In March 1999, USA Today reported that, according to a recent Gallup poll, only 26 percent of American women over the age of eighteen consider themselves feminists. Feminist scholars and media commentators have offered a variety of perspectives on why women’s support for feminism appears to be dwindling. One argument is that radical feminist tenets—especially the belief that women are victimized by men—have alienated some women. Elinor Burkett, author of The Right Women: A Journey Through the Heart of Conservative America, writes,

Ultimately, American women have rejected the feminist movement . . . because they sense that the movement does- n’t really like or respect women. . . . The [feminist] movement holds women to impossibly high, and absurdly narrow, standards and gives them no credit for being able to forge their separate peace, treating them precisely as disapproving men have been wont to...