Decades removed from the heady days of feminism’s “second wave” in the United States, it is distressing to acknowledge that the movement’s revolutionary moment is a dim memory, while key aspects of liberal feminism have been incorporated into the ruling-class agenda. Liberal feminist ideas have been mobilized to support a range of neoliberal initiatives, including austerity, imperial war, and structural adjustment.

It is undoubtedly important to understand how this occurred. But some recent explanations offered by feminist scholars point us in an unfortunate direction. These writers argue that second-wave feminism, with its overemphasis on legal rights and paid work as a route to equality, unwittingly paved the way for neoliberalism. It is comforting to think that radical feminists had this level of control over the outcome of our struggles. For, were it true, we could now correct our mistakes, change our ideas, and regain our revolutionary footing.

I want to make a different argument: Liberal feminism’s partial incorporation into the neoliberal economic, political, cultural, and social order is better explained by the emergence of a regime of capital accumulation that has fundamentally restructured economies in both the global north and the global south.