I’m uncomfortable using capitalism as a means to attaining gender equality.
We can never be equals in a system where the size of your stack is used as leverage to demand human rights. While I understand how feminists came to see the right to have a bank account and a credit card independent of a man as foundational, it’s time to aim higher. We certainly can’t wait for equal pay and an end to systemic sexism to ask for more because we’re gaining ground at an excruciatingly slow pace. I’m here for honoring our predecessors—while we also push for a right to live not just independent, but fulfilling lives.
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In her new best-selling book, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, author Rebecca Traister quotes Susan B. Anthony:
“No genuine equality, no real freedom, no true manhood or womanhood can exist on any foundation save that of pecuniary independence.”