Feminism tends to be met with hostility in many conservative circles. Such thinkers tend to view feminism’s adherents as hostile to the family and especially to religious orthodoxy. But Erika Bachiochi suggests a different direction, arguing that there is a lost history of women’s rights thinking in America. Her The Rights of Women finds inspiration in Mary Wollstonecraft, and brings together a diverse cast of other thinkers including Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Betty Friedan, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Mary Ann Glendon to help explore a lost tradition of communitarian feminism.

We assembled some of our contributors to assess this important book:

The Feminist Antidote to Workaholism

Elayne Allen

Reclaiming a Lost Vision for Women

Elizabeth Kaufer Busch

Taking Back Women’s Rights

Rachel Lu

A Distorted Feminism

Sarah Skwire

The Pipedream of à la Carte Feminism

Scott Yenor

Finally, in “Women, Families, and the Ends of Freedom,” Erika Bachiochi offers her rejoinder.