Sexual politics, we remind ourselves, started out as a reaction against the feminine mystique. It was an explosion of women’s pent-up anger and rage against the put-downs they had to accept when they were completely dependent on men, the rage they took out on their own bodies and covertly on husbands and kids. That rage fueled the first battles of the women’s movement, and subsided with each advance woman made toward her own empowerment, her full personhood, freedom. But sexual politics now feeds the politics of hate and the growing polarization of America.
