Breaking Free

July 17, 2023
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.

July 15, 2023
Revising the meaning and goals of feminism. Bianco, a cultural critic and editor at the Stanford Social Innovation Review, makes her book debut with a bold and compelling critique of feminism's focus on equality. Describing herself as "a capital-A, capital-F Angry Feminist," the author asserts that women have been duped into believing "a myth perpetuated to coax women into complicity with their oppression." What have been identified as political, economic, or social inequalities, she claims, "are nothing but the measured effects of the discrimination of difference in relation to the white supremacist cis-heteropatriarchy." The term equality, she contends, is unclear, with different meanings for men and women, for those with power and those without. Rather than adopt a politics that aims for attainment of the same rights, privileges, and power as white men, Bianco proposes that feminists aim to dismantle these patriarchal institutions and engage in embracing freedom. Freedom of body, mind, and movement, she asserts, involves "an ongoing process of self-creation and world-building rooted in accountability and care." Accountability, which she sees as "the critical difference between white freedom and feminist freedom," is central to her argument. Feminism must become "an ethics from which a politics emerges," a value system grounded in respect, integrity, and collective well-being. Bianco draws on feminist scholars and critics--Simone de Beauvoir, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Barbara Johnson, to name a few--as well as her own experiences as a 40-something Harvard-educated white woman, lesbian, and athlete to discuss salient issues for women's lives, such as abortion, gender, sexuality, queer identity, race, capitalism, and assisted death. Practicing freedom, she writes, can counter the "equality mindset" that posits a "hierarchical opposition of man above woman" and instead "can create a world that values the dignity, belonging, and joy of all people." A cleareyed and impassioned plea for a just world.

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