When I saw the headline “Did Women Ruin the Workplace? And if So, Can Conservative Feminism Fix It?” in The New York Times Opinion section, my heart sank. It felt like a headline torn from another era—a provocation that had no place in 2025.
After predictable backlash online, the headline was softened to “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” The wording changed, but the message didn’t. Curious—and frustrated—I listened to the accompanying podcast, Interesting Times. What I heard wasn’t analysis; it was a polished repackaging of old patriarchal ideas dressed up as intellectual debate.
The podcast opens with the statement, “Men and women are different,” calling this “the core premise of conservatism in the age of Trump.” The host goes on to say that liberalism and feminism “have come to grief by pretending that the sexes are the same.”
No one—least of all feminists—is pretending men and women are “the same.” According to Merriam-Webster, feminism is “the belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.”
Equality does not mean sameness; it means fairness—the right to opportunity, autonomy and dignity regardless of gender.
By painting #MeToo as hysteria or ‘politicization,’ the guests invoke an old patriarchal trope: that women’s anger is dangerous, that our insistence on justice threatens civilization itself.
By suggesting feminism “pretends” the sexes are identical, the host misrepresents a movement that has always sought to expand human possibility, not erase difference. He then poses the question: Should the right “roll back the feminist era,” or is there a “conservative feminism” that corrects liberalism’s mistakes?
There is no such thing as conservative feminism. The phrase exists because patriarchy has learned to speak the language of empowerment. It borrows feminist words—“choice,” “agency,” “strength”—but drains them of their radical meaning, using them to defend inequality. It’s liberation without justice. It’s empowerment without equality.
The podcast’s guests, both conservative writers, joined the discussion to critique what they called “wokeness.” One guest chose to focus on the #MeToo movement, saying:
“Let’s pick one flavor of wokeness, and that is the #MeToo movement. … It suddenly became mandatory for us to believe all women, no matter how credible or not credible their testimony might be.”
They framed #MeToo as an overreach—a breakdown of “neutrality” and “the rule of law,” arguing that it turned ordinary missteps into scandals, even citing comedian Aziz Ansari’s much-discussed date story as proof that the movement punished “awkwardness.”
But this framing deeply misunderstands what #MeToo actually was—and is. #MeToo wasn’t about “canceling” men for bad dates or silencing dialogue. It was about finally creating consequences for patterns of abuse and harassment that had long been ignored. It didn’t “change the rules” of sex scandals; it exposed the rules that had always protected abusers.
False accusations remain extremely rare—estimated at between 2 percent and 8 percent of reports—while roughly two-thirds of sexual assaults are never reported at all. The crisis is sexual violence, not accountability.
There is no such thing as conservative feminism. … It borrows feminist words—’choice,’ ‘agency,’ ‘strength’—but drains them of their radical meaning, using them to defend inequality.
By painting #MeToo as hysteria or “politicization,” the guests invoke an old patriarchal trope: that women’s anger is dangerous, that our insistence on justice threatens civilization itself. But it isn’t the pursuit of justice that undermines the rule of law—it’s the centuries of silence that preceded it.
At one point, one of the guests suggested that “a good employer” should tell women to choose career tracks that allow part-time work during their “childbearing years.”
That’s not guidance—that’s control. It’s the quiet reassertion of patriarchy under the guise of practicality. According to Merriam-Webster, patriarchy is “a social organization marked by the supremacy of the father and control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.” The podcast guests aren’t conservative feminists; they’re defenders of that system.
Telling women to preemptively limit their careers reinforces the assumption that childrearing is solely their responsibility—and that the workplace should remain structured around men’s lives.
When asked about “toxic femininity,” one of the guests replied, “Gossip. The inability to deal with conflict directly.” She went on to contrast “female vices”—backbiting, irrationality, ostracism—with “masculine virtues” like risk-taking and brotherhood.
These aren’t insights; they’re relics. For centuries, women have been labeled emotional or petty to justify their exclusion from leadership and public life. Hearing these stereotypes revived in 2025—in The New York Times, no less—is disheartening.
At a time when reproductive rights are being stripped away and women’s autonomy is under attack, we don’t need pseudo-intellectual nostalgia for patriarchy disguised as debate. We need truth, solidarity and progress.
Feminism didn’t “ruin” the workplace—it made it more humane. It demanded equal pay, family leave, anti-harassment policies and paths to leadership. If that disrupted old hierarchies, then perhaps they needed disrupting.
What’s really under attack isn’t the workplace—it’s the comfort of those who never had to share it.
Feminism didn’t ‘ruin’ the workplace. It made it more humane.
The writer’s podcast claims to explore “the big questions of our era.” But when those questions ask whether feminism has “ruined” the workplace, the format becomes less conversation than provocation—a way to make misogyny sound like intellectual inquiry. The Times’ decision to amplify these voices is disappointing.
Women are not the problem. Feminism is not the problem. The problem is a culture still too comfortable questioning women’s legitimacy, ambition and anger.
The message from the writers is clear: Women should know their place. But women already do—it’s everywhere decisions are made, everywhere power is exercised, everywhere the future is being built.
We’re not staying in our lane. We made the road. And we’re not going anywhere.
Great Job Jodi Bondi Norgaard & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
