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The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us
Feminism doesn’t empower women. It erases them.
The bestselling author of Theology of Home , Carrie Gress shows that fifty years of radical feminism have solidified the primacy of the traditionally male sphere of life and devalued the attributes, virtues, and strengths of women.
Feminism, the ideology dedicated to "smashing the patriarchy," has instead made male lives the norm for everyone. After fifty years of radical feminism, we can’t even define "woman." In this powerful new book, Carrie Gress says what cannot be feminism has abolished women.
Hulking "trans women" thrash female athletes. Mothers abort their baby girls. Drag queens perform obscene parodies of women. Females are enslaved for men's pleasure—or they enslave themselves. Feminism doesn’t avert these tragedies; it encourages them. The carefree binge of self-absorption has left women exploited, unhappy, dependent on the state, and at war with men. And still, feminists cling to their illusions of liberation.
But there are real answers. Real answers for real women. Carrie Gress—a wife, mother, and philosopher—punctures the myth of feminism, exposing its legacy of abuse, abandonment, and anarchy. From the serpent’s seduction of Eve to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Kate Millett’s lust, violence, and insanity to Meghan Markle’s havoc-ridden rise to royalty, Gress presents a history as intriguing as the characters who lived it. The answers women most desperately need, she concludes, are to be found precisely where they are most afraid to look.
Only a rediscovery of true womanhood—and motherhood—can pull our society back from the brink. And happiness is possible only if women are open to making peace with men, with children, with God, and—no less difficult—with themselves. For feminism’s victims, Gress is a welcoming voice in the The door is open. The lights are on. Come home.
The bestselling author of Theology of Home , Carrie Gress shows that fifty years of radical feminism have solidified the primacy of the traditionally male sphere of life and devalued the attributes, virtues, and strengths of women.
Feminism, the ideology dedicated to "smashing the patriarchy," has instead made male lives the norm for everyone. After fifty years of radical feminism, we can’t even define "woman." In this powerful new book, Carrie Gress says what cannot be feminism has abolished women.
Hulking "trans women" thrash female athletes. Mothers abort their baby girls. Drag queens perform obscene parodies of women. Females are enslaved for men's pleasure—or they enslave themselves. Feminism doesn’t avert these tragedies; it encourages them. The carefree binge of self-absorption has left women exploited, unhappy, dependent on the state, and at war with men. And still, feminists cling to their illusions of liberation.
But there are real answers. Real answers for real women. Carrie Gress—a wife, mother, and philosopher—punctures the myth of feminism, exposing its legacy of abuse, abandonment, and anarchy. From the serpent’s seduction of Eve to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Kate Millett’s lust, violence, and insanity to Meghan Markle’s havoc-ridden rise to royalty, Gress presents a history as intriguing as the characters who lived it. The answers women most desperately need, she concludes, are to be found precisely where they are most afraid to look.
Only a rediscovery of true womanhood—and motherhood—can pull our society back from the brink. And happiness is possible only if women are open to making peace with men, with children, with God, and—no less difficult—with themselves. For feminism’s victims, Gress is a welcoming voice in the The door is open. The lights are on. Come home.
256 pages, Paperback
Published September 3, 2024
193 people are currently reading
4313 people want to read
About the author
Carrie Gress
16 books189 followersCarrie Gress is a Fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, Ethics and Public Policy Center and a Scholar at the Institute for Human Ecology at Catholic University of America.
Carrie Gress has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and was the Rome bureau chief of Zenit's English edition. She is the co-author with George Weigel of City of Saints: A Pilgrimage to John Paul II s Krakow and the author of Nudging Conversions, published by Beacon Publishing in 2015.
A mother of four, she and her family live in Virginia.
Carrie Gress has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and was the Rome bureau chief of Zenit's English edition. She is the co-author with George Weigel of City of Saints: A Pilgrimage to John Paul II s Krakow and the author of Nudging Conversions, published by Beacon Publishing in 2015.
A mother of four, she and her family live in Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 172 reviews
September 5, 2024
I find it absolutely shocking that a book has such a low rating before it’s even come out. I would be very interested to see what the rating would be if people took the time to read it rather than rate with no real understanding of what or how the author is going about the subject matter.
July 30, 2023
At least the author tells us exactly who she is in this blurb rather than relying on dog whistles.
January 4, 2024
Second Reading:
https://www.hearthkeeper.org/educatio...
