For more than a century, women have fought for equality. Yet, time and again, their battles have fallen short. Even so-called constitutionally-protected equal rights can be withdrawn by judges and undermined by legislators. But the greater problem is in the notion of equality itself.
In Breaking Free, culture writer Marcie Bianco persuasively argues that the very concept of equality is a fallacy, an illusory goal that cannot address historic forms of discrimination and oppression. Starting with the campaign for women's suffrage and traveling through modern history, she shows us how equality has been designed to keep women and disenfranchised communities chasing an unobtainable goal. Conditioned for generations to want equality, it has become an insidious mindset locking us into the gender binary and reductive identity politics. Bianco calls upon a long-overlooked lineage to argue that only freedom can liberate feminism from these constraints, and proposes three freedom practices for women to reclaim their bodily autonomy and power.
What happens if we free ourselves of equality? Controversial and thrilling, Breaking Free guides readers toward new hope for the future of the feminist movement.
Marcie Bianco is a writer, editor, and cultural critic. She has written, taught, and lectured about feminism, ethics, literature, and culture for more than fifteen years. A 2013 Lambda Literary Fellow, her writing has appeared at CNN, NBC Think, and Vanity Fair, among other outlets and academic publications. Bianco is a columnist at the Women's Media Center and a SheSource expert. She currently is an editor at Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), an award-winning quarterly print magazine.
Bianco will be in conversation with Charlotte Clymer, a writer, communications consultant, transgender activist, and military veteran. Her work has been published in USA Today, The Washington Post, NBC News, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, GQ, The Independent, and other publications. She has also been a guest commentator on MSNBC, CNN, and CBS Sunday Morning. In 2022, she became the first openly-transgender person confirmed to the D.C. Commission on Human Rights. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and resides in Washington, D.C.
This event is free with first come, first served seating.
