[Atlas Shrugged] is not generally considered to be philosophically feminist. In fact, it may not be on anyone's reading list for Women's Courses, except mine. But close analysis of the book's themes and theories will prove that it should be. Much that Rand says is relevant to feminist issues. Best of all, the novel has a protagonist who is a good example of a woman who is active, assertive, successful, and still retains the love and sexual admiration of three heroic men. Though the situation is highly romantic, and science fiction to boot, how refreshing it is to find a female protagonist in American Fiction who emerges triumphant. (p. 681)
The refrain of Atlas Shrugged is John Galt's oath, "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man [person] nor ask another man [person] to live for mine." (For purposes of this paper I will feminize or neuter all masculine nouns and pronouns. Though Ms. Rand refers to men and mankind, she obviously means humankind as evidenced in the rest of this study.) While the context of the oath is economic, the message is the same one advanced by feminists that no woman should live her life for or through others, as women have traditionally been encouraged to do. Typical of the studies that touch upon this issue is Edith de Rham's The Love Fraud. In her attack on "the staggering waste of education and talent among American Women," de Rham argues that by persuading women to concentrate their lives on men who in turn concentrate on work "Women become victims of a kind of fraud in which their love is exploited and in which they are somehow persuaded that they are involved in legitimate action." It is just this kind of exploitation that Ayn Rand deplores.
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