Left-wing feminism is no ally of women

It’s increasingly popular to say feminism can never be capitalist; no exceptions. Capitalism, by its nature, supposedly exploits women. But if feminism cannot be capitalist, how does one explain Katharine McCormick, the woman who single-handedly financed the development of the pill?

McCormick was a committed feminist, a campaigner for women’s voting rights, and a signed-up member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In the 1950s, when the U.S. government would not invest in contraception research, McCormick used her own capital to advance the studies eventually leading to the pill.

Is this the kind of story that today’s feminists would sweep under the rug, in order to advocate for socialism above all else? It wasn’t the state, but private money that made possible one of the most important advancements in women’s rights for the past sixty years.

It is impossible to separate the advancements of women from the advancements of capitalism if we put aside the ugly