The vocal feminist minority
Do radical feminists alienate men and in so doing set back their cause? In a recent column, David Mendelsohn shared an anecdote in which he offered a female friend help moving a table and was rebuffed when the friend responded, “My biggest pet peeve is when people ask if I need help with something. I’ve done more labor-intensive work than anyone here, but people insist that I need help just because I have boobs!” This, he claimed, suggests that feminists are in two camps: the reasonable ones who “focus on very real modern issues,” and the “highly vocal minority of the feminist movement” who “are hypersensitive to criticism, actively look for evidence of sexism and find it everywhere.”While I don’t intend to attack Mendelsohn’s column, I’d like to give historical context to his comments, as I understand them.




