periods of substantial losses for women and moments in which gains once thought secure were reversed.
For example, women gained the right to control their reproduction in one historical period—when birth
control and abortion were legalized in the 1960s and ’70s—only to see those same rights attacked and
curtailed in the years that followed. Furthermore, not all aspects of women’s rights rise and fall at the
same time: for example, even as women were losing the legal right to birth control, they were gaining
rights to education and employment.
It is also a myth that feminism is only for women. It is a movement for everyone, including men and
children. In every historical period there were women activists who believed they needed to work with
men to achieve their goals, and in every era men identified as feminists and sought, alongside women,
cultural and social changes that would realize a new gender order. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
many feminists believed they needed small, women-only groups in which to discuss their problems, and
they organized an independent women’s movement largely autonomous from men. But not all women
agreed. NOW, the largest organization active in this period, called itself the National Organization for
Women, not of Women, and always had proud male members.
Indeed, the majority of American men today would have been considered feminists sixty years ago,
because they accept women’s equality in education, women’s right to employment, and women’s right to
birth control, to offer just a few examples. In fact, there is a smaller gender gap in attitudes on so-called
women’s issues, such as abortion, than on concerns such as global warming or homeland security.^1 All
women, gay or straight, have beloved men in their lives: husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, lovers, and
friends. This fact calls into question whether there actually are any “women’s issues.” For example, most
men want to limit their fertility as much as women do; and when women earn higher wages only because
male wages are falling, the result is not a gain for women.
Just as important, feminists have always led campaigns for children. Historically, pressure for
compulsory education, for children’s health, and for children’s rights came primarily from feminists. The
campaign for birth control was a campaign for family well-being and children’s welfare. And when
contraception fails and women must resort to abortion, the majority of them already have children and
want to control their family size in order to provide for those children.
Still another myth is that every time individual women move into leadership, wealth, or power, it is a
victory for feminism. Their successes are achievements that we can celebrate, but they are only a small
part of the feminist agenda.
The renewed strength of neo-liberalism in the twenty-first century—that is, the faith that “free,”
unregulated markets can effectively produce a strong and fair economy—has spun as a by-product a neo-
liberal version of feminism, a perspective that simply urges individual women to compete harder to reach
the economic top. The reverse—praise for mothers who choose to leave employment, even as the vast
majority of mothers cannot afford to do that—also reflects that neo-liberal myth. The media has
increasingly equated individual women’s choices with feminism, when historically feminism has been
about changing the social conditions for all women. Most feminists aimed to raise the status of women as
a whole, to open real opportunities for all women regardless of race, economic circumstance, family
status, or sexual orientation. Feminism is for all women, not just the privileged.
The final myth we challenge is the tired stereotype of the feminist as a humorless, sexless reformer.
Most feminists, like women in general, had gratifying romantic and sexual relationships, and, equally
important, the pleasures of close friendship. Even when women came together to gripe about indignities
or to rage and weep about abuse, their coming together was often riotous with laughter. Feminists flirted,
dressed up, enjoyed love and sex, and joked about themselves as much as anyone. Despite sharp and
sometimes painful disagreements, the process of joining with others to pursue a vision of greater equality