Women and feminism don’t need to surrender. We were never the problem. A march on International Women’s Day March 8, 2025, in New York City. (Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images)

Over the past year, several women-focused articles in the New York Times declared feminism has gone too far, and put the onus on women to fix what is broken.

An article asking if liberal feminism “ruined the workplace” broke the internet late last year.

An article last month featured a conversation with influential, right-wing columnist Louise Perry, about how women need to change, in order to close the growing gap between men and women. Perry’s position justifies re‑inscribing patriarchal control over women’s bodies and sexuality in the name of “protecting” us.

I feel a familiar sense of disappointment in the recent feature, “Women Are Too Controlling, She Wrote. Her Message Still Resonates,” about Laura Doyle, author of The Surrendered Wife, a 2001 self‑help book and the basis for a relationship “movement” that teaches women to relinquish control in their marriages, defer to their husbands’ decisions (including finances), and focus on their own “self‑care” and gratitude to restore intimacy and harmony.

Each article asks a version of the same question: How should women change?

The questions that aren’t asked: Why aren’t men expected to change? Why do these unequal expectations persist? Why is the focus on women, rather than on the systems and behaviors that continue reinforcing inequality?

… It’s about who is expected to question themselves, who is expected to change and whose behavior is left largely ignored.

The article introduces Doyle as the author of “several other books that promise to teach women to save their marriages, no matter how oafish their husbands might seem.” Early in the interview, Doyle asks the interviewer, “Are you bossy? Are you controlling?” It comes across almost like a test—but for many women those words are loaded … and nothing new. The journalist herself flashed back to an ex-boyfriend who called her “controlling” just for asking him to take his shoes off in her own apartment. Her hesitant answer: “Um, some people would probably say so.”

I’ve spent much of the last two decades studying how gender stereotypes affect girls’ confidence and women’s opportunities. That’s why Doyle’s first question felt so familiar. Girls hear versions of it long before they are adults and start relationships.

Assertive girls are called “bossy.” Girls who express strong opinions are told they’re “too much.” Women who express their needs or set boundaries are often labeled “controlling.”

We rarely ask if they’re reacting to something unfair or expressing a need. Instead, we ask if they’re the problem.

Controlling behavior isn’t healthy in any relationship, whether it comes from a wife or a husband. But this article isn’t about controlling behavior—it’s about who is expected to question themselves, who is expected to change and whose behavior is left largely ignored.

Doyle’s message and the broader “surrendered wife” ideology, is troubling. What struck me even more was that one of the country’s most influential newspapers presented it as a growing cultural trend, without examining the cultural forces and gender expectations that have long reinforced this ideology.

Patriarchy shifts responsibility … Women are expected to solve problems they didn’t create, while the system remains unquestioned.

When an article explores advice that encourages women to surrender more of themselves, including in relationships involving abuse, addiction or infidelity, it should also consult experts who study healthy relationships and domestic violence. Personal stories are powerful, but they are not a substitute for expert perspective.

One woman featured in the article describes years of frustration with her husband who lied about using pornography and secretly recorded her without her knowledge. Embracing Doyle’s philosophy, she learned to shift from viewing him as “an abusive narcissist” to believing she “needed to clean up my side of the street better.”

Once again, the emphasis falls on how the woman should change, while his behavior receives little scrutiny.

This is why I keep coming back to a word that is often missing from these conversations: patriarchy, a social system that has historically put political, economic and cultural power in men’s hands. When we don’t name that system the conversation shifts away from unequal expectations and toward women themselves.

Public figures now openly question principles of women’s equality that once seemed settled.

Patriarchy shifts responsibility and creates systems and cultural norms that advantage men, then asks women to adapt to the consequences. Women are expected to solve problems they didn’t create, while the system remains unquestioned. We spend far less time asking why men aren’t expected to change their behavior.

The problem was never that some women choose traditional marriages. Women get to build their relationships however they want. But reading the article, I couldn’t help thinking about The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin’s 1972 novel about the fantasy of perfectly accommodating women. More than 50 years later, we aren’t replacing women with robots—but we continue to present the same ideal in new words, calling surrender ’empowerment’ and accommodation ‘wisdom.’

This story also arrives at a particular moment in American history.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, women have seen reproductive rights rolled back across much of the country. Universities and organizations have scaled back scholarships, leadership programs, and initiatives created to expand opportunities for women, not because the law requires it, but because it’s easier to comply in advance with political pressure, than stand up for women’s equality. Public figures now openly question principles of women’s equality that once seemed settled. Ideas that would have been dismissed as fringe only a few years ago are now discussed seriously. The fact that they are debated at all says something important about whose equality is negotiable.

At the same time, the manosphere continues to profit by telling young men that equality has gone too far and that women, not inequality, are the problem.

At a moment like this, women need journalism that asks harder questions about power, inequality and the systems shaping their lives—not another reminder that the answer is to surrender and become more accommodating.

Women didn’t win the right to vote by surrendering. We didn’t gain access to higher education by surrendering. We didn’t challenge workplace discrimination, expand opportunities in sports, expose sexual harassment, or fight for reproductive freedom by surrendering. Progress has never happened because women sat quietly and accepted inequality. It happened because women used their voices, fought and challenged the systems that demanded their silence and conformity.

Progress requires paying closer attention to systems, expectations and behaviors that keep inequality the status quo. That’s the bigger story, one the New York Times failed to tell. Look closer at patriarchy and you’ll find the source of the problem. Women and feminism don’t need to surrender. They were never the problem.    

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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need. Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. Add your voice and complete the sentence: “Access to reproductive choices gave me the freedom to….” Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.