faculty spotlight interview_ wendy mcelroy

13/4/2016 Faculty Spotlight Interview: Wendy McElroy

https://mises.org/print/32757 1/4

Published on Mises Institute (https://mises.org)

Faculty Spotlight Interview: Wendy McElroyFebruary 3, 2011 ­ 10:00 AM Mises.org [1]

Wendy McElroy is the author of XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography [2] (St. Martin’sPress,1995), Sexual Correctness: The Gender­Feminist Attack on Women [3], (McFarland,1996), The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Surviva [4]l (Prometheus Books,1998), and Queen Silver: The Godless Girl (Prometheus Books, 2000), and IndividualistFeminism of the Nineteenth Century [5](McFarland, 2001). Her most recent book is a newanthology, Liberty for Women [6], (Ivan R. Dee, 2002). Her book on prostitution, Le GambeDella Liberta, has just been published in Italian by the publisher Leonardo Facco.

She is the editor of Freedom, Feminism and the Stat [7]e (1st ed., Cato, 1983; 2nd ed.,Holmes & Meier, 1991), which provides a historical overview of individualist feminism inAmerica. A portion of the Preface is provided to render a better sense of this tradition andwhere it fits in with the more general feminist movement. Individualist Feminism: Part One [8],and Individualist Feminism: Part Two [9]

McElroy has also compiled Index to Liberty: 1881­1908, a comprehensive index to BenjaminTucker’s 19th century periodical, which can be accessed through the Memory Hole Website— under the category of individualist anarchism. Bibliographic Essay to IndividualistFeminism is also located on this site. Her recent work, The Debates of Liberty [10], is expectedto be issued by Lexington Books (Rowman and Littlefield).

She is a weekly columnist for FoxNews.com [11], writing under the title “The [12]ifeminist [12]” —a column that is widely reposted on the Internet. She is the editor of the feminist websiteifeminists.com [13] which grows by approximately 10% each month. McElroy is also a researchfellow at the Independent Institute [14], and contributing editor to Ideas on Liberty (formerlyThe Freeman), The New Libertarian, Free Inquiry, and Liberty magazines. Her writing hasappeared in such diverse periodicals as National Review, Marie Claire, and Penthouse.

For over a decade, McElroy was a series editor for Knowledge Products [15]. She has writtenand edited many documentary scripts for audio cassette, some of which were narrated byWalter Cronkite, George C. Scott, and Harry Reasoner.

What do you like to do in your free time? Do you have any hobbies? My favorite hobby is cooking, especially ethnic food. Years ago, my husband and I movedfrom a big city to a farm that is down a gravel road with the nearest town containing fewerthan 500 people. One of the few big city niceties my husband missed was the selection ofethnic food, especially Mexican. Thus, Mexican was the first cuisine I ‘mistressed’ in order toget the man’s blood­salsa level back to where it belonged.

13/4/2016 Faculty Spotlight Interview: Wendy McElroy

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What drew you to the Austrian school and to the Ludwig von Mises Institute? I was drawn to both by the inimitable economist and historian Murray Rothbard.

I believe most libertarians enter the movement from one of two directions or concerns: civilliberties or free market economics. My overwhelming focus was civil liberties. Although Iunderstood there was no difference in kind between civil and economics rights – that is, theyare both expressions of the ‘human’ right to person and property — I found economics to bequite dull. Indeed, those who entered from the direction of economics seemed to have apersonality type that was more subdued, retiring, dry. This was an unfair judgment but one towhich I do admit.

Then I read Murray and, then, I met him. He sparkled. He made economics sparkle. Moreimportantly, his arguments were a perfect marriage of civil rights and economic liberty so thatit has become impossible for me to divorce the two from any issue I now examine. This istrue even of issues that are traditionally non­economic. For example, when I considerdomestic violence, I heavily factor in economic considerations such as who’s definition isbeing used? Does the definer profit in some manner? ­perhaps by being part of what hasbeen called the “Domestic Violence Industry?” I now consider any treatment of civil libertiesthat does not include an economic analysis to be incomplete and ‘economic types’ no longerseem dull to me.

Murray also cultivated within me a lifelong passion for 19th century individualist anarchism.He had the discernment to discard what was flawed within Benjamin Tucker et al –specifically, the acceptance of a labor theory of value – and to embrace their analysis of thestate.

It was a heady mixture. But more than this, it was a systematic and integrated world view inwhich Austrian economics played a key role.

Thus, the Mises Institute had the immediate appeal of being home to Murray; and, where the‘bow tie’ went, a lot of us followed. Mises also had (and has) the rare talents of Lew Rockwell,who combines an eloquent understanding of the ideas with unusual administrative skill. Thismakes for a principled and well­oiled institute. I do not always agree with those principles –for example, I am adamantly anti­voting – but Mises has always tolerated suchdisagreements.

