Erika Bachiochi - The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

The Rights of Women

Reclaiming a Lost Vision

Erika Bachiochi is one of the most brilliant and refreshingly original feminist legal scholars writing today. Uncowed by todays momentary orthodoxies, Bachiochi blends a rich understanding of tradition with compelling insights into present-day issues. No one writing in the field exceeds her gifts of insight, clarity, and scholarly fearlessness.

Michael Stokes Paulsen, co-author of The Constitution: An Introduction

Bachiochi flips effortlessly from legal analysis to philosophical arguments to sociological observations to characters from classic literature in a way that is almost invisible to the reader... in a work that I would describe as, in many places, almost achingly beautiful.

Elizabeth R. Schiltz, co-editor of Feminism, Law, and Religion

With clarity and boldness, Erika Bachiochi shows how the moral purpose underlying the case for truly equal rights has been lost even as those rights have been gained. Although it recounts a story of decline, The Rights of Women is ultimately filled with hope because it offers an alternativea way to recapture the ideal of dignity that gives meaning to equality by grasping that the ultimate purpose of freedom is human flourishing and excellence.

Yuval Levin, author of A Time to Build

Bachiochi adds an important new voice to the conversation criticizing the nations turn to revering market profit and the freedom to be left alone above all else. Feminists may not agree with all of her critique of contemporary feminism, but they would do well to engage with her powerful argument that conceptualizing the movements goal as sex equality in the workplace is too narrow.

Maxine Eichner, author of The Free-Market Family

The Rights of Women brilliantly articulates what should be a central concern and debate for feminists today.

Helen M. Alvar, author of Putting Childrens Interests First in U.S. Family Law and Policy

Rights cannot flourish alone. They need to be embedded in a thicker moral context that gives voice to the goods that they should serve, the social duties that govern their exercise, and the virtues that enable respect for them. In this book, Erika Bachiochi recovers a tradition of thought about womens rights that fully recognizes this and, with Mary Wollstonecraft at one end and Mary Ann Glendon at the other, offers an important, salutary correction, not only to libertarian feminism in particular but also to contemporary rights-talk in general.

Nigel Biggar, author of Whats Wrong with Rights?

The Rights of Women

CATHOLIC IDEAS FOR A SECULAR WORLD

O. Carter Snead, series editor

Under the sponsorship of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, the purpose of this interdisciplinary series is to feature authors from around the world who will expand the influence of Catholic thought on the most important conversations in academia and the public square. The series is Catholic in the sense that the books will emphasize and engage the enduring themes of human dignity and flourishing, the common good, truth, beauty, justice, and freedom in ways that reflect and deepen principles affirmed by the Catholic Church for millennia. It is not limited to Catholic authors or even works that explicitly take Catholic principles as a point of departure. Its books are intended to demonstrate the diversity and enhance the relevance of these enduring themes and principles in numerous subjects, ranging from the arts and humanities to the sciences.

THE RIGHTS
OF WOMEN

Reclaiming a Lost Vision

ERIKA BACHIOCHI

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

Copyright 2021 by the University of Notre Dame

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021939573

ISBN: 978-0-268-20081-7 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20082-4 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20083-1 (WebPDF)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20080-0 (Epub)

This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at

For my daughters, Anna, Gabriella, Lucy, and Charlotte, and my sons, Peter, JJ, and Luke

in search of better ways to live, work, and love

If you wish to make your son rich, pursue one course

if you are only anxious to make him virtuous, you must take another; but do not imagine that you can bound from one road to the other without losing your way.

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

Matthew 6:21

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book was long in the dreaming and in the making, and it could never have come to be without the support, guidance, and assistance of many people.

I will be ever grateful for the early support and encouragement that Lisa Schiltz, Mary Hasson, and Carol Crossed offered me during the beginning stages of the research. Im thankful too to Ed Whelan of the Ethics & Public Policy Center for taking a chance on the project, and on me. Years later, as the contours of my argument had grown and changed, but little output could yet be shared, Lisa, Mary, Carol, and Ed remained ever supportive and encouraging.

The year I spent as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, through a research fellowship provided by the Abigail Adams Institute (AAI) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was pivotal. My gratitude to Bill English, Mike Marcucci, Mike Paulsen, Rick Garnett, Adrian Vermeule, Jeff Shafer, and especially AAIs director, Danilo Petranovich, for supporting the venture in the various ways they did. Danilo was unflaggingly hospitable to me and provided wisdom and a space to write. Fortuitously, an AAI event also introduced an early chapter to then Harvard graduate students Tiernan Kane and Dimitrios Halikiass, who went on to read each chapter of the manuscript, invariably almost as soon as I had completed them. Such intelligent and insightful readers are a writers dream, and the book is far better for having experienced Tiernans and Dimitris red pens.

I was also grateful to call upon the expertise and advice of Allan Carlson, Mary Eberstadt, Helen Alvar, Adam MacLeod, Jim Stoner, Deborah Savage, Leslie Nagel, Fr. Jeff Langan, Angela Franks, Clarke Forsythe, Elizabeth Kirk, Andrew Beauchamp, Sarah White, and Catherine Pakaluk at various points in the project. Their careful consideration of my ideas and arguments (and correction when needed) was much appreciated. My dear friends Katie and Kevin Elrod were also especially intelligent sounding boards, as were the wonderfully bright students in my AAI seminar, Man, Woman, Body, Soul in the Western Tradition. The inspiring women of the Catholic Womens Forum deserve my gratitude too.

Thanks too for the guidance that George Weigel, Yuval Levin, and Nick Mullendore offered me in my early hunt for a publisher. Happily, Carter Snead convinced me of the merits of the University of Notre Dame Press with but a phone calland Carter, Margaret Cabaniss, and Steve Wrinn and his team graciously put up with me ever since.