The birth of the libertarian movement itself can be credited for the most part, to the incredible work of three remarkable women. However, there are many strains of libertarianism, and movements within the movement, so today we’ll telling you about four more women, who were tremendously influential in the libertarian feminist movement.
Voltairine de Cleyre
(1866-1912)
“The paramount question of the day is not political, is not religious, but is economic. The crying-out demand of today is for a circle of principles that shall forever make it impossible for one man to control another by controlling the means of his existence.”
Some of the most striking anarchist thought at the turn of the century was written by the incredibly eloquent feminist, Voltairine de Cleyre. She was a prolific writer and orator, opposing the state, marriage and the domination of religion over sexuality and women’s lives. Her essays have been collected into a book, and many can also be found online.
Suzanne LaFollette
(1893-1983)
“It is evident from the very nature of the State, that its interests are opposed to those of Society; and while the complete emancipation of women … would undoubtedly imply the destruction of the State, since it must accrue from the emancipation of other subject classes, their emancipation, far from destroying Society, must be of inestimable benefit to it.”
Suzanne LaFollette was a journalist and author, an early feminist and a rigorous opponent of government intervention. She founded several magazines for the causes of libertarianism, and wrote one of the first full-length books on libertarian feminism, Concerning Women in 1926. An excerpt of it called “Beware the State” can be found in The Feminist Papers, an anthology by Alice Rossi.
Joan Kennedy Taylor
(1926-2005)
“The civil libertarian argument in its purest form is that there should be no legal category of obscenity…”
The author, editor, journalist and political activist, Joan Kennedy Taylor, played a significant role in the development of the modern libertarian movement, and was an advocate of individualist feminism. My short little blurb about her cannot do her resume justice. Seriously, click on this link from Mises. She was national coordinator of Association of Libertarian Feminists from 1989-2003, and wrote numerous essays for the organization. She also wrote two books: Reclaiming the Mainstream: Individualist Feminism Rediscovered and What to Do When You Don’t Want to Call the Cops: A Non-Adversarial Approach to Sexual Harassment.
Barbara Branden
(1929-2013)
“When I read The Fountainhead at the age of fifteen, I would not have believed that the day could come when I would be forced to choose between Howard Roark and Ayn Rand — to choose between loyalty to the values of justice, of self-esteem, of speaking and acting according to one’s honest judgment, which the character of Howard Roark represented to me, and the woman who taught me the importance of those concepts and whom, for most of my life, I have loved, admired and honored more than any other human being.”
This Canadian writer, editor and lecturer was known best for her marriage to Nathaniel Branden and her friendship and dramatic estrangement from Ayn Rand. Barbara Branden’s book, The Passion of Ayn Rand, was a controversial but humanizing look at a woman many have trouble understanding. She also contributed the lead essay “Ayn Rand: The Reluctant Feminist” to the anthology Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. She was eloquent and nuanced, as evident by the quote above.
These four women were trailblazers in setting out to bring feminism and libertarianism together, addressing the concerns of the growing feminist movement with libertarian ideas, instead of authoritarian ones. Their tradition continues, in a future list.