Tag Archives: what do women want?

The Dance of Desire

Posted on July 14, 2026 by Abigail

“Are you still looking for Mister Right?” Lorraine – a well-regarded feminist as well as a stalwart friend – once put that question to me. It was some years ago that this conversation took place. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical Archeology, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, Confessions of a Young Philosopher, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, Desire and Authenticity, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, Industrial Revolution, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, Married Philosophers Discuss Confessions, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, medieval, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mortality vs immortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, Renaissance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, seventeenth century, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, Suicide, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Trauma, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged a girl’s girl, abusing a patient's trust, asymmetry between the sexes, bodice buster novels, bodice ripper novels, Catharine MacKinnon’s Feminism Unmodified, Catharine MacKinnon’s statistics, cheating husband, combining career motherhood and marriage, dance of desire, deus ex machina, equality in academe, Famous feminists, feminism and contraception, feminist book on contraceptives, feminist book on the pill, feminist friend, finding Mister Right, Freud and women, happily ever after, happy ending, heroes’ gallantry to women, husbands resenting wife's success, looking for Mr. Right, male gallantry, male heroism, male/female equality between academic colleagues, man/woman equality and inequality in Genesis, masculine nobility, men taking out on women their loss of standing, Mr. Right, overstepping professional bounds, physical asymmetry of the sexes and social consequences, political vs personal liberation, prefeminist advice program, prefeminist friendship, prefeminist TV personality, private hopes of public feminists, private lives of public feminists, professional success vs personal success, psychiatric malpractice, psychiatrist husband, real life not the movies, Ring of Gyges syndrome, Romantic Love, romantic love as a miracle, romantic love as miraculous, seduction as pretended therapy, succeeding as a woman, successful wife and mother, the feminine vocation, the stories of women, therapist seducing a patient, unliberated feminist, what do women want?, wife who has it all, women and big city encounters, women and cynicism, women and harassment, women and sexual assault, women and unwelcome looks, women and unwelcome remarks, women befriending women, women catering to masculine ascendancy, women in novels, women never harassed, women protecting male ego, women protecting male self-respect, women supporting women, women who give up hope, women’s desires thwarted, women’s hopes disappointed, women’s life stories, women’s unspoken hopes, worst husband, you can’t fight every fight | 3 Comments

What Was the Woman Question?

Posted on September 30, 2025 by Abigail

Freud asked, “What does woman want?” It’s a good question, and let’s credit him with sincerely wanting to know. Even if his answers weren’t that good, such questions remain credible. When you ask that question of anybody, and want a … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, authenticity, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, fatherhood, female power, femininity, feminism, filial piety, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jesus, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, Nihilism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, power games, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Truth, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged abusive and unethical psychiatrist, abusive and unethical psychologists, abusive psychiatrist husband, action and passivity in women, Age of Conformity, agnosticism and feminism, alienation and women, asymmetry of the sex act, atheism and feminism, attracting good guys, authenticity and women, autonomy and women, bad faith and feminism, beauty and feminism, Bible and women, bigotry and women, biological asymmetries between men and women, chivalry and women, Christianity and women, courtship and feminism, desire and feminism, discouraging bad guys, erotic life and feminism, ethics and feminism, existentialism and feminism, exploitation and women, fashions in feminism, femininity and feminism, feminism after Second Wave, feminism and absurdism, feminism and academe, feminism and adolescence, feminism and expanded options, feminism and identity, Feminism without Contradictions by Abigail L. Rosenthal, feminism’s new mythologies, Finding Mr. Right, Freud and women, Freud re the woman question, Genesis and male and female, Genesis and male female equality, Genesis and sexual asymmetry, Genesis and the man woman dynamic, heroic women, ideal women, institutional power and women, Jane Austen’s feminine virtues, Jane Austen’s heroines, Jane Austen’s values, looking for Mr. Right, men and accomplished women, men and intelligent women, men who feel threatened by women, men's relation to time, morality and feminism, novels and Jane Austen, obscuring the woman question, ontology and femininity, oppression and women, philosophy and women, politics of feminism, power and women, public feminist pioneers, radicalism and feminism, Second Stage Feminism, second wave feminism, sexual hierarchy, spirituality and women, surviving women's vulnerability, the Feminist wave, theology and feminism, theology and women, utopia and feminism, victimhood and women, what do women want?, wishing to be a deer, wishing to be an animal, woman and biological clock, women and protective partners, women and role playing, women and what life is about, women as public intellectuals, women attracting bad guys, women hiding vulnerability, women repelling attraction, women's relation to time, women's vulnerability, women’s attainable hopes, women’s biological receptivity, women’s desire to know, women’s love of wisdom, women’s need to attract, women’s need to look tough, women’s passivity, women’s preferences, women’s search for meaning, women’s search for purpose, women’s social receptivity, young girl’s hopes | 1 Comment

Femininity – A Social Construct?

Posted on February 6, 2024 by Abigail

A professor in one of my graduate departments of philosophy warned me that, if I wanted “to become a philosopher, [I’d] have to destroy [my] femininity!” On the other hand, Simone de Beauvoir opened her path-breaking, paradigm-shaking book, The … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged college towns, convent life as a woman's solution, de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, destroying femininity, femininity and cultural paradigms, femininity and culture, femininity as innate, femininity as social construct, femininity at risk, feminism and cultural paradigms, feminism and culture, inconveniences of womanhood, intellectual fashions, male professors, male/female differences, men and women as different, moral fashions, motherhood and women's ambitions, philosophy and femininity, safety and women undergraduates, sex differences natural or conventional, Simone de Beauvoir, situation of women, social construct, unisex-beings-with-inconveniences, what do women know?, what do women want?, what my grandmother knew, what my mother knew, what women know, whistleblower, woman in a male profession, womanly authority, womanly realism, women erasing themselves, women who take the veil, women's wisdom as cross-cultural | 2 Comments

Comprehending the Fate of Women

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Abigail

Comprehending the Fate of Women Alfred de Muset, the romantic French writer, wrote a play with the title, On ne badine pas avec l’amour, or in English, One Doesn’t Kid Around with Love. The heroine of this play speaks a … Continue reading →

Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, American politics, anthropology, art, art of living, autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, books, childhood, chivalry, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, motherhood, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist | Tagged 19th century novels, abusing women, actual v theoretical women, Alfred de Muset’s On ne badine pas avec l’amour, biological imperative, Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre", contraception and liberation, default position of women, defensive aggressiveness of women, desire and conquest, dynamic equilibrium of the sexes, educating women, egoistic weakness, egoistic willfulness, feminine power, groupthink, he had his way, le sort des femmes, male and female asymmetry, male dominance, male ego, male force, male self-command, masculine confusions, masculine nature, masculine will, modern clothes and liberation, Mr. Rochester, natural aggression, novelistic coincidences, perils of Jane Eyre, persuasive power, power-of-yielding, predicaments of women, protective love, public feminist, refrigerators and women, right to own property, right to vote, romantic French literature, self-sovereignty of women, self-supporting women, technology and women’s liberation, the fate of women, the private lives of public feminists, toxic masculinity, trust between women, unmanliness, vulnerability, what do women want?, women friends, women's vulnerability, women’s contingent freedom, women’s dignity | Leave a comment

Tag Archives: what do women want?

Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column

Recent Posts