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Picture it. My critique of feminism, in five minutes, for the elucidation of Gloria Steinem. From the front seat of a cab, no less. I turned around to peer through the little round opening in the shield. Gloria's face hung in the dark like a disk, large, pale, and impassive as the moon.

My sympathies at that moment lay all with her. She was probably thinking, "Here's some kook I never heard of, who was crying all through my speech, and now she's going to deliver a thumbnail criticism of my entire life's work."

I figured the best thing I could do in the circumstances was tell a story. I recounted a scene from my own feminist college days: I had been attending a consciousness-raising session at the home of lesbian friends and had gone upstairs to use the bathroom. There I discovered that the bathtub was full of cow manure. Why? "We're trying to raise psilocybin mushrooms."

This, I said, was a very different kind of feminism from the one we're familiar with now; this was not a kind of feminism that was going to climb the corporate ladder. For all its foolishness and flaws, mother-earth feminist resisted the idea that power-seeking and masculine-style careerism was life's highest goal. I could remember the day a friend told me enthusiastically that a woman had been made a vice president at AT&T, and I responded, "Why is that good news? We're not fighting for a bigger piece of the pie. We're after a different kind of pie altogether."

But "power feminism" won the struggle, I said, and Gloria interrupted me to say she'd never heard the term "power feminism" before Naomi Wolf coined it. I said that feminism had made a mistake as well in adopting another unhealthy male value, promiscuity, as liberating. Gloria interrupted me again, to say that others would charge feminism with being anti-sex, rather than promiscuous, because it opposes pornography. I couldn't see any way to get past this Ping-Pong game to real discussion, not in a cab in five minutes. It was a relief when we pulled up to the dining hall and I could politely sidle away.

Months later I got a second-hand message that Gloria was very sorry to have hurt me. I don't doubt that it's true, and know that I must hurt people, myself, sometimes, by trampling without realizing it on things they hold dear. Probably she still doesn't know just why I was hurt, or just chalks it up to Christians being generally parochial and touchy. I hope someday we have an opportunity to talk further. But not through a plexiglass porthole.

Visit Books & Culture online at BooksandCulture.com or subscribe here.

Frederica Mathewes-Green's Web site, www.frederica.com, offers more of her writing, including " Twice Liberated | A Personal Journey Through Feminism."

Mathewes-Green is also a columnist for Christianity Today.

Books & Culture Corner appears Mondays at ChristianityToday.com. Earlier Books & Culture Corners include:

I Read the News Today | Finding the most important story in headlines' sum. By John Wilson (Mar. 27, 2000)

Peace Be With You | Looking beyond naivete and cynicism about peacemaking at Wheaton's Christianity and Violence conference (Mar. 20, 2000)

Putting the Poor on the National Agenda | Ron Sider's timely proposals. By Amy L. Sherman (Mar. 13, 2000)

"To Know the Universe" | Well, sort of. By John Wilson (Mar. 2, 2000)

Guelzo's Lincoln Book a Winner | Established by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman to honor the best historical work each year on Lincoln and the Civil War era, the prize is now in its tenth year. By Allen C. Guelzo (Feb. 21, 2000)

Nancy Drew and the Wine-Dark Sea | The importance of good literature—and how to get young people to read it. By Sarah Cowie (Feb. 14, 2000)

Spring in Purgatory: Dante, Botticelli, C. S. Lewis, and a Lost Masterpiece | The most popular illustration of Dante's "Divine Comedy" has remained effectively "lost" for 500 years—although millions have seen it and admired it. By Kathryn Lindskoog (Feb. 7, 2000)

Playwright, Dissident, Czech President … Who Is This Man? | A new biography of Václav Havel fills in important blanks, but omits his theology. By Jim Sire (Jan. 31, 2000)

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April (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44