At the foundation of the evolving feminist movement lies the notion that there has been an historical conspiracy, explicitly or implicitly, to keep women from political, social, and economic equality. Thus, according to the more extreme feminist positions, the paradigmatic role for women in society is the rape victim; the unequivocally loathsome nature of sexual violation is used to dramatize any circumstance of men's influence over women. The anorexic girl who has survived a fashion culture that chips away at her self-esteem, and the potential female scholar intimidated out of speaking in class, both share something essential with the victim of rape.

But the notion that women are fighting against a concerted cultural oppression pervades even the less extreme feminist positions. Those who are willing to loosely apply the metaphor of rape are opposed by many women (some unwilling to call themselves feminists) who say that posing as helpless victims will be ultimately counterproductive to the goal of political and economic equality. Instead of emulating the rape victim in order to achieve power, these women strike the pose of the rugged individualist, strong enough to take the blows of a hostile world on the chin.

But both sides agree that this is a world hostile to women. For evidence of this charge they offer the observation that women do not have political or economic equality in a wide array of civilization's institutions. But this observation is hardly a new one. It is no recent revelation that men have been predominant in especially political and economic activities. Women did not suddenly realize that they were in certain respects unequal to men. The real change is that the modern mind has ceased to think of such a situation as part of an acceptable order of things.

It is the disgusting legacy of a materialistic modernity that men think they will find their salvation in the power to control. With this comes the belief that living is constituted solely in successful participation in society's formal institutions: businesses, government, schools. A handful of wise men, who have seen through this claim of Enlightenment, have long protested that life must be something more. Even angstful French existentialists have noticed that, when compared to the serfs and servants of ages past, modern democratic man is in an important sense less free.

The voices of the feminist movement, in calling for women to strive for ecomonic and political equality, have taken up the false promise that they will find freedom through the power to control. Like the shallow men who have believed the same promise, modern women risk discovering that, the more they are taken in by the democratic vision, the less possibility they will have for living greatly.

But feminism won't wait for men to offer any wisdom they might have gained from their own mistakes. Instead, the men are chastized for their selfish hoarding of the power. Should it be a surprise, then, that they will gladly stand aside and let the arrogant and gullible break their backs against the weight of the world and make fools of themeselvs as their finite words fall short of infinite truths. Silence? 'Twas a luxury and a priviledge. Power? A responsibility impossible to uphold.

Tom Sawyer knew the truth: responsibility is work, mundane work, tiresome, meaningless, and wretchedly unfullfilling. Most of our modern democratic Tom Sawyers, however, are too stupid to leave the fence and go out and live. They have forgotten that there is anything toward which they may apply their energies, besides the maintainence of the structures of society. They have nothing else to do but whitewash fences, and have no strong objection to a fresh crop of strong labor begging to help.

Thus, the only reason that no one is willing to point out that feminists, in their pursuit of power, have made themselves not more dignified but more petty, is that most men and women have not an alternative pursuit to offer. All have placed their faith in the possibility of fulfillment through the opportunity to find oneself employed--put to use--by society.

So, ladies, do you see the real conspiracy against you? For how long will you believe the lies of men who tell you that to live is to gain power and money? It is not clear how many men will survive the false promise that they may control their own destiny by having a hand in the economy. How will you survive? Will you be pulled along toward the pitiable fate of materialists before you, or will you redeem yourselves--and all of mankind--by remembering what it really means to live?

Reprinted with permission from the Yale Free Press