How did Ayn Rand feel about feminism? [Archive]

View Full Version : How did Ayn Rand feel about feminism?

Cheung Mo

5th May 2007, 15:15

I know someone who counts both The Handmaid's Tale and a number of "great" works of Randroid "literature" as being among her favourites and it just made me wonder...

Incidentally, if you oppose (and are known by the RevLeft community to oppose) a reactionary ideology such as objectivism but wish to ask a question about it, is this still the correct forum to do it in?

pusher robot

5th May 2007, 19:27

I'm not a Rand expert but I believe her views on this subject were that she believed completely in the equal ability of men and women to accomplish great things while also believing that they were in some ways intrinsically emotionally different. She despised, however, what were often promoted as "feminine" values such as passivity, weakness, and especially emotionalism. She believed that both men and women should aspire to Aristotelian virtues.

Demogorgon

5th May 2007, 19:56

She hated feminism typically. She also famously said no woman should ever be President of America.

She seems to have equated feminism with Lesbianism amusingly enough.

Tungsten

5th May 2007, 20:56

The short answer: Who cares?

Jazzratt

5th May 2007, 23:23

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:56 pm
The short answer: Who cares?
:rolleyes:

"I'm a privileged male, why should I care for feminism?"

Vacuous gobshite.

redcannon

5th May 2007, 23:30

I think by "who cares" he's not being sexist but rather saying "who cares what ayn rand thinks?"

Axel1917

8th May 2007, 03:01

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 10:30 pm
I think by "who cares" he's not being sexist but rather saying "who cares what ayn rand thinks?"
Probably. Although it is highly questionable in regard to what was going on in Ayn Rand's cranium to be considered thinking.

8th May 2007, 03:43

i've always thought its kindof obnoxious to try to make an issue out of political figure's relation to feminism simply because they happen to be women when their political work was concerned with people in general rather than women in particular...

...this has come up at least a couple of times with regard to thatcher and luxemburg as well.