In The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision, available from University of Notre Dame Press, Erika Bachiochi explores the development of feminist thought in the United States. Inspired by the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Bachiochi presents the intellectual history of a lost vision of women’s rights, seamlessly weaving philosophical insight, biographical portraits, and constitutional law to showcase the once predominant view that our rights properly rest upon our concrete responsibilities to God, self, family, and community.
Bachiochi is a legal scholar specializing in Equal Protection jurisprudence, feminist legal theory, Catholic social teaching, and sexual ethics. She speaks widely on abortion, sexual economics, the impact of the new sexual norms on women and the poor, care ethics, and authentic reproductive justice.
The Rights of Women provides a synthesis of ancient wisdom and modern political insight that locates the family’s vital work at the very center of personal and political self-government. Bachiochi demonstrates that when rights are properly understood as a civil and political apparatus born of the natural duties we owe to one another, they make more visible our personal responsibilities and more viable our common life together.
Elizabeth R. Schiltz says “Bachiochi flips effortlessly from legal analysis to philosophical arguments to sociological observations to characters from classic literature in a way that is almost invisible to the reader.” Michael Stokes Paulsen calls Bachiochi, “one of the most brilliant and refreshingly original feminist legal scholars writing today.” Helen M. Alvaré praises the book saying, “The Rights of Women brilliantly articulates what should be a central concern and debate for feminists today.”
The book is part of the Catholic Ideas for a Secular World Series, which features authors from around the world who expand the influence of Catholic thought on the most important conversations in academia and the public square.
You can learn more about Bachiochi and the book in her interviews with Notre Dame Press, Public Discourse, and EWTN Radio. She was also a featured guest on Unprecedential, a podcast with the American Enterprise Institute.
The Rights of Women has been featured in CNN, Politico, National Affairs, America Magazine, and First Things.
Bachiochi has scheduled virtual and in-person book events celebrating the release of The Rights of Women.
- July 15, Public Discourse Virtual Book Launch, 12:00 PM EST
- July 20, Catholic Information Center Book Symposium, 6:00pm EDT
- July 28, The Abigail Adams Institute Book Event, Time TBA
The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision is available in paperback and digital editions from the University of Notre Dame Press. For more information about the book, contact: Kathryn Pitts, pitts.5@nd.edu, 574.631.3267.
This story was originally published here.