These women, also referred to as welfare feminists, were particularly concerned with motherhood, like their opposite numbers in Germany at the time, Helene Stöcker and her Bund für Mutterschutz.
New feminists were opposed mainly by young women, especially those in the Six Point Group, particularly Winifred Holtby, Vera Brittain, and Dorothy Evans, who saw this as a retrograde step towards the separate spheres ideology of the 19th century.
In recent years, the term has been revived by feminists responding to Pope John Paul II's call for a "'new feminism' which rejects the temptation of imitating models of 'male domination' in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation .
[2] John Paul II links the new feminism of pro-life, pro-person advocacy to the feminine genius identified in his 1988 apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, or, On the Dignity and Vocation of Women.
[3] In section 30 of this letter, John Paul II identified women as having a "genius that belongs" to them and called on them to use it to restore "sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance.
In the controversial section 24 of this letter, John Paul II defends the equality of women and argues that husbands and wives are to be mutually submissive to each other.
[8] While the Greeks acknowledged the possibility of sex complementarity, systematic developments into this philosophy of the person did not begin until Augustine of Hippo, who recognized the implications of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection.
[9] Philosophical developments in the concept of integral gender complementarity were popularized in the early 20th century by two students of Edmund Husserl: Dietrich von Hildebrand and Edith Stein.
Von Hildebrand argued against the "terrible anti-personalism" of his age, stating that it is the "general dissimilarity in the nature of both which enables... a real complementary relationship".
The work of earlier Catholic thinkers on masculinity and femininity, such as Hildegard of Bingen, Edith Stein and G. E. M. Anscombe, has also become recently influential in the development of new feminism.
Though primarily originally in the thought of John Paul II, the movement also includes prominent non-Catholics, like Jewish author Wendy Shalit and Protestant activist Enola Aird.