This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, November 29th, 2007.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Feminism has come to mean many things to many people.

Carrie Lucas of the Independent Women's Forum argues that feminism was once a movement

about equality under the law and equality of opportunity.

She says it now often represents expansion of government to achieve often dubious ends.

We spoke following a Cato Institute book forum yesterday.

A great deal of feminism focuses on equality and to that extent I certainly think that libertarians would agree that women should be treated equally under the law and that non-governmental groups ought to be focusing on equality of opportunity where equality under the law is not

implicated?

Is there a reason to believe that feminism as a general movement can refocus more strictly

on the issues of equality under the law or has the word

feminism become a catch-all for so many different ideas that it no longer can serve that purpose.

It is. It's really hard when we talk about the word feminism because the term feminism

does have a proud history where it was supposed to be about women's equality, but today those who have

really become associated with the word feminism are no longer champions of equality.

When you think about feminism, you think about groups like the National Organization for Women,

and when you look at their agenda, it really has nothing to do with equality

anymore.

It's about expanding government and really treating women as a special interest group

and attempting to use their power

to expand government to benefit women and to provide direct subsidies to women oftentimes.

As to gender roles in the home and in the workplace, there is this burgeoning field of feminist economics.

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