Assessing Feminism

Looking more closely at feminism and its fruits:

Feminism has long been with us. And for quite some time now there have arisen various criticisms of it. All this has become even more pronounced with the appearance of countless women defending, praising and celebrating Lindsay Clancy who murdered her own three small children in America.

It seems modern feminism has now moved on from proclaiming the inherent goodness and fundamental ‘right’ of killing babies in the womb to proclaiming the inherent goodness and fundamental ‘right’ of killing babies after they have left the womb. Heaven help us.

As with almost all the culture war hot topics, the number of books fully in support of feminism, women’s liberation and related issues far outnumber those critical of such things. Walk into any bookshop and the former will readily be found, but not so much the latter.

So here I present 40 key volumes that do offer stern assessments and rebukes – 36 general titles and 4 on women in the military. I follow this reading list with some quotes from two of the newer volumes:

Birkett, Kirsten, The Essence of Feminism. Matthias Media, 2001.
Chervin, Ronda, Feminine, Free and Faithful. Ignatius Press, 1986.
Chesler, Phyllis, The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Crittenden, Danielle, What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us. Touchstone, 1999.
Davidson, Nicholas, The Failure of Feminism. Prometheus Books, 1988.
Dector, Midge, The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women’s Liberation. Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1972.
Farrell, Warren, The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex. Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Fiamengo, Janice, The Goddess That Failed: Feminism’s Unending War against Men, Families, and Civilization Itself. World Encounter Institute/New English Review Press, 2026.
Gallagher, Maggie, Enemies of Eros. Bonus Books, 1989.
Gavora, Jessica, Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX. Encounter Books, 2002.
Gilder, George, Men and Marriage. Pelican Publishing, 1986.
Goldberg, Steven, The Inevitability of Patriarchy. Temple Smith, 1973, 1977.
Graglia, F. Carolyn, Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism. Spence Publishing, 1998.
Gress, Carrie, The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us. Regnery, 2023, 2024.
Gress, Carrie, Something Wicked: Why Feminism Can’t Be Fused with Christianity. Sophia Institute Press, 2026.
Hunter, Brenda, Home By Choice: Facing the Effects of Mother’s Absence. Multnomah Press, 1991.
Kassian, Mary A., The Feminist Gospel: The Movement to Unite Feminism With the Church. Crossway Books, 1992.
Levin, Michael, Feminism and Freedom. Transaction Books, 1987.
Lukas, Carrie, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism. Regnery, 2006.
Moens, Gabriel, Affirmative Action: The New Discrimination. Centre for Independent Studies, 1985.
Moens, Gabriel, and Suri Ratnapala, The Illusions of Comparable Worth. Centre for Independent Studies, 1992.
Oddie, William, What Will Happen to God? Feminism and the Reconstruction of Christian Belief. SPCK, 1984.
O’Leary, Dale, The Gender Agenda. Vital Issues Press, 1997.
Pearcey, Nancy, The Toxic War on Masculinity. Baker, 2023.
Phillips, Melanie, The Sex-change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male. The Social Market Foundation, 1999.
Pride, Mary, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality. Crossway Books, 1985.
Quest, Caroline, ed., Liberating Women … From Modern Feminism. Institute of Economic Affairs, 1994.
Rhoads, Steven, Taking Sex Differences Seriously. Encounter Books, 2004.
Robertson, Brian, Forced Labor: What’s Wrong with Balancing Work and Family? Spence Publishing, 2002.
Schlafly, Phyllis, Feminist Fantasies. Spence Publishing, 2003.
Sommers, Christina Hoff, The War Against Boys. Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Sommers, Christina Hoff, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women. Touchstone Books, 1994.
Steichen, Donna, Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism. Ignatius Press, 1991.
Thomas, David, Not Guilty: In Defence of the Modern Man. Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1993.
Venker, Suzanne, 7 Myths of Working Mothers: Why Children and (Most) Careers Just Don’t Mix. Spence Publishing, 2004.
Venker, Suzanne and Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism. WND Books, 2011.

Women in the Military

Browne, Kingsley, Co-ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn’t Fight the Nation’s Wars. Sentinel, 2007.
Gutmann, Stephanie, The Kinder, Gentler Military: How Political Correctness Affects Our Ability to Win Wars. Encounter Books, 2001.
Mitchell, Brian, Women in the Military: Flirting With Disaster. Update of Weak Link. Regnery, 1997.
Mitchell, Brian, Weak Link: The Feminization of the American Military. Regnery, 1989.

Some of these volumes I have already reviewed. Here are a few of them:

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2004/02/18/a-review-of-domestic-tranquility-a-brief-against-feminism-by-f-carolyn-graglia/

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/07/14/a-review-of-the-toxic-war-on-masculinity-by-nancy-pearcey/

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/03/29/feminism-transgenderism-and-the-end-of-women/

Quotes

Fiamengo, Janice, The Goddess That Failed

Feminism almost never mentions the well-documented gender disparities in prison incarceration, homelessness, addiction, suicide, or educational attainment that show male disadvantage. Discrimination against boys in school is denied or ignored. Feminism passes over the enormous number of male homicides in silence. It fudges data and avoids full disclosure to make it seem that domestic violence is overwhelmingly male-perpetrated. It exaggerates the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment. It creates entire government departments and international days of observance to promote the rights of women and girls, but creates none for men. As we will see, it sympathizes with female criminals and blames male victims.

