they come up with? Digestion andnbackgammon? Cigar-smoking women?nPete Hamill’s dreams, for cryingnout loud?nThe Lear’s message, of course, isnYou’re not getting older, you’re gettingnbetter. And the New Woman messagenis IsTi’t it great to be free and femalenand have it all? What getting betternhas to do with divorce, Larry King’s sexnlife, and Pete Hamill’s feet, I don’tnknow. And how you square the hiewnWoman celebration of freedom withnthe need for first-date advice and a fearnof ending up alone is beyond me.nThe mixture of self-congratulationnand insecurity reflected in these magazines,nthe combination of desperationnand denial, is evidence that womennhave been mislead. Undone by thenoptions they’ve demanded, they arennow adrift, seeking security in thencreation of even more options. Havingnreplaced emotional order and commonnsense with the freedom of “attitudes,”nthey appear bewildered that the tradeoff^nisn’t working out. (Can anger be farnbehind?) They seem to sense that a lifenwithout a degree of social and moralnconfinement is itself a kind of prison,nbut they don’t know how to find theirnway out or even whether they’renallowed to want out. They have redefinednthemselves repeatedly, but itnhasn’t solved their problems. They’venLIBERAL ARTSnPENNIES FROM ????nAmerica’s most endearing atheist tonBruce Bursma of The. Chicago Tribunen(July 28, 1989): ‘There has been somenMadalyn Murray O’Hair bashing goingnon, and I’m sick of it. I’m right, andneverybody else is wrong, and that’s allnthere is to it.” O’Hair was not referringnto her views on life, the universe, andneverything, but her efforts to get controlnof the estate of atheist bigot JamesnHervey Johnson — or James ScurvynJohnson, as O’Hair used to call him.nJohnson committed the mortal sin ofnappointing an Episcopalian instead ofnan atheist as executor of his $22 millionnestate. Most Christians might ask,nwhat’s the difference? O’Hair is lividnand accuses Johnson of accumulatingnatheist assets only to squander them onnChristians. Poor Johnson, houndedneven beyond the grave by “the femalenatheist who talks you dead.”n52/CHRONICLESnthought about nothing but themselvesnfor years, and it hasn’t made themnhappy. Now they get to read aboutnthemselves in their own special magazinesnand hear that they are happy,nthey are. So it must be true, right?nAfter all, they read years ago that theynwere oppressed, victimized, cheated,nand that was true, wasn’t it?nJanet Scott Barlow covers popularnculture from Cincinnati.nLAWnRecalling the CasenAgainst FemalenSuffragenby Nicholas DavidsonnIwas asked once on a radio shownwhether the arguments I was makingnagainst feminism wouldn’t also lead mento oppose women voting. I pointed outnthat though I personally favored givingnwomen the vote, the case against femalensuffrage was a very respectablenone, and was most visibly urged bynwomen when female suffrage was annissue and not a fact. Nor is the issue ofnfemale suffrage quite as moot as itnseems, for it taps into fundamentalnquestions about the very nature ofnmodernity.nThe advocates of female suffrage innthe 19th and eariy 20th centuries presentedntwo main arguments. The firstnargunient, and one still made by feminists,nis that women have a collectiveninterest that they must defend againstnnnmen. This notion is extremely broad,nlumping a large group of individualsntogether, and assumes that women’snand men’s interests exist in a Hobbesiannopposition, when on the contrary,nmost men want what is best for women.nA homemaker supported by a mannwho loses his job to reverse discriminationnhas been harmed in the name ofnwomen. A man’s second wife has noninterest in his first wife collecting alimony.nA woman raped or robbed by anfatherless child of the state is a victim ofnfederal aid to single women. Evennfeminists have recently begun to acknowledgenthe diversity of women’sninterests. As a recent article in Cosmopolitan,na bellwether of woman-onthe-streetnfeminism, states, “The gravestnerror of feminist leaders is theirninsistence that what is fair and equal fornsome women is fair and equal for all.”nIt isn’t. Ongoing attempts to definen”women’s interests” are so contradictorynthat, according to feminist AnnnSnitow, “Willingly or not, activist lawyersnfind themselves pitted against eachnother.”nThe second common argument fornfemale suffrage was that women have anspecial moral sense, which will elevatenpolitics. This idea has considerablencurrency at present, largely thanks tonthe ideas that Carol Gilligan, a Harvardnfeminist psychologist, presents innher book In a Different Voice (1982).nAccording to Carol Gilligan, men aren”moral absolutists” who see moral dilemmasnin terms of predetermined,nabstract notions of right and wrong. Inncontrast, women, she says, are “moralnpragmatists” who try to reconcile conflictnbetween individuals and thereforeninclude different points of view in theirnown.nIt is true that women have a particularnmoral sense, which has great virtuesnand complementary limitations. But itnis not clear that this moral sense translatesnwell into the public arena. On thencontrary, one can argue that women’sndistinctive moral sense arises from thencircumstances of private life, to whichnalone it is adapted, and that it does notnsurvive immersion in the public arenan— even that it leads to negative behaviorsnthere. Recent articles by feministsndeploring women’s disgracefully pettynand self-serving behavior in corporations—nworse than men’s, it is said—nprovide prima facie evidence of thisn