Except the only true slaves . . . by which I mean people who are owned by others, have no personal choices or autonomy over their physical bodies, no rights to own land, participate in government and are bought and sold like cattle, etc. Actual Slaves are enslaved because they do not have the right or ability to make money. It is a woman’s right to work that makes her free.

Look at the 3rd world – the best thing you can do to free a literal slave is to pay off their debt, buy their freedom, make her economically independent and help her start a business. Economic independence makes her free.

While you may have felt like a slave – and believe me I get it – you are still a free woman with the right to own property, start a business, invest money, earn a paycheck, get a job, get health benefits, acquire social security, divorce your spouse, vote for your elected officials, have children outside the bounds of marriage, etc. NONE of these rights would have been yours without the work and sacrifice traditional feminists.

There was a price to be sure. But, worth it because we get to choose where we go from here.

I do want to clarify: I am grateful to old-school feminism because without economic power women would have remained slaves.

Economic power is huge. Its just not the full expression of what we are becoming.

Because we can’t isolate kids in a totally gender neutral environment, we may never know how much is biology and how much is social conditioning.

Does that mean we should give up on equality? NO. Does that mean we should pretend that women and men are not only equal but identical? NO.

But what it means is that we should not assume that our children will be one thing or another based on gender, or that what set of reproductive organs one has determines one’s place in life.