Since my college years almost 20 years ago, I’ve considered myself a feminist. It is usually assumed that feminists are left-leaning liberals, but I am a feminist who is politically to the right of center. So, at many feminist gatherings – especially as my politics have changed – I’ve often felt like an ideological version of the ‘sister outsider’ outlined in the work of the late lesbian feminist Audre Lorde: theoretically part of the group, but a case apart. However, there are many other black feminists like me.

While abortion and LGBT issues are the focus of feminism in America, the economy and government intervention are concerns in other countries. Today, I stumbled upon this article about conservative black feminists from around the world. Now, right, left, conservative and liberal mean many different things outside of America, but the feminists mentioned in this article emphasize personal responsibility, limited government and capitalism.

There is an opportunity for us black center-right feminists to build upon Hurston’s work and to continue to bring different perspectives to black feminism. Liberal feminists often ask for big government goodies, but that can’t happen without production and wealth creation by individuals freely trading their products and services.

As a social conservative in America, you would think that my main issue with feminism would be abortion. However, it is feminism’s deep commitment to socialism that bothers me the most. Feminists believe that to empower women, you need to weaken men. In order to help the poor, you have to take away resources from the rich through taxes, lawsuits, anti-discrimination laws or quotas. Feminists believe that in order to change society, the federal government has to step in and pass a law. It’s as though freedom, wealth and liberty are in limited quantities and must be rationed out to the masses in different levels determined by arbitrary perceptions of discrimination.

If feminists spent more time trying to alter society’s perceptions instead of bullying people through lawsuits, mandates and laws, I believe that a lot many more Americans would embrace the movement. However, feminists have allowed their cause to be co-opted by the Democratic party in order to maintain political power and relevancy. They’ve sacrificed the “principles” of their movement for short-term gains. Allowing a political party to take oever your movement only weakens it. (Sadly, that comes from watching Republicans all but destroy the fiscal conservatism on the right. )

In developing countries, it’s the much-hated “patriarchal” capitalism that is liberating women. Micro-loans and social entrepreneurship are helping women in the most impoverished countries develop businesses and establish better lives for their families and communities. Think the Girl Effect* or Ten Thousand Villages.

While I disagree with the author’s views on abortion and gays, I can’t help but want to shout a third wave “you go girl” here:

Another area that libertarian feminists look at is how more modest dress is now the counterculture, and how hip-hop culture has undermined the richness of black American culture that once placed more value on black women. We are also interested in how government policies – such as the Great Society, the war on drugs, prostitution laws that prosecute women but not the male customer, military rules barring women from certain positions, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military and state crackdowns on informal babysitting arrangements – have disproportionately impacted black women’s lives and undermined black women’s freedom.

Choice is an underlying theme running through black center-right feminism. However, this pro-choice stance doesn’t end with abortion, but extends to economic issues and other social issues.

We believe that women should have the right to make any choices that we desire (while enduring the full repercussions of those choices), so long as it doesn’t harm others. With our choice mantra, black center-right feminists can increasingly bring more energy and vigor to the feminist arena.

If feminism believes that women should be empowered by choices, we need to stop the nannystate encroachment. Fewer laws, less government intervention, greater freedom and liberty are the answer. In the words of my college roommate, that requires you to put on your big girl panties and take responsibility for your own actions. Liberty and capitalism make a better society for everyone rather than a rigid, litigious society that all but mirrors the far reaches of the right that feminists so eschew.

*I really like the Girl Effect video not only because it’s one of the best web videos out there, but it has a strong capitalistic message. Through education and capitalism, a girl helps her family and village. It’s not through the government or the UN, but through investing in a small business and giving her the freedom to make choices with that business.