British women could look across the Atlantic to see what was coming, and had time to organise. Culture mattered, too. The idea that life’s central purpose is to search for your true self is American, not British. The UK never had chattel slavery on its own soil, the legacy of which has so warped American thinking about material differences between the sexes. It is less religious than the US, and less polarised. Abortion is not politicised, which makes it easier for left-wing feminists to work with Christian conservatives on a single-issue campaign. Many of the women leading the UK’s feminist
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