Breaking Free
The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A bold argument that “equality” is a racist, patriarchal ideal that perpetuates women’s systemic oppression and limits the possibilities of feminism—with a plan to transform the movement
For more than a century, women have fought for equality. Yet, time and again, their battles have fallen short. Even so-called constitutionally-protected equal rights can be withdrawn by judges and undermined by legislators. But the greater problem is in the notion of equality itself.
In Breaking Free, culture writer Marcie Bianco persuasively argues that the very concept of equality is a fallacy, an illusory goal that cannot address historic forms of discrimination and oppression. Starting with the campaign for women’s suffrage and traveling through modern history, she shows us how equality has been designed to keep women and disenfranchised communities chasing an unobtainable goal. Conditioned for generations to want equality, it has become an insidious mindset locking us into the gender binary and reductive identity politics. Bianco calls upon a long-overlooked lineage to argue that only freedom can liberate feminism from these constraints, and proposes three freedom practices for women to reclaim their bodily autonomy and power.
What happens if we free ourselves of equality? Controversial and thrilling, Breaking Free guides readers toward new hope for the future of the feminist movement.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist and cultural critic Bianco debuts with a tenacious if incomplete takedown of "equality feminism," arguing that feminism should instead be oriented toward bringing about a more profoundly transformative collective freedom, one that promotes personal liberty. She argues that the concept of gender equality (which Bianco associates with feminist movements devoted to establishing parity with men within legal, economic, and cultural institutions) limits women by ignoring the realities of their individual situations and linking their standard of progress to the status quo and to the maintenance of broadly oppressive traditions and power structures. Bianco calls for women to relinquish their investment in biological definitions of womanhood in order to embrace a broader project of social transformation, arguing that the feminist struggle should instead be motivated above all by the practice of freedom, which she defines as "an ongoing process of self-creation and world-building rooted in accountability and care." Bianco succeeds in provoking thought about the limitations of equality, as well as the self-liberatory potential of an ethic of freedom when held in balance with mutuality, which Bianco characterizes as respect for others' unique existence, and community-oriented decision-making. However, and perhaps unsurprisingly for a work that is skeptical about the effectiveness of law, policy, and institutions to accomplish social transformation, she offers inspirational imperatives rather than concrete solutions and plans, and is hazy about how the balance between freedom and the needs of the collective will be mediated. Readers will come away frustrated.
