I'm not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the

The words of Christopher Hitchens, “I’m not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they’ll have, immediately the floor will rise,” strike with candor and clarity. In them lies the recognition that freedom begins with control over one’s own body. For when women are chained to endless childbearing without choice, their strength is spent in survival alone. But when they are granted sovereignty over their reproduction, they rise—and with them, all of society rises too.

In the ancient spirit, this truth recalls the wisdom of civilizations that flourished when women shared in power and declined when they were silenced. To reduce a woman only to the womb is to bind her spirit, to waste her talents, to silence her voice. But to grant her the right to choose—to govern her own body and destiny—is to unleash half the world’s wisdom and labor. Hitchens, though wry in tone, spoke to a truth as old as humanity: that a society cannot soar while holding down its mothers, its daughters, its givers of life.

Consider the story of Margaret Sanger, who in the early 20th century fought for access to birth control in America. She saw poor women exhausted by ceaseless pregnancies, trapped in poverty with no chance for education or independence. For this cause she was arrested, condemned, and silenced. Yet her vision prevailed, and with the spread of contraception, generations of women gained power over their lives. The “floor” of opportunity rose, as Hitchens said, for families, communities, and nations.

History offers another mirror in the life of ancient Sparta, where women were given unusual freedoms compared to their Athenian sisters. They were not bound to the home alone but trained in strength and allowed to hold land. While still mothers, they were not wholly consumed by childbearing, and the strength of Sparta’s women gave the state a resilience that astonished the rest of Greece. Here too, the lesson is clear: when women are more than vessels of reproduction, the state itself grows stronger.

So let this truth endure: the liberation of women is not an act of charity, but the unlocking of humanity’s full potential. To give women choice is to elevate all; to deny it is to keep the world bound to the ground. Hitchens’ words, sharp though they are, carry the wisdom of the ages: free women, and you free the nation; silence them, and the world remains forever half-asleep.