Women for Freedom

by Peter Saint-Andre

2003-10-28

Allison Brown has an interesting article about female libertarians over on LewRockwell.com. Since she asks for feedback, I emailed her with some thoughts on the topic (not neglecting to mention that, while I'm a female chauvinist, I'm also happily married!). Allison mentions that women tend to be less confrontational and more cooperative than men (in general: of course there are exceptions, everyone is an individual!). It strikes me that people who are cooperative rather than combative could best serve the cause of freedom by pursuing what I'm calling "civic activism". Rather than getting involved in the rough-and-tumble of political activism, perhaps women might be more attracted to cooperatively building alternatives to traditional political structures. So rather than fight city hall or testify before legislative committees or run for office (etc.), it may be time (in the finest anarchist tradition) for non-confrontational people to build homeschooling networks, charities that can replace government programs (oh, let's say, a fund to help pay the heating bills of people who are down on their luck), exchange programs to bring freedom-oriented young people together, and in general initiatives that will build a strong civil society (thus reducing dependence on government). Indeed, I think that doing this is critically important to building a free society (it's not called a free polity, after all).


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