Beyond the Feminist Debate: Time to Reclaim a Lost Vision on Women’s Dignity?

Some Remarks on Erika Bachiochi’s Book The Rights of Women

The New Digest is delighted to feature this guest essay from Dr Gabriela García Escobar, Professor of Public International Law at Universidad Panamericana Campus Guadalajara. The essay offers commentary on the recent book of the legal scholar, and friend of the New Digest, Erika Bachiochi.

Earlier this week, I was honored to be invited to the presentation of the Spanish translation of the book The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision (Recuperar una vision perdida: Los derechos de las mujeres en Estados Unidos), written by Erika Bachiochi and translated by Pedro Pallares Yabur. While reading this insightful book, I considered three main ideas to be key contributions to the current debates we are witnessing about the condition of women and women’s dignity.

1. The book goes beyond reducing women's dignity to feminist debates

Discussions on how to define, respect, and protect women's dignity have been hijacked by various “isms,” especially by different strands of feminism. It is essential to clarify that there is no single definition of feminism, and the various proposals often contradict one another. However, looking at the current debates (both in conservative and liberal circles), it seems that any topic related to women must be approached from the perspective and philosophical premises of some particular type of feminism. This means that the discussions on women’s dignity must be framed according to the reductionist and questionable concepts adopted by a specific idea of feminism.

In the human rights debates, we can see the same situation. Any discussion on human dignity has been hijacked by “human rights experts” and must be framed according to human rights concepts and criteria. There is no possibility of thinking about human dignity according to different anthropological, legal, and political terms (see here for a critique of this situation in the human rights sector).

The title The Rights of Women (although in reference to Mary Wollstonecraft’s work) already represents a break from this reductive model of thought, paving the way for a more authentic, intellectually honest, and above all, realistic debate. This is evident in the book’s aim: to develop the political, social, and philosophical thought of Wollstonecraft, later reflected in the life and work of figures like Mary Ann Glendon. This is particularly striking because, while it is a book about “women,” it challenges the dogmatic frameworks established by modernity, particularly by liberalism in all its forms. The book does not present itself as a feminist proposal or a treatise on women’s dignity. Instead, it is a detailed exploration of political and social philosophy, analyzing the anthropological foundations on which society should be organized and the goals social and political institutions should pursue.

Specifically, the book questions paradigms that we have unconsciously inherited from modernity. As Professor Juan de la Borbolla once said, anyone who does not understand the impact of modernity on the history of ideas does not truly understand law today. In the same vein, we can say that those who do not grasp the profound implications modernity has had on the anthropological definition of the human person (shifting from a relational to an individualistic vision), on economic changes (from an agrarian to an industrial society), and the public sphere (the process of secularization and the separation of public and private life), cannot fully understand the current situation of women.

Keeping these transformations in mind, the book suggests that society should be organized according to a pre-modern and pre-liberal framework, based on a relational or communal notion of the person, where intermediate institutions (schools, families, religious associations) play a fundamental role in cultivating virtues and shaping individual character. Wollstonecraft argues that such a model would best respond to women's biological, emotional, and psychological needs: a society where the common good is not merely the sum of individual interests, nor a Marxist class struggle, but rather the good of every single person within the community.

This political and social vision, however, contrasts sharply with the dominant outlook of contemporary societies, where comprehensive liberalism pervades all institutions. Our dominant philosophical paradigm is based on the model of the atomized individual, whose unattainable goal is the endless pursuit of fragmented and often contradictory desires.

2. The book makes a broader analysis of women’s situation, considering the tremendous political, social, and economic transformations that have occurred in modernity

Looking beyond adjectives, identity politics, and a Neo-Marxist framework, Bachiochi’s book contributes to a deeper historical exploration of how modernity has transformed our understanding of society and ourselves.

Among the key issues addressed in this book is the vision that some refer to as the “traditional” division of labor and gender roles, in which women are confined to the domestic sphere while men are seen as breadwinners in the public sphere. However, this vision is not traditional at all—it is a modern invention, shaped by the creation of the public-private divide, where the domestic sphere came to be seen as inferior and subjective. This separation was a product of secularization (which sought to relegate religion and spirituality to the private realm) and industrialization (which dismantled the agricultural community where men and women worked together and instead relocated labor to factories and offices, reshaping the division of labor). These changes led to a new social model in which the protagonist is the abstract, self-determining individual.

Economic, social, political, and religious liberalism has pushed our society toward excessive individualism, privileging public activities (such as professional success in our post-industrial society) and abstract lifestyles, where people are detached from their families, religion, cultures, or nations—all aligned with the objective pursued by a hyper-consumerist society.