First Reading:
My mind is blown. I read this book over 3 days. It's not a hard read. The language is very approachable and it's broken up into bite-sized chunks. I think this might possibly be the most important book for our generation. It charts the history of the feminist movement through all three waves and shows the destruction it has spewed into the lives of the young, the poor, the abused, and our culture as a whole. It ends with dire warnings and hope.
There are parts of this book that left me sick to my stomach, parts that made me weep, parts that made me cheer with affirmation that I had correctly identified the problems women face. There are things she clarified about the strengths and weaknesses of women and how they have been manipulated that I found very helpful.
I finished this reading feeling both rearmed for the fight and deeply saddened at the horror we have inflicted on ourselves, our children, and the men around us.
READ THIS BOOK!
https://www.hearthkeeper.org/educatio...
First Reading:
My mind is blown. I read this book over 3 days. It's not a hard read. The language is very approachable and it's broken up into bite-sized chunks. I think this might possibly be the most important book for our generation. It charts the history of the feminist movement through all three waves and shows the destruction it has spewed into the lives of the young, the poor, the abused, and our culture as a whole. It ends with dire warnings and hope.
There are parts of this book that left me sick to my stomach, parts that made me weep, parts that made me cheer with affirmation that I had correctly identified the problems women face. There are things she clarified about the strengths and weaknesses of women and how they have been manipulated that I found very helpful.
I finished this reading feeling both rearmed for the fight and deeply saddened at the horror we have inflicted on ourselves, our children, and the men around us.
READ THIS BOOK!
January 25, 2024
Warning; feminism is one of my favorite topics so I wrote an EARFUL about this book.
THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ
Feminists and non-feminists alike should read this book. Not just because it shows the dark, wretched, and depressing life that feminism has brought all those who lived and promoted it, but because it is important that we learn about the evil thought and process that brought about such madness in our society. And that it is indeed, madness.
The author of this book actually got the majority of her information from those who are very "pro-feminist," which I find very amusing. She directly quotes from the personal writings of these women (and men!) who, from the very late 1700s, were in support of what we know today as feminism and the "Free Love" lifestyle. So one cannot claim that Carrie Gress is writing merely her own opinion, or making up stories about the feminist movement. She is actually laying it out in all its filthy glory for all to see.
Prominent feminist, Kate Millet, is a prime example of the product of feminism and its earliest obsession with "free love," as she was so perverse and into so-called "Free Love" that she even tried to sleep with her own sister and was in favor of p*dophilia. Today there are over 2 million children (including infants) every year who are trafficked for sex for the SCUM of society to live their p*dophile fantasies through them. How far can we fall if we continue to follow these dangerous and selfish ideologies? Very far indeed.
MISERY LOVES ITS COMPANY
There are so many pieces of the feminist-history puzzle that Gress shows us, it's a little depressing to take it all in to be honest. But it is still somewhat satisfying to finally know the whole story. Those women were truly so pitiable, especially in their early lives. There doesn't seem to be one prominent feminist who had a normal childhood, or a normal family. It makes one recognize the importance of a loving and stable father and mother in the life of a child.
On the other hand, I find it interesting how these women who experienced such rotten parents, went ahead and lived selfishly just like their own parents. Did they not think of their own children's suffering? Strange.
It is important to note that, notable pioneers of feminism were so anti-man and anti-family, yet seemed to only have experienced total absence of masculinity from the men in their lives, as well as the absence of a normal family life. While they went to battle to destroy the family and masculinity, what would, instead, have given them a healthy, happy, stable home life is just what they meant to tear down: a stable family, headed by a masculine (self-sacrificing) husband. It is a travesty that so many women (and men) cannot comprehend this. Because if we can comprehend it, then we can actively work on promoting that which causes masculinity to thrive and prosper. We can actively work to promote stable, healthy and happy families.
INTERESTING TIDBITS
One of the passages that I found most interesting was when Gress details the findings of the atheist English ethnologist and social anthropologist J.D. Unwin, who studied civilizations and finally came to the conclusion that "as soon as a culture abandoned monogamy, particularly pre-marital chastity, it collapsed within three generations..." (page 166) That's a pretty hefty claim! The results of his years and years of research are published in his book, Sex and culture 1934 Leather Bound .
Who knew that Simone de Beauvoir literally paved the way for the transgender insanity when she wrote, "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman." Who knew that Elizabeth Stanton and right-wing favorite Susan B. Anthony were huge Occult fans? Who knew that Mary Shelly (yes, the author of Frankenstein) and her husband were proponents of the Free Love Movement (and were grossly miserable because of it)? Speaking of which; who knew that the Free Love Movement was actually around in the time of Mary Shelley!? I didn't. But I also happily live under a rock so... moving on.
