Without that expectation, women are in big trouble, both because they will be the victims of male violence and because they will end up with sole responsibility for raising the next generation. There is some truth in these warnings, and we would do well to think carefully about them. The plight of a woman who has played by the old rules only to have them changed in mid-life is usually a difficult one, and resistance to the changes is perfectly understandable. But there are also some fatal flaws in these women's thinking. She gives a sophisticated sociological account of changing gender patterns that is reminiscent of The Hearts of Men and The Feminine Mystique , but she ignores her own analysis in her prescriptions for the future when she places responsibility for gender patterns solely on individual women, not society.
Double consciousness runs rampant.
Part of the reason for this self-contradiction is that a serious reconsideration of gender would challenge all aspects of Fundamentalism. An awareness of women's victimization as part of society's basic plan would invalidate the image of a good God who made a just world and promises happiness if his rules are followed. It would destroy the stability of an essentially static world. It would imply that there may in fact be no sure answers. Fundamentalist women's construction of gender thus has at least two important determinants.