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 Even so-called constitutionally-protected equal rights can be withdrawn by judges and undermined by legislators.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.

About the Author
Marcie Bianco is a writer, editor, scholar, and cultural critic. She has written, taught, and lectured about feminism, ethics, and culture for more than fifteen years. A 2013 Lambda Literary Fellow, her writing appears on CNN, NBC Think, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Salon, Slate, Vox, and Quartz. She is the author of the introduction to Meg Allen's photography book, BUTCH, and has essays on HBO's GIRLS and Gertrude Stein in edited academic volumes. Bianco is a columnist at the Women's Media Center and a SheSource expert. She is currently an editor at Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), an award-winning quarterly print magazine published around the world on issues pertaining to how cross-sector innovations lead to social change. With a global audience in the millions, Bianco helms four sections of the magazine and co-edits the features section. Bianco has participated on panels on cultural issues at institutions including Harvard University and Northwestern University. And she has made a number of media (on-camera and podcast) appearances, including Huffington Post Live, Al Jazeera's "The Stream," Sirius Q Radio, and New York Magazine's "Sex Lives" podcast. Bianco currently resides in California with her cats, Simone de Beauvoir, Freddie (Nietzsche) and (Amanda) Gorman.


Book Information
ISBN 9781541702424
Author Marcie Bianco
Format Hardback
Page Count 336
Imprint PublicAffairs,U.S.
Publisher PublicAffairs,U.S.
Weight(grams) 560g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 162mm * 34mm