Women’s suffrage, women’s rights, feminism, women’s lib, girl power, gender equality, independence – terms that highlight the quest for women over the past century to claim entitlement to rights and position in society. In The Rights of Women (2021), Erika presents the intellectual history of a lost vision of women’s rights, showcasing the once predominant view that our rights properly rest upon our concrete responsibilities to God, self, family, and community.

In her recent review of Erika’s book, Helen Alvare, law professor at George Mason, describes how Erika “proposes that there is a way forward to harmonize marriage, parenting, and the social and economic equality of women — both within the home and in the marketplace. This harmonizing would also serve the needs and flourishing of children, men, and society.”

Alvare further states, “It helps readers overcome 'the fallacy of the present'—the notion that a current situation is all there is and all that’s possible—and to grasp instead that there is a feminism worthy of the name that can demand equal rights for women, but simultaneously embrace men, marriage, and children, while resisting both brutal market logic and an overly solipsistic notion of freedom.”

During a time when women are trying to balance “what they want” and what their families and society needs, Erika’s talk will provide some valuable insight and thoughtful prescriptions.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Erika Bachiochi is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a legal scholar specializing in Equal Protection jurisprudence, feminist legal theory, Catholic social teaching, and sexual ethics. A 2018 visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, she is also a Senior Fellow at the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge, MA, where she founded and directs the Wollstonecraft Project. Her newest book, The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, was published by Notre Dame University Press in 2021, and was named a finalist for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s 2022 Conservative Book of the Year award.

Ms. Bachiochi’s essays have appeared in publications such as the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Christian Bioethics (Oxford University), The New York Times, The Atlantic, First Things, Politico, CNN.com, National Review Online, National Affairs, Claremont Review of Books, SCOTUS blog, and Public Discourse.

Erika received a B.A. from Middlebury College, an MA from Boston College, and JD from Boston University. She is a co-founder of St. Benedict Classical Academy in Natick, Massachusetts where she served as President of the Board from 2013-2015. She and her husband Dan have seven children.

Her book, The Rights of Women, is available on Amazon.