Whenever I give a talk at colleges I meet young women who say, "I'm not a feminist but..." By which they mean, I don't call myself a feminist, but I want equal pay, and I want to have equal relationships with men, and of course I want to have an equal right to sexual pleasure. I want to have a feair and good life and I don't want to be held back because I am a woman.
Women are the only group of people it is still perfectly legal, and completely accepted, to discriminate against. Young women do not believe that they are feminists because they want to be treated fairly. They believe it makes them decent people. The term "feminist" is often used in a denigrating way, and so it can sometimes seem that being a feminist is something that is not widely acceptable; it can also be interpreted as troublemaking or militant. Feminism is sometimes seen as something political when really it is not; all women want is a level playing field and one does not have to be a feminist to see that it is wrong that most playing fields are not level at all. By getting away from contentious terminology and focusing instead on the issues, it is possible to accomplish more.
People's marriages were like two-person religious cults, impossible to understand.
Cults always seem so mysterious from the outside looking in. The cult leader seems so obviously bogus it's hard to imagine how anyone listened to them in the first place. Believers seem intelligent so it is hard to believe that they willingly gave up the life that they once had for something that seems far less desirable. Often, it is difficult to see why people stay in the cult at all. The author contends that other people's marriages are like this. They seem to be incomprehensible unions that offer little to one or both of the partners involved, yet both stay married and often seem happy, because those of us on the outside of the marriage looking in can't possibly understand what it is that goes on behind closed doors that makes both partners want to be there.
