“The New Victorians: A Young Woman’s Challenge to the Old Feminist Order”, by Rene Denfeld

 

352 pages, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-0446517522

Let’s travel back to the Long Long Ago…known better as 1995 when, as a still-callow youth, I found this book, The New Victorians: A Young Woman’s Challenge to the Old Feminist Order by this person, Rene Denfeld. Rene has a website and, as far as I can tell, this is the only real political polemic that she wrote (although she has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Oregonian and the Philadelphia Inquirer, so she probably has an opinion or two of which I am not aware). Now, mind you, as of this writing this book is now 25-years-old, and so some of what she speaks of and those of whom she speaks are rather out of date…but just some, mind you, for overall, Denfeld’s critique of feminism is spot on. Her analysis of Diana Russell and Mary Koss’ inflated rape statistics is solid; she offers a strong libertarian argument against the censorship of pornography championed by Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin; and she condemns the goddess worship of Mary Daly as irrelevant to the political movement and alienating to women (you just may have to go a Google some of what I just said, by-the-bye).

However, while Denfeld has done her homework on the feminists, she neglected to study the Victorian era and offers only a superficial comparison, which is unfortunate because her explanation of the failure of feminism is so good (I guess this should have been expected, considering that she uses the word “Victorian” as an epithet); I would rather she had left out the Victorian element entirely if she was unwilling to explore it. Additionally, Denfeld takes a lot of cheap shots at conservatives, calling them “archconservatives” and “right-wingers” without ever explaining – as she does meticulously with the feminists – the actions that have caused them to earn her disgust. She need not like republicans or Christians, but it crowds her work to portray them as the enemy when her focus should be the feminists and (possibly) the Victorians. In addition, she makes several suggestions at the end of the book, some of which are laughable, such as creating government-sponsored childcare (a chapter earlier she said taxes were too high; does she even understand economics?) and make abortion “simply another medical procedure” (Heaven forfend).

But all told, this is an excellent book that cogently presents and discusses some important ideas for modern equality-minded women who don’t want the baggage and restrictions – restrictions from a movement purportedly concerned with women’s freedom to choose! – that accompany modern “mainstream” feminism. The fact that many “old movement” feminists would probably hate it, despite its firm stance in favor of independence and equality for all women, illustrates just how far astray the movement has gone.