[National Review Online, January 22, 2003]

I was what the sociologists call an "early adopter" of feminism. Soon after arriving at college, in 1970, I knew that it was the religion for me. I had discarded the religion I grew up with, Christianity, as an insultingly simpleminded thing, but feminism filled the gap. Like a religion it offered a complete philosophical worldview, one that displayed me as victim in the center, a feature with immeasurable appeal to a female teenager. Feminism had its own gnostic analysis of reality, by which everything in existence was decoded to be about the oppression of women; it had sacred books, a secret vocabulary, and congregational gatherings for the purpose of consciousness-raising.

[NPR, "Morning Edition," January 22, 2003]

Thirty years ago, when I was an idealistic college student, I volunteered at a feminist newspaper called "off our backs." The Roe v Wade decision happened the first month I worked there. Our editorial said it didn’t go far enough, because Roe requires a woman to have medical reason for abortion in the third trimester.

I thought abortion rights were going to liberate women.