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1989 U. Chi. Legal F. 191 (1989)
Conservative Feminism

handle is hein.journals/uchclf1989 and id is 195 raw text is: Conservative Feminism Hon. Richard A. Posner [ My title may seem an oxymoron: Does not conservatism imply the rejection of feminism? Some brands of conservatism do; many social and religious conservatives believe that a woman's place is in the home. No one harboring such a belief would be likely to de- scribe himself or herself as a feminist. But conservatives who con- sider themselves libertarians-conservatives in the classical liberal tradition of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill (a distinguished femi- nist), Herbert Spencer (another pioneering feminist1) and Milton Friedman-do not believe that law or government should prescribe a particular role for women or discourage them from exercising free choice regarding occupation, marriage, and style of life. Nor, how- ever, do they believe that women should be put ahead of men or encouraged to lead separate lives from men, or that what's good for women should be the lodestar for social governance instead of what's good for the United States or what's good for human- kind. Nor do they have much faith in the power of government to put things right. The libertarian, noting that the history of legisla- tion and common law with respect to women has indeed been one of oppression and discrimination, is not optimistic that the law can be flipped over and become an engine of liberation. The libertarian also notes that women are so large and diverse a part of the popu- lation and their welfare is so entwined with men-particularly their sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers-that it is hard to im- agine what kind of legislation or legal rules could be devised that would benefit women as a group, unless society as a whole benefited. So what is conservative feminism? It is, I suggest, the idea t Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; Senior Lecturer, Uni- versity of Chicago Law School. This is the revised text of remarks delivered on October 15, 1988, at the Symposium on Feminism in the Law: Theory, Practice and Criticism, sponsored by The University of Chicago Legal Forum. The helpful comments of Frank Easterbrook, Richard Epstein, William Landes, Edward Lazear, Stephen McAllister, Charlene Posner, Judith Resnik, Eva Saks and Cass Sunstein, and the research assistance of Ricardo Barrera, are gratefully acknowledged. See the much-maligned Herbert Spencer, Social Statics ch 16 (Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1954) (advocating equal rights for women).

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