Who is your greatest inspiration?

In terms of a single person, the foregoing answer captures him.

In broader terms, however, my greatest inspiration has been the 19th century individualistanarchist movement and most specifically Tucker. In my early twenties, I worked days and, atnight, I indexed Tucker’s periodical Liberty (1881­1908). After a year of nightly page­turning,it got so that I could predict the line Tucker would take on almost any issue and, then, Istarted to predict what his wording would be.

But it wasn’t merely Tucker with whom I felt an intellectual affinity, of course. It was thecluster of luminaries whom he called mentors (Spooner, Greene, Warren) as well as the up­and­comers who called Tucker mentor in turn (Yarros, Byington).

I am currently going through a microfilm run of Auberon Herbert’s periodical The Free Life,and I am more impressed by its quality than I expected. My former exposure to the British

13/4/2016 Faculty Spotlight Interview: Wendy McElroy

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individualist Herbert – famous for popularizing the term ‘Voluntaryist’ – was largely throughexchange of debate within Liberty with his American counterparts. I thought Herbert arguedwell but I underrated him. Last month, I finished reading a series of his commentaries that,taken collectively, constitute the single best refutation of Georgism I can imagine. The FreeLife has changed my mind on several points of theory, which is no mean feat.

How is libertarianism viewed within the feminist movement? Is it seen as a viablepolitical philosophy which can help progress the rights of women?

The movement has become a large enough umbrella to include schools like libertarianfeminism or, more broadly, individualist feminism. This is an encouraging development overthe last few decades.

The dominant school, however, is still ‘gender’ feminism which is politically correct and far­leftleaning. They consider the free market to be one of the twin pillars of the patriarchal systemthat is, in turn, the oppressor of women. They also approach politics almost exclusively onthe basis of class analysis and class interests. Predictably, an individualist feminist who toutsthe free market and reduces politics to individual rights is usually dismissed, accused ofbeing a shill for male power, or otherwise treated with contempt. It can become a miteunpleasant. (By the way, I do not mean to discard ‘class analysis’; it plays an essential role inlibertarian theory but a very different one than it does in gender feminism. Libertarian classanalysis does not denigrate the supreme importance of individuals.)

On the other hand, libertarianism has produced wonderful female scholars, such as EllenFrankel Paul, and an impressive body of supporting work in feminism. (Please see ananthology I edited entitled Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the Twenty­FirstCentury for a sense of the richness and breadth of scholarship.) The last several years hasseen an increasing acceptance of individualist feminism within academia; every month or so,I receive permission requests to reprint one of my pieces in a textbook or to have an articleincluded in course handouts. Again, encouraging.

It will take quite awhile, however, for the zeitgeist of gender feminism to be lifted from themovement. Gender feminism has institutionalized itself within society through laws and withinacademia through Women’s Studies Departments.

Do you have any new works on the way?

Yes I do. For better or worse, however, I rarely discuss material on which I am activelyworking. Given how many parties I’ve attended at which authors sit and read aloud theirmanuscripts­in­progress, this is not necessarily a character flaw.

What kind of impact do you hope to make with your work?

I have so many answers to this one question. Let me chose just one. I wish to be amongthose who reclaim and sustain two neglected traditions: individualist anarchism andindividualist feminism.

Are there any words of wisdom you wish to pass onto the next generation of Austrianscholars?

Yes, but I would pass on the advice to libertarians in general.

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Be more interested in ideas than you are in being ‘right’. By this I do not mean you shouldcease to pass judgment on ideas or cease to pursue the truth. But ideas are intrinsicallyinteresting and you can learn a great deal from those with whom you disagree. Some of thebest ruling class analysis out there comes from left wing historians.

My second piece of advice is a corollary of the first. Do not presume that people who are‘wrong’ are less intelligent, less decent or well­informed than you. For many years, my BFFwas an old­fashioned labor union socialist who kept hoping libertarianism was a phasethrough which I would pass. We had strong points of political agreement as well, of course,including a belief in free speech absolutism and anti­war activism. She was one of the mostintelligent, kind­hearted, and well­read people I’ve ever known. When we disagreed, she didnot suddenly become stupid, coarse and ignorant. She was the same human being; wesimply disagreed.

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Links[1] https://mises.org/profile/misesorg[2] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/xxx.htm [3] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/affirm.htm [4] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/index.html [5] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/19thcent/index.html [6] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/l4w/index.html [7] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/ffs/index.html [8] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/fem1.htm [9] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/fem2.htm [10] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/libdebates/ch6intpr.html [11] http://www.foxnews.com/ [12] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251783,00.html [13] http://www.ifeminists.com/e107_plugins/enews/enews.php [14] http://www.independent.org/ [15] http://www.wendymcelroy.com/kprod.htm