B ut it would be misogynist fantasy to locate the contemporary threat to privacy in the more puritanical strains of feminist legal thought. Consider the themes arising from the Monica Lewinsky controversy. Starr and his supporters exhibit the evangelical blend of righteousness and prurience, combined with a faint simulation of MacKinnonite feminism that is mostly Republican fantasy the dream of closing the gender gap by capturing the righteous females. The personal has become political, with a vengeance. Clearly a number of streams have fed into this slough of despond.
Legalistic feminism is only a trickle.
There are far more important sources of the crisis atmosphere. But the problems raised by this controversy affect the rest of us as well as Bill Clinton. The good news is that many Americans aren t buying what the media are selling. Jackson Lears is professor of history at Rutgers University. Inc. Readers may redistribute this article to other individuals for noncommercial use, provided that the text, all HTML codes, and this notice remain intact and unaltered in any way.