具体描述
Just a little more than half a century ago, the women of America
gained the vote. At the time, many women s rights advocates be-
lieved that enactment of theNineteenth Amendment signaled a tri-
umphant turning point in the struggle for sexual equality. Suffragists
predicted that acquisition of the vote would not only give women
new leverage in politics but would also help them achieve a greater
measure of freedom and independence in the home and economy.
"The whole aim of the woman s movement," Carrie Chapman Cart
wrote, "has been to destroy the idea that obedience is necessary to
women; to train women to such self-respect that they would not
grant obedience; and to train men to such comprehension of equity
that they would not exact it.TM For many women who had devoted
their lives to the struggle for equal rights, victory in the suffrage
fight represented a major stride toward those goals.
With the benefit of hindsight, it seems clear that much of the
suffragists optimism was misplaced. The revival of feminism in re-
cent years has demonstrated that many women remain profoundly
d]sturbed by the nature of relationships between the sexes. In tones
reminiscent of ninetecnth-century feminists, Kate Millett and others
have denounced America as a patriarchy based on male supremacy
and have demanded the ovcrthrow of those institutions which per-
petuate female inferiority. By the standards of contemporary
