EMPOWERMENT IS NOT POWER
WHAT IS WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT in a world without Roe v. Wade?
Women receive more college degrees than men, young women outearn young men in some cities, and more women run Fortune 500 companies than ever before. And still, Roe fell.
More women are directing Hollywood’s highest-grossing movies, Ariana DeBose just became the first out queer woman of color to win an Oscar, and there’s a woman playing Thor. And still, Roe fell.
More than 60% of American women consider themselves to be feminists, including 42% of Republican women. More than half of American women say they prefer to work outside the home, the highest Gallup has recorded in three decades of polling. And still, Roe fell.
How could a cornerstone of American women’s rights crumble at a moment of otherwise expansive economic, cultural, and social empowerment?
The fall of exposes a crack in the foundation of mainstream liberal feminism that has dominated the past decade. This version of feminism—is it the fourth wave?—has been preoccupied with individual achievements, feel-good symbolism, and cultural representation. It has, in turn, paid too little attention to the thorny mechanics of federal courts and state legislative races. Many fourth wavers presumed that reproductive rights were basically secure, and that therefore the remaining obstacles for women were not legal or political but cultural and emotional. Every time a woman won an Oscar, or released a hit album,
