At Cross-Purposes
Feminism and the Christian Faith
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
October 1, 1995
It is difficult to imagine relations more intimate yet more conflicted than those that bind feminism and the Christian faith. Start with the premise-and it is difficult to dispute-that feminism originated as a distinctively Western ideology that depended for its initial formulation on the prior formulation of a concept of individual rights. Follow with the premise, which few today acknowledge but which is no less difficult to dispute, that the conception of individual freedom and, hence, individual rights derived directly from Christianity. The inescapable conclusion to the syllogism must be that feminism derived from Christianity. Perhaps intuitive recognition of this link helps to account for some feminists' reluctance finally to sever their links to Christianity, which they prefer to transform in the service of a feminist agenda. But when reading the vast majority of feminists, we are hard pressed to uncover even a grudging acknowledgment of feminism's debt to Christianity. Contemporary feminism, at least in its most visible, mainstream manifestations, has established itself as a resolutely, if not aggressively, secular program. Consider some of its primary objectives: abortion on demand; sexual freedom for women, including the freedom to engage in extramarital affairs with men or women; lesbianism and bisexuality as coequal to heterosexuality-which is increasingly referred to as "heterosexism"; equal pay for equal work; freedom from a special responsibility to children whether through joint-parenting or day care; and equal participation in the military. Some feminists attack pornography for promoting men's domination over women and therefore support its regulation or censorship. They do not attack it because of its obscenity ...
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