The imposition of these anthropological and social premises necessarily privileges individualistic lifestyles and promotes the exaltation of personal autonomy. But as Alasdair MacIntyre warns, we end up in a continuous clash of wills in a society dominated by fragmented desires with no objective framework to regulate them. In this struggle, the will of the strongest actors is the one that ends up dominating society, which means the imposition of the will of the most influential, or the most politically and economically powerful groups. In the realm of sexuality, this is especially evident—unchecked desires and the tolerance of all types of fantasies result in relationships of domination, humiliation, and the pursuit of pleasure at any cost, and in the imposition of a model that indulges egocentric and manipulative behaviors.

As long as this remains the dominant model of “success,” there will be a growing disdain for lifestyles based on interdependence. A society structured around these premises will favor men and women who adapt to the logic of consumerist individualism—those who focus solely on personal achievements, with no ties or responsibilities toward family, community, or society at large.

This model will inevitably devalue and even see as “burdens” those members of society who, due to their circumstances, nature, or personal choices, adopt interdependent lifestyles: people with disabilities, the sick, children, fathers, and women.

As the saying goes, “Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows.” Hyper-individualism benefits a small minority of women who choose individualistic and consumeristic lifestyles, while the vast majority desire—of their own free will—to adopt more interdependent ways of life, forging deep, time-demanding relationships, such as marriage and child-rearing. As the Chilean scholar Roberto Astaburuaga once put it, when a movement claims to represent all women, it ironically becomes patriarchal.

Throughout the book, it becomes clear that the philosophical framework proposed by Locke and Mill’s liberalism ultimately places women, families, and interdependent institutions at a crossroads: either they conform to an individualistic model (which aligns more with a traditionally male profile), or they are seen as obstacles and burdens that should be disregarded by society. As Mary Ann Glendon puts it, radical individualism’s greatest “gift” to women is leaving them completely alone with their rights. But is that really how women, men, and society as a whole want to live? If so, why do we continue to witness the paradox of declining women’s happiness, as societies and women become more liberated? Why do we increasingly hear stories of professionally successful women who feel lonely and dissatisfied with their lives?

3. Modern feminisms draw from the same anthropological roots that have placed women in this current dilemma—yet, paradoxically, they present themselves as the only solution to the problems they created

Are we experiencing an intellectual drought or crisis, in which our creativity has been exhausted, leaving us unable to design and implement an alternative philosophical framework?

This is where Erika’s proposal feels like a breath of fresh air: it allows us to imagine a world where “freedom” can be understood in terms of parameters that are more in line with relational and interdependent lifestyles— a world that reflects the lifestyles that most both men and women actually desire. As Erika and other scholars like Patrick Deneen in Why Liberalism Failed? argue, it is time to critically reassess our modern frameworks and reconsider concepts of freedom that make us truly free, rather than enslaved to the appetites of the atomized individual. This is a key argument in the book: liberal freedom (an autonomy oriented toward subjective satisfaction) is not the only definition of freedom we can adopt, nor does it best serve women. On the contrary, classical or pre-modern freedom (freedom for excellence) refers to self-mastery, the ability to control one’s appetite to act with true freedom. This is Erika’s vision, which gives us the necessary tools to imagine a common good oriented toward cultivating virtue.

As Plato states in The Republic, the tyrant is the most enslaved of all citizens because he is entirely ruled by his passions and incapable of exercising even the smallest act of true freedom. María Calvo (author of several books on women, family, and fatherhood), once said that “freedom without restraints is an unprecedented form of slavery”. Who is freer? The person who controls himself and does not eat the chocolate cake in the refrigerator because he is on a diet, or the person who cannot follow the diet and devours it out of sheer lack of willpower? Some argue that this liberal model of freedom can sustain itself without collapsing under its own contradictions. However, Bachiochi suggests that this approach is inherently

schizophrenic. It encourages, in the public sphere, the prevalence of personal desire, competition, and personal success (an individualistic and consumeristic framework); while at the same time, the private sphere is expected to function according to duty, virtue, and character formation (a communal framework). Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule assert that liberalism, under these parameters, has become unsustainable, as a market-driven and consumerist logic has now co-opted the virtues that once tempered individual passions. Alexis de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, also foresaw these internal contradictions within liberalism, which today have reached their peak—and which he warned would ultimately be the seed of democracy’s destruction.

Perhaps the most crucial debate of our time revolves around this very question, which Erika masterfully develops: Can liberalism be redeemed and, in doing so, offer a vision of womanhood that balances desire and virtue? Or has the time come for a radical shift in thought that replaces individualism and consumerism with an entirely new model of social life?

I am very grateful to Erika and Pedro for inviting me to this fascinating discussion. I hope more people can read this book and reflect upon the foundations of our modern world, which have reached a point of inflection. It is time for creative minorities to consider a new philosophical, cultural, and political paradigm that has to be more realistic and ordered to truth.