Wendy McElroy is a pioneer of "individualist feminism" -- a movement that rejects the traditional left-wing, big-government school of feminism, and argues that only individual liberty will empower women to achieve true equality.

In a speech at the 20th Anniversary World Libertarian Conference (London, Ontario, July 2000), McElroy explained the philosophy behind the so-called "Ifeminism" movement.

"Ifeminism extends the slogan 'a woman's body, a woman's right' to every peaceful choice a woman can make, from motherhood to participating in pornography, from being the CEO of an international corporation to prostitution," she said. "It believes that women and men should be treated equally under just law -- that is, under law that protects the person and property of every human being.

"Women should neither be hindered nor helped by government. And since the system that best reflects freedom of choice and impartial equality is the free market, Ifeminism is pro laissez-faire; it seeks private rather than governmental solutions to social problems."

In addition to serving as editor of the Ifeminist.com website, McElroy is a contributing editor for Ideas on Liberty and Liberty magazines; a weekly columnist for FoxNews.com; and a research fellow at the Independent Institute. She is a member of the Association of Libertarian Feminists.

McElroy is perhaps best known outside the libertarian movement as the author of XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography (1995). The book, which aroused the ire of old-school feminists, "advocates pornography as part of a free, healthy flow of information about sex needed by society, including women," according to the Library Journal.

McElroy is also the author of Sexual Correctness: The Gender Feminist Attack on Women (1996), The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival (1998), and Queen Silver: The Godless Girl (1999). She edited Liberty for Women (2002), a collection of essays that give the Ifeminist perspective on sex, guns, work, violence, and other topics; and Freedom, Feminism and the State (1983), which offers a historical overview of individualist feminism in America.

Philosophically, McElroy doesn't call herself a libertarian, but describes her beliefs as "individualist anarchism." She also rejects voting and political action, which she says are "direct violations of libertarian morality."

-- Bill Winter

Quotable

"No one has the right to place one human being in a position of political power over another." -- Wendy McElroy in Liberty magazine (May 1996)

Books & Tapes

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