 

Men are never acknowledged to have done enough for women; and women never acknowledge that they should do anything for men, except perhaps teach them to be more like women.

 

No matter the number of pro-female government programs, wealth transfer schemes, anti-male initiatives, gynocentric laws, and celebrations of female supremacy, the female sex continually demands more, complaining that crucial gender imbalances remain. Sometimes feminists even claim that things have never been worse or that what has been done actually contributed to male advantage, or was done in bad faith, or was done with inadequate results, or created unforeseen problems for women that must now be rectified with further funding, programs, male re-education and public service campaigns.

 

Boys are taught from a young age that they must take responsibility and attempt to make amends for the alleged wrongs of men and boys. Girls are never taught that they must take responsibility for the alleged wrongs of women and girls….

 

The good news is that the situation cannot last forever. Societies lacking appropriate recognition and reciprocity tend to collapse of their own dysfunction, as the exploited group gradually becomes alienated, removes its labor, seeks oblivion in hedonism and/ or self-harm, or resorts to violence directed outward or against the self. The exploiting group becomes so mired in its delusions that it is increasingly unable to comprehend or deal with reality and exhibits symptoms of anxiety, hysteria, and nihilistic destruction.

 

Unfortunately, the bad news is that once a society has reached this point, rebalancing of the gender order becomes very difficult, and total social breakdown becomes a frightening possibility. As the next chapters will show, we are approaching the break-point. Men and boys are suffering and disillusioned; girls and women are angry, indifferent, or outright abusive. Our society applauds abusive women and ignores male suffering. When problems are noted, the usual answer by the elites is that we need more feminism. That will not save us. (pp. 31-33)

Gress, Carrie, Something Wicked

There remains a general belief that feminism is simply malleable enough to fit in with even the most ardent adherents of the Christian faith. This belief, however, is proving to be incredibly misleading to millions of faithful, unsuspecting Christians.

 

The fruits have not been pretty. There is little difference between Christian women and their secular peers when it comes to occult practices or seeking out abortion. Catholic women use birth control at a rate nearly identical to the general population, despite the Church’s never-wavering teaching against it. Meanwhile, marriage rates are the lowest in history, birth rates are plummeting, and it isn’t uncommon to hear Christians, right along with secular women, state that they are just too selfish to have children. The feminist ideology has managed to sweep all of us into its orbit in one way or another.

 

The damage has redounded through the culture. Men and boys are suffering from the absence of appreciation for their gifts and God-given purposes because of the over-emphasis on female empowerment. Marriage has become a luxury item unavailable to poor women, leaving many “married” to the government for the care and financial support of their children. Meanwhile, women of all classes who want to be married often remain single. Others looking for relationships must endure the expected humiliations of the hookup culture as a hoped-for entry point to a mate with a future. The blurring of the lines between the gospel message given to us by Jesus and a seemingly equally strong appeal to empower women has left behind many of the people whom it was supposed to help, particularly the poor, the weak, and the vulnerable.

 

Like Oz’s wizard, the glitter of feminism has promised much but is proving to be not only empty but dangerous. Feminism has been presented as just a “women’s rights” movement, serving a good purpose in general by providing women with jobs, education, opportunity, and empowerment. But as we dare to pull back its curtain to expose its philosophical roots, we see a much more sinister reality. Literature professor Janice Fiamengo, who for years had been a devoted feminist, after researching the dark roots of feminism suggests that “everyone thinks they know something about feminism, and that little that they think they know is almost completely wrong.”

 

Those trying to connect feminism with contemporary Christianity tend to put a benign face on the movement, with a simple definition such as “feminism is about helping women.”…

 

But perhaps most importantly, these kinds of definitions aren’t what the feminists (of any wave) meant by feminism. And yet this ambiguity is what has given feminism free rein to influence, sway, and confuse the masses. The movement has become an intellectual behemoth by simply failing to define itself beyond a few empty tropes, like “feminism is the belief that women are people, too” or “feminism is equal rights for women.” Under the guise of something very good, almost all of Western culture has been unwittingly caught up in something very bad….

 

Feminism has created a kind of “shadow church.” It mimics the essentials of Christianity. This is why it is so hard for women, even Christian women, to see the truth about feminism. Feminism mimics the rich elements that faith brings to our lives — it answers basic human questions not just of meaning but also of how to think, act, and behave. As Christianity has waned over the last two centuries, feminism filled in the gap, supplying women with a kind of surrogate — and a fashionable one at that — to navigate a complex world and feel somehow empowered and emboldened by it. Like Christianity, feminism has its own list of canonized names, its own set of consecrated and therefore untouchable terms, its own rituals and sacred gatherings. It has had no shortage of apostles, disciples, evangelists, celebrity spokesmen, and corporate sponsors. Feminism is its own megachurch.

 

Politicians, lobbyists, activists, journalists, and beyond have spent years grappling with isolated aspects of the feminist movement, such as abortion or female poverty. But the reason feminism and its harmful fruit remain so impervious is that we haven’t grappled with, or even acknowledged that feminism, for most Western women, has supplanted Christianity as a moral guide. We have fundamentally underestimated how deeply feminism has formed — or deformed — the female heart in Western culture because of the religious character it has adopted. (pp. 13-16)

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