The depth of information that this book gives us is amazing. Gress shows us all the strings that are attached to Feminism, the Free Love movement, to Transgenderism, that connect to the Communism-inspired French Revolution and later Marxism. Really though, as we read about the past in this book, with all the sordid and miserable characters that have become the Idols or "Patron Saints" for modern feminism today, we can see everything hinge on the one Satanic Commandment; "Do What Thou Wilt." We can also see, as we read about the lives of these people that they were indeed very miserable and disgusting, and their lifestyles certainly did not make them any happier. Which is something that Gress also reiterates in her book.
CONCLUSION
I believe that this book is crucial for people to read and understand what feminism and its roots truly are, as well as its fruits. I am sure that most people just don't know and have never heard of any of this. After all... we don't even know what the real meaning of masculinity is...
Gress's final chapter, "Mother," brought me to tears. I loved how she explained, "WHAT IS A WOMAN." It is so important that we understand the beautiful importance of what a woman truly is.
What I recommend for further reading
The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity
The Case for Patriarchy
Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation
The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis
Divini Redemptoris: On Atheistic Communism
The Naked Communist
School of Darkness:
The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation
Communism and the Conscience of the West
Not For Sale
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century
THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ
Feminists and non-feminists alike should read this book. Not just because it shows the dark, wretched, and depressing life that feminism has brought all those who lived and promoted it, but because it is important that we learn about the evil thought and process that brought about such madness in our society. And that it is indeed, madness.
The author of this book actually got the majority of her information from those who are very "pro-feminist," which I find very amusing. She directly quotes from the personal writings of these women (and men!) who, from the very late 1700s, were in support of what we know today as feminism and the "Free Love" lifestyle. So one cannot claim that Carrie Gress is writing merely her own opinion, or making up stories about the feminist movement. She is actually laying it out in all its filthy glory for all to see.
Prominent feminist, Kate Millet, is a prime example of the product of feminism and its earliest obsession with "free love," as she was so perverse and into so-called "Free Love" that she even tried to sleep with her own sister and was in favor of p*dophilia. Today there are over 2 million children (including infants) every year who are trafficked for sex for the SCUM of society to live their p*dophile fantasies through them. How far can we fall if we continue to follow these dangerous and selfish ideologies? Very far indeed.
MISERY LOVES ITS COMPANY
There are so many pieces of the feminist-history puzzle that Gress shows us, it's a little depressing to take it all in to be honest. But it is still somewhat satisfying to finally know the whole story. Those women were truly so pitiable, especially in their early lives. There doesn't seem to be one prominent feminist who had a normal childhood, or a normal family. It makes one recognize the importance of a loving and stable father and mother in the life of a child.
On the other hand, I find it interesting how these women who experienced such rotten parents, went ahead and lived selfishly just like their own parents. Did they not think of their own children's suffering? Strange.
It is important to note that, notable pioneers of feminism were so anti-man and anti-family, yet seemed to only have experienced total absence of masculinity from the men in their lives, as well as the absence of a normal family life. While they went to battle to destroy the family and masculinity, what would, instead, have given them a healthy, happy, stable home life is just what they meant to tear down: a stable family, headed by a masculine (self-sacrificing) husband. It is a travesty that so many women (and men) cannot comprehend this. Because if we can comprehend it, then we can actively work on promoting that which causes masculinity to thrive and prosper. We can actively work to promote stable, healthy and happy families.
INTERESTING TIDBITS
One of the passages that I found most interesting was when Gress details the findings of the atheist English ethnologist and social anthropologist J.D. Unwin, who studied civilizations and finally came to the conclusion that "as soon as a culture abandoned monogamy, particularly pre-marital chastity, it collapsed within three generations..." (page 166) That's a pretty hefty claim! The results of his years and years of research are published in his book, Sex and culture 1934 Leather Bound .
Who knew that Simone de Beauvoir literally paved the way for the transgender insanity when she wrote, "One is not born, but rather becomes, woman." Who knew that Elizabeth Stanton and right-wing favorite Susan B. Anthony were huge Occult fans? Who knew that Mary Shelly (yes, the author of Frankenstein) and her husband were proponents of the Free Love Movement (and were grossly miserable because of it)? Speaking of which; who knew that the Free Love Movement was actually around in the time of Mary Shelley!? I didn't. But I also happily live under a rock so... moving on.
