side that takes a more consumerist view of human flourishing, a more market-oriented view of what it means to defend the rights and happiness of women.
.. They were divided over pornography, often bitterly — but over time the sex-positive side increasingly won out over the Andrea Dworkinish dissenters, even as the online realm was overrun with images and videos that more than justified her arguments. They were, and are, divided over prostitution, but it’s pretty clear that the version of feminism that supports the rights of sex workers to sell their bodies in the marketplace has the intellectual momentum.
.. the most culturally important strands of American feminism have been the ones devoted to making women’s lives safe for market capitalism rather than the other way around — with “lean in” and egg freezing for Silicon Valley elites and the temporary sterilization of I.U.D.s and LARCs for the working class, both together encouraging the idea that professional goals are the heart of personal fulfillment
.. The rather important female reality of motherhood, a Guardian essayist noted recently, “comes up in less than 3 percent of papers, journal articles or textbooks on modern gender theory.
.. At best, Christians may hope to build a counterculture, but in the wider landscape our ability to shape trends or resist them is at a historical low ebb.
.. it is a grave mistake for feminists to assume that because the moralism of the past was often patriarchal and sexist, they must always choose “consenting adults” individualism over a more holistic morality, a presumption for choice over a defense of human dignity, the logic of the market over more communitarian alternatives, a consumerist interchangeability of the sexes over a social architecture that respects their differences.