The Economic Progenitors of Feminism: How Global Finance Monetised "Women’s Liberation": Part 1, By Mrs Vera West and Mrs (Dr) Abigail Knight (Florida)

Feminism is sold as a grassroots triumph of human dignity, a march from kitchen to boardroom, powered by enlightened ideals of equality. But strip away the slogans, and a colder machinery emerges. The modern feminist wave, particularly its second iteration in the 1960s and 1970s, wasn't birthed in consciousness-raising circles or academic salons alone. It was turbocharged by economic imperatives rooted in 20th-century global finance. Banking cartels, tax regimes, and inflationary policies didn't just coincide with women's entry into the workforce; they engineered it as a revenue multiplier.

This isn't a moral panic about "working women." It's an autopsy of incentives. The Federal Reserve's credit expansion demanded ever-growing tax bases. Inflation eroded single-income households. Corporations lobbied for "equality" to double the labour pool and halve wage pressures. What parades as liberation was, in part, a balance-sheet necessity. Feminism didn't free women from patriarchy; it conscripted them into the global economy's perpetual growth machine.

1913: The Twin Pillars of Extraction

The year 1913 marks the pivot. On December 23, the Federal Reserve Act passed, creating a central banking system dominated by private interests. Days earlier, the 16th Amendment enabled direct federal income taxation. These weren't isolated reforms; they were synchronised to fuel America's entry into world wars and empire.

• The Players: Nelson Aldrich, Rockefeller in-law and Senate Finance Committee chair, shepherded the income tax. Paul Warburg, Kuhn, Loeb & Co. partner with Rothschild ties, drafted the Fed's blueprint at the secretive Jekyll Island meeting (1910). J.P. Morgan's influence loomed large, his firm stabilised panics but extracted concessions.

• The Maths: Pre-1913, federal revenue relied on tariffs and excises (~90%). Post-amendment, individual income tax exploded from 0% to funding 58% of the budget by 1920. But the initial base was narrow: mostly male breadwinners.

A single-earner tax pool couldn't sustain the Fed's elastic currency. Wars required borrowing; borrowing required collateral in future taxes. Economists like Irving Fisher (Yale, Fed advisor) openly advocated policies to "mobilise" female labour for fiscal expansion. By 1920, the women's suffrage amendment passed, timed perfectly with the revenue surge.

Post-WWII: Inflation as the Invisible Whip

World War II pulled women into factories (Rosie the Riveter), but postwar policy ensured they stayed. The Bretton Woods system (1944) pegged currencies to the dollar, backed by gold, until Nixon closed the window in 1971. The result: fiat inflation.

• Household Erosion: From 1948–1973, real wages rose, supporting single-income families (median home price ~2.5x annual salary). Post-1971, inflation averaged 4–7% annually. By 1980, homes cost 4–5x salary. A 1970s study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston noted: "Rising costs necessitate two incomes."

• Tax Bracket Creep: Progressive taxes + inflation pushed families into higher brackets without real gains. The 1960s "marriage penalty" (via joint filing) disincentivised stay-at-home spouses. Reagan's 1986 reforms mitigated this, but only after the dual-income norm solidified.

Global finance amplified this. The World Bank and IMF, post-1944, pushed "development" models requiring female workforce participation in borrower nations. In the U.S., Chase Manhattan (Rockefeller) and Citibank funded "women's studies" programs at universities, per declassified foundation reports.

The Corporate Lobby: "Equality" as Labour Arbitrage

By the 1960s, conglomerates faced wage pressures from unions. Solution: flood the market.

• Evidence from the Trenches:

• 1963 Equal Pay Act: Backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to undercut male union leverage.

• Title IX (1972): Expanded female education, creating a credentialed labour surplus. College enrolment for women jumped from 37% (1960) to 56% (1980).

• Gloria Steinem's MSA magazine: Funded by CIA-linked Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund (per Steinem's own admissions in interviews).

• Wage Suppression Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics shows real median wages flat since 1973, despite productivity doubling. Dual incomes masked stagnation, family income rose, but per earner fell ~10–15% adjusted for hours worked.

Feminism's icons aligned. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) decried suburban "traps," but ignored inflation's role. The National Organization for Women (NOW), founded 1966, received grants from Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations — same networks behind the Fed.

Globalism's Endgame: The Cubicle Plantation

Today's economy and remote work? Extensions of the same logic. WTO (1995) and NAFTA (1994) offshored male-dominated manufacturing, forcing service-sector pivots, fields women were primed for via "liberation."

• Debt Servitude: U.S. household debt hit $17 trillion (2023). Women hold 2/3 of student debt ($900B+), per AAUW. "Empowerment" via degrees ties them to repayment schedules.

• Demographic Collapse: Fertility rates plummet (1.6 in U.S., 2023) as dual careers delay families. Immigration fills gaps, another globalist lever.

The gods of Mammon didn't hate women; they quantified them. GDP grows when care work (unpaid at home) becomes taxable services (daycare, fast food).

Counterpoints and Substantiation

Critics claim this reduces feminism to conspiracy. Not so, ideology mattered, but economics accelerated it. Primary sources:

• Federal Reserve archives: Warburg's The Federal Reserve System (1930) discusses labour mobilisation.

• IRS data: Female labour force participation from 34% (1950) to 57% (1990).

• Declassified docs: CIA's Congress for Cultural Freedom funded feminist outlets (Ramparts exposé, 1967).

Women gained votes and voices, yes. But at what cost? Monetised time, eroded families, perpetual debt. True liberation would dismantle the machine, not staff it.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Agency

Feminism's economic progenitors weren't liberators; they were ledger-keepers. To exit the plantation, question the currency that built it. Opt out where possible: homestead, barter, reject usury. The verse holds: "Money answereth all things" (Ecclesiastes 10:19), but only if we let it.

https://insighttoincite.substack.com/p/who-did-feminism-the-economic-globalist