Another excellent piece by Jessica Valenti.

Debating Away Our Humanity
CBS News wants to know if “feminism failed women.” Here’s what they’re really asking.
Jessica Valenti
Dec 30

I drafted about ten different ledes for this column before realizing that nothing could beat the chilling absurdity of facts laid plain: CBS News, now led by one of the least talented women in media, plans to air a Bank of America-sponsored debate asking, “Has feminism failed women?”

The episode will run next year as part of the station’s new series, Things That Matter—which editor-in-chief Bari Weiss says will feature “honest conversation and civil, passionate debate.”

Civil and passionate debate…about whether equality is bad for women?

Given the regular slate of horrors I write about, you might think a single episode of television from an already-embattled media company wouldn’t rank high on my list of worries. But it’s not just CBS News asking this question.

Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, a growing number of publications, podcasts, and pundits are questioning feminism under the auspices of civil discourse. In recent months, I’ve been invited by half a dozen outlets to participate in similar ‘debates’ myself. The NPR-distributed series Open to Debate asked whether I’d weigh in on the question, “has feminism hurt women?” (NPR!) And earlier this year, I declined a “balanced and insightful discussion” on the wildly popular podcast Diary of a CEO—an episode they ended up calling, “Has modern feminism betrayed the very women it promised to empower?”

Why forgo all these opportunities to get in front of huge audiences and defend feminism? Because to participate would be accepting the premise that our rights and humanity are up for debate. Once you concede that it’s reasonable to ask whether women’s rights are a good thing, you’ve already lost.

And let’s be real, that is the question they’re asking. While there are plenty of vital conversations to have about feminism—even about its missteps—these shows and others like it aren’t interrogating if and how feminism delivered equality for women. They’re questioning whether equality itself was a mistake.

After all, when outlets ask whether ‘feminism’ has failed, the term is just a proxy for the issues they’re really targeting—like women’s right to work, vote, and control our own bodies. It’s a whole lot easier to debate ‘feminism’ than admit you’re challenging basic freedoms.

This sudden broad media interest isn’t some well-timed coincidence, either. We’re watching a deliberate conservative cultural push designed to undermine women’s rights. Some outlets are in on it, others are falling for it. Either way, the endgame is the same: treating our humanity like a thought exercise makes it that much easier to legislate away.