The depth of information that this book gives us is amazing. Gress shows us all the strings that are attached to Feminism, the Free Love movement, to Transgenderism, that connect to the Communism-inspired French Revolution and later Marxism. Really though, as we read about the past in this book, with all the sordid and miserable characters that have become the Idols or "Patron Saints" for modern feminism today, we can see everything hinge on the one Satanic Commandment; "Do What Thou Wilt." We can also see, as we read about the lives of these people that they were indeed very miserable and disgusting, and their lifestyles certainly did not make them any happier. Which is something that Gress also reiterates in her book.
CONCLUSION
I believe that this book is crucial for people to read and understand what feminism and its roots truly are, as well as its fruits. I am sure that most people just don't know and have never heard of any of this. After all... we don't even know what the real meaning of masculinity is...
Gress's final chapter, "Mother," brought me to tears. I loved how she explained, "WHAT IS A WOMAN." It is so important that we understand the beautiful importance of what a woman truly is.
What I recommend for further reading
The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity
The Case for Patriarchy
Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation
The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis
Divini Redemptoris: On Atheistic Communism
The Naked Communist
School of Darkness:
The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation
Communism and the Conscience of the West
Not For Sale
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century
August 18, 2023
First, that book has been rated one BEFORE it was actually published! It was released August 15th if I’m correct. I bough it as soon as it was available on the Amazon, the day it was released and it already was rated 1 or 2 on Goodreads. Coincidence? I don’t think so…
Second, I’ve been waiting for a new book from dr Gress as long as it was announced. And it was worth it. Amazing book with a lot of love, compassion and understanding of women, even though from the other end of the political spectrum. Relations between feminism and occult, spiritualism or personal stories of main creators of feminism left me speechless because no one ever talks about it! As a former feminist (I even was involved in organizing events for the movement) I really did not know how deep those roots of occult and brokenness went. Dr Carrie Gress also end her book with uplifting advices that shows that we, as women and as a society aren’t completely lost and there’s still hope. Excellent book!
Second, I’ve been waiting for a new book from dr Gress as long as it was announced. And it was worth it. Amazing book with a lot of love, compassion and understanding of women, even though from the other end of the political spectrum. Relations between feminism and occult, spiritualism or personal stories of main creators of feminism left me speechless because no one ever talks about it! As a former feminist (I even was involved in organizing events for the movement) I really did not know how deep those roots of occult and brokenness went. Dr Carrie Gress also end her book with uplifting advices that shows that we, as women and as a society aren’t completely lost and there’s still hope. Excellent book!
August 2, 2024
Definitely not as good as I wanted it to be. She makes a lot of presuppositions about her audience that I think don’t help her case at all. Feminism is bad because Elizabeth Cady Stanton used a spirit table during the seance craze. Feminism is bad because Betty Friedan might have been a communist(?) Feminism is bad because it shares some goals with communism. Do you know who also was a big fan of equal pay for equal work? Jesus. Is He bad because communism shares some of His goals?
The most effective chapters are found at the end of the book when she talks about why any of this matters. I find it ironic that she praises “fly over women” for holding traditional values when I’m a liberal left-coaster, married, stay at home, homeschool Orthodox Christian mother of three… but I guess I don’t count because I don’t live in Minnesota like my bestie a liberal, pagan stay at home mother of 7. 🤷🏻♀️
ETA: the audiobook sounds AI generated to me. No bueno.
The most effective chapters are found at the end of the book when she talks about why any of this matters. I find it ironic that she praises “fly over women” for holding traditional values when I’m a liberal left-coaster, married, stay at home, homeschool Orthodox Christian mother of three… but I guess I don’t count because I don’t live in Minnesota like my bestie a liberal, pagan stay at home mother of 7. 🤷🏻♀️
ETA: the audiobook sounds AI generated to me. No bueno.
September 28, 2023
Clearly all the one stars are people who didn’t bother reading this. This is where our culture is at: “I’m open to anything except when your view offends me. So really I’m only open to my own view.”
