The feminist lie.(The Feminist Dilemma: When Success Is Not Enough)

The Feminist Dilemma: When Success Is Not Enough Diana Furchtgott-Roth & Christine Stolba AEI Press, 228 pages, $25

Is your head swirling from claims about the wage gap and glass ceiling? Do you wonder whether women need the federal government to protect them from boorish male co-workers? Are you suffering from the vapors after seeing successful women everywhere while being told that women are second-class citizens? Crack open The Feminist Dilemma: When Success Is Not Enough for a close of sanity. Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba have produced a second volume of those pesky things feminists hate: facts.

Women are doctors, lawyers, journalists, executives, business owners, and managers. Politicians are falling over themselves to court the female vote. Judging by media coverage of recent elections you could have thought that the only votes that count are those of soccer moms. Yet every major feminist group, from the National Organization for Women to respectable-sounding establishments like the American Association of University Women, perpetuates the myth that women face institutionalized sex discrimination. And they are pushing (quite successfully) for an ever-growing network of government regulations over American social and economic life.

Why does the overwhelming success of American women not satisfy feminists?

 
   During the past two decades, feminist organizations have been some of the 
   most successful fundraisers in the non-profit world, with grants from 
   government, foundations, and private corporations. Thus, feminist groups 
   have a financial stake in continuing to claim that women are second-class 
   citizens and that the struggle for women's rights is never won. Without the 
   banner of victimhood to rally around, feminist coffers would run dry. 

That's a hefty assertion. But Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, an economist, and Ms. Stolba, an historian, have done their homework. These two ladies prove that the feminists' favorite enemy, the patriarchy, simply does not exist anymore. Their ...