"Now you ask a group of young women on the college campus, 'How many of you are feminists?' Very few will raise their hands because young women don't want to be associated with it anymore because they know it means male-bashing, it means being a victim, and it means being bitter and angry." -- Christina Hoff Sommers via PBS "ThinkTank", 11/4/94
Almost two years ago now, I received a piece of e-mail from an anonymous University of Virginia lab address containing a comment on my personal website. The e-mail was short--only a line--but was blunt enough and mean-spirited enough that one might have almost called it hate mail.

"Oh great", it read. "Make women look plastic".

I was flabbergasted. The offended correspondent was venting her stunted and rather narrow-minded viewpoint on my artwork, which quite often depicts a female form that might be termed "ideally beautiful". And this idealism in my artwork seemed to be the very point at hand. Because my idea of feminine beauty is a widely-held one, I was chastised. For not adjusting my aesthetic preference of curved and slender female figures in the name of political correctness, I was seen as no less than an objectifier of women. And no doubt, our charming correspondent considered me one of those poor women who are classed by the radical-mainstream feminist establishment as "pawns of the Patriarchy". For here I was, furthering these improper ideas of goddess beauty with its tousled manes of hair and long, bared limbs... shame on me.

This website is dedicated to promotion of the stripe of feminism that is both pro-individualism and pro-male as well. "Equity feminism" is the phrase that Christina Hoff Sommers coined to describe this faction of feminism, as opposed to its vengeful anti-male opposite "gender feminism". By "promotion", I simply mean spreading of awareness, rather than a call to embrace hook, line, and sinker the full body of ideas encompassed in what is termed "equity feminism" or "individualist feminism". I'll simply settle for making you aware of a few facts:

    Not all feminists hate men, are lesbians, or suffer penis envy.
    Not all feminists believe that all sex is violence, or that all men are rapists. Some of us enjoy intercourse, even.
    Not all feminists are offended by comments such as "you look nice today" from a man, or by men holding doors open for them.
    Not all feminists scorn the personal choices of domesticity and/or motherhood as being family-unit-based tools of oppression within the patriarchal society.

These ideas, and a good many others, run counter to the aim of having feminist ideas accepted by the large majority of society who are not feminists. While zealous embrace of the more radical
"If women truly want equality with men--and that is my central feminist principle--then they must let go of these special protections which make a fetish of their innocence and purity." -- Camille Paglia via America Online chat forum, 9/19/95
ideas held by such feminist factions as the separatists, who advocate lives spent entirely away from men, insofar as such is possible, may be admired as true devotion to the feminist cause from within feminist circles, they hinder and not help the causes most crucial to the everyday lives of the women feminists claim to represent. The majority of women in Western society don't want to alienate men (or conservative women for that matter). They simply want equality. Is it much of a surprise that "ordinary women" tend to be much more generous in their definitions of equality than the strident radical-mainstream feminist establishment is? The needs of the ordinary woman are lost in the fervent radicalism of mainstream feminism. And as mainstream feminism grows more shrill, more demanding, more radically unrealistic, not only are men and conservatives alienated, but so are more of the women for whom the mainstream radicals claim to speak. What, then, is gained? This document last modified .
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