I went into my late teens and early adult life believing the lie of feminism. I believed I needed to be better than men to be worth something. That no man would ever tell me what to do or think and that children get in the way. How I had moved to that thought of children is astonishing considering I distinctly remember wanting to be a mother and being married in my preteen years. It has taken me years well into my late 30s to disentangle from those lies fed in the schools, commercials, movies, and worst of all social media. Lies that seeped in deep during my college years getting my Bachelor in Nursing (mind you I was a dirt poor immigrant from a communist country that succeeded even though I had much against me). I am about to turn 40 and I see the lies everywhere now. I feel for the young women and girls growing up in this. The author does a fantastic job outlining the lives these women of feminism lived and what it created in America. Women are not better then men we are two sides of the same coin. We need each other to succeed. Feminism today has led to the butchering of our children, most of whom are girls. Females are well on their way to getting erased. You have to literally stick your head in the sand to not see what is unfolding around you.
If you want more information on where we are headed as a society read Arnold J. Toynbee’s 12-volume A Study of History and Sex and Culture by Joseph Daniel Unwin mentioned in this book.
I went into my late teens and early adult life believing the lie of feminism. I believed I needed to be better than men to be worth something. That no man would ever tell me what to do or think and that children get in the way. How I had moved to that thought of children is astonishing considering I distinctly remember wanting to be a mother and being married in my preteen years. It has taken me years well into my late 30s to disentangle from those lies fed in the schools, commercials, movies, and worst of all social media. Lies that seeped in deep during my college years getting my Bachelor in Nursing (mind you I was a dirt poor immigrant from a communist country that succeeded even though I had much against me). I am about to turn 40 and I see the lies everywhere now. I feel for the young women and girls growing up in this. The author does a fantastic job outlining the lives these women of feminism lived and what it created in America. Women are not better then men we are two sides of the same coin. We need each other to succeed. Feminism today has led to the butchering of our children, most of whom are girls. Females are well on their way to getting erased. You have to literally stick your head in the sand to not see what is unfolding around you.
If you want more information on where we are headed as a society read Arnold J. Toynbee’s 12-volume A Study of History and Sex and Culture by Joseph Daniel Unwin mentioned in this book.
April 15, 2025
The author, Carrie Gress, spoke at our OKC Catholic Women's conference this past Saturday and she was just like she sounds in her books, matter of fact, straightforward, informative and unapologetically honest. Well, she did throw in a few caveat apologies for those who might not be aware of how bad some things have gotten.
I told her that I had read her book, The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity and given it a favorable review on Goodreads. She said, "They're very liberal and hate me over there. Without even reading my book, on the first day it's out, they gave it one-star and blasted it." Not just her book, I thought, ANYthing which hints at a conservative position.
Now that I am finished with this, I am still trying to decide how to review it. Visceral impression: dark, depressing, but spot on! I had to put it down sometimes and wondered how such a sweet woman could ever bring herself to write about all that ... that ... muck? And yet, I knew I owed it to her, not to mention all the women out there to make a stab at a review. This is my initial attempt. After Easter, when I am less busy, I hope to come back and do a better job.
Gress begins with Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her hideous husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was a monster! The author describes their writings, not to mention lifestyles and how these in effect got the whole feminism 'thing' going. It goes downhill from there. Looking back, their contributions seem almost juvenile, yet they set the stage in that they defined what women supposedly wanted and needed.
In the search for 'freedom', women would have to do away with, sacrifice, minimize or deny everything else: parents, especially mother, husband, relationships, family (or any sense thereof), religion, definitely children and even friendships because it was every woman for herself. Envy ruled! This was something that Gress emphasized. She showed how the evil one has used this deadly sin against us every step of the way. Satanism and the occult figures heavily in all this back from the very beginning.
The thing to remember is that most women drawn to the feminist lifestyle are those who come from the street or broken homes. They are largely abused girls who've never known love, stability or anything resembling security, who in turn think such things are expendable, or worse, detrimental to women who want to succeed, and they don't want it for anyone else. Hence, the envy.
Gress traces her devastating history of feminism from the 1800s through an amended version of the usual women's rights story we've heard involving Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and how while they initiated things, they were in the end sidelined by the movement which went on without them.
No story about feminism would be complete without Margaret Sanger, the heroine of the Left, honored as an advocate for woman's birth control and only exposed by others as a racist eugenic. Sanger founded The American Birth Control League in 1921; it would become Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. By the 1930s, licensed physicians performed an estimated 800,000 abortions a year. Sanger never made a secret of the fact that she wanted to get rid of 'undesirables'. And Planned Parenthood has always located their abortion factories in poor (and usually black) communities.
Jumping ahead to the middle of the last century is where Gress' other book The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity expounds the birth of second wave feminism.
Here in, The End of Woman we learn more about these founding mothers (is that an oxymoron? 🤔) and meet some new faces not included in her other book.
