“For a woman qua woman, the essence of femininity is hero-worship—the desire to look up to man.” (Rand Lexicon, 1968)
Ayn Rand is a prominent philosopher who propagated a philosophy that would appear to be ideal for feminists. Unfortunately, Rand’s views of women, men, and their roles in relationships vary extremely from her philosophy. Rand’s philosophy is entitled Objectivism, and can easily be summarized by the creator herself in one sentence, “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” (Rand, 1957). Objectivism focuses on the self and promotes self-interest, self-improvement,…show more content… The main idea of Francisco’s speech is that one can discover a man’s true self-value in merely viewing the woman he sleeps with. If a man chooses a woman of power and ability, he considers himself to also be of power and ability. For the man that chooses a “brainless slut”, and actually receives pleasure from such an interaction, it can only be concluded that he considers himself to also be brainless and filthy (Gradstein and Meadowcroft,…show more content… Dagny Taggart, the heroine of the story, follows Francisco’s sexual philosophy and receives her pleasure in being conquered by Francisco himself, among other accomplished men. On the other hand, Lillian, one of the novel’s minor antagonists, presents a manipulating take on sex. Lillian is the scheming wife of Henry Rearden and uses sex as her main weapon. As do all women in Rand’s view, Lillian faces the power struggle presented by traditional marriages. In order to gain power over her husband she suppresses her own sexual
