Feminism in Crisis: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Abstract: This essay examines the state and future of the feminism, the rights of women, and the feminist movement in France, the United States and around the world of the present and over the past half century. It focuses on successes as well as setbacks in the struggle for women’s rights in the United States and France in particular. The author discusses the ERA and its failure, the #MeToo movement as well as the Supreme Court’s controversial recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court. An activist herself, the author also discusses the birth of the feminist movement in France and the recent horrendous Pelicot trial, in which a husband drugged his wife and subjected her to rape by multiple perpetrators in Southern France for more than a decade. The wife, Gisèle Pelicot, has become a heroine for her ordeal and her courage. What will be the future of feminism in the world today? Will it be two steps forward and one step back, or will it be two steps backward and one step forward—or worse?