Few people are more parochial than your feminist New Yorker. Nancy French learned this the hard way — by transferring from a Christian college in the south to New York University. She thought she’d encounter intellectual challenges. Instead:
“Over the course of several weeks and months, they explained that I had been victimized by the patriarchy, that I was a heterosexist, and probably a little racist to boot. Mostly, though, they represented that I was imprisoned in a birdcage of missed opportunities. I might not realize this, but this was because I had never known freedom. Nearly all these advisers were females, mostly from the New York area, but there was one male.
“I thought things might get better, but they got worse. Everything about me was unacceptable. My Christianity was offensive because of its assertion that God is male. My highlighted hair was just another indication of my subservience to men. I thought we could bond over the ‘economic gap,’ but then I realized this supposed economic disparity between the genders didn’t take into account men’s frequency of higher paying, more dangerous jobs like construction and roofing. Nor did arguments attacking the wage gap take into account the length of time in the workplace, experience, or age. Everyone was so upset about many women staying home with children which necessarily produces income disparity. I planned to stay home with my future kids.”