Ep. 65: What Does Libertarian Feminism Look Like? (with Elizabeth Nolan Brown)

Elizabeth Nolan Brown joins us for a discussion on libertarianism and women.

What does libertarian feminism look like? How does libertarianism appeal to women? It seems that there are more women among younger generations of libertarians. Is there an explanation for this?

[BNK]

Honestly, the best feminist libertarian out there is Wendy McElroy. Enb has a bunch of silly ideas that women don't rape or abuse. If this was an interview with McElroy I could give it a listening, but as it is not, I just won't waste my time.

[nakedcups]

I don't see any problems (and thus I don't understand the amount of dislikes on this video) with anything that the guest said besides that she apparently wasn't really ready to defend libertarianism as strongly as some other guests were in the past. Sure, she wasn't as absolute as Mises, Rothbard or Rand, but many guests aren't. I suppose this dislike has to do with the current decisiveness of Feminism as a movement, and how most feminists (as is explained in the podcast) seem to be conflating social issues with state issues which strikes against many libertarian values.

[chaosdream]

I think feminism and libertarianism are, at core, exactly the same. We're basically both saying we want people to leave us the fuck alone.

[Donnievil]

If you don't see a difference between your view and that of a liberal democrat, you might be a liberal democrat, not a libertarian. 

Since your podcast on "Libertarian Paternalism" these podcasts seem more and more to be leaning towards the left. I realize that "libertarian" is a broad term, but this seems a long ways from the libertarianism that I'm used to hearing from CATO.

[gamevalor]

Libertarianism and feminism are incompatible with each other. Feminists want to dictate what people and specifically women should think and do. Feminists prefer career women and dislike housewives or traditional families.

Libertarians believe in equal rights for all, equal opportunity, not equal outcome. Feminists (radicals) dislike differences in lifestyle choices that men and women make which causes different outcomes.

Libertarians prefer much personal freedom, while feminist organizations are usually funded via big government taxes. Feminists also use big government to force their values and social engineering on people.

Feminists claim to be champions of equality, yet they often biased, ignore men's rights issues and manipulate studies to victimize women and blame men.

[HSR]

Feminism has always been about state mandates which are incompatible with libertarianism.

[BNK]

Brown is awfull. She made me stop reading reason.