Finally, there were some hopeful suggestions at the end, the main one being that we women are still nurturers, (beautiful word!) and our culture needs nurturing more than it needs almost ANYTHING else! So, ladies (and I do mean 'ladies') don't be afraid to give nurturing where and when you see it is needed. Like a pebble thrown into a pond, the ripples will spread!
If you are suffering from depression, don't read this book. If you don't believe that the majority of Western women are living under a delusion, DO read this book! If you already know it, you still might want to read it, to learn the whys, hows and wherefores.
Excellent dense writing throughout. As above, I want/need to do a better review. God willing, I will!
Is that cover ugly or what? Yes, I know, it's supposed to be "great" 'art'. If I looked like that, I call in sick and go back to bed.
PS Be sure to read the quotes I noted. There are so many good points and I couldn't include all of them, but I tried to highlight them so you can benefit from her savvy wisdom, not to mention it allows me to go back to them.
I told her that I had read her book, The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity and given it a favorable review on Goodreads. She said, "They're very liberal and hate me over there. Without even reading my book, on the first day it's out, they gave it one-star and blasted it." Not just her book, I thought, ANYthing which hints at a conservative position.
Now that I am finished with this, I am still trying to decide how to review it. Visceral impression: dark, depressing, but spot on! I had to put it down sometimes and wondered how such a sweet woman could ever bring herself to write about all that ... that ... muck? And yet, I knew I owed it to her, not to mention all the women out there to make a stab at a review. This is my initial attempt. After Easter, when I am less busy, I hope to come back and do a better job.
Gress begins with Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and her hideous husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was a monster! The author describes their writings, not to mention lifestyles and how these in effect got the whole feminism 'thing' going. It goes downhill from there. Looking back, their contributions seem almost juvenile, yet they set the stage in that they defined what women supposedly wanted and needed.
In the search for 'freedom', women would have to do away with, sacrifice, minimize or deny everything else: parents, especially mother, husband, relationships, family (or any sense thereof), religion, definitely children and even friendships because it was every woman for herself. Envy ruled! This was something that Gress emphasized. She showed how the evil one has used this deadly sin against us every step of the way. Satanism and the occult figures heavily in all this back from the very beginning.
The thing to remember is that most women drawn to the feminist lifestyle are those who come from the street or broken homes. They are largely abused girls who've never known love, stability or anything resembling security, who in turn think such things are expendable, or worse, detrimental to women who want to succeed, and they don't want it for anyone else. Hence, the envy.
Gress traces her devastating history of feminism from the 1800s through an amended version of the usual women's rights story we've heard involving Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and how while they initiated things, they were in the end sidelined by the movement which went on without them.
No story about feminism would be complete without Margaret Sanger, the heroine of the Left, honored as an advocate for woman's birth control and only exposed by others as a racist eugenic. Sanger founded The American Birth Control League in 1921; it would become Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942. By the 1930s, licensed physicians performed an estimated 800,000 abortions a year. Sanger never made a secret of the fact that she wanted to get rid of 'undesirables'. And Planned Parenthood has always located their abortion factories in poor (and usually black) communities.
Jumping ahead to the middle of the last century is where Gress' other book The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity expounds the birth of second wave feminism.
Here in, The End of Woman we learn more about these founding mothers (is that an oxymoron? 🤔) and meet some new faces not included in her other book.
Finally, there were some hopeful suggestions at the end, the main one being that we women are still nurturers, (beautiful word!) and our culture needs nurturing more than it needs almost ANYTHING else! So, ladies (and I do mean 'ladies') don't be afraid to give nurturing where and when you see it is needed. Like a pebble thrown into a pond, the ripples will spread!
If you are suffering from depression, don't read this book. If you don't believe that the majority of Western women are living under a delusion, DO read this book! If you already know it, you still might want to read it, to learn the whys, hows and wherefores.
Excellent dense writing throughout. As above, I want/need to do a better review. God willing, I will!
Is that cover ugly or what? Yes, I know, it's supposed to be "great" 'art'. If I looked like that, I call in sick and go back to bed.
PS Be sure to read the quotes I noted. There are so many good points and I couldn't include all of them, but I tried to highlight them so you can benefit from her savvy wisdom, not to mention it allows me to go back to them.
July 24, 2024
Clearly and helpfully points to the early roots, and different waves, of the feminist movement. Highlights the most significant figures in feminist thought. Calls out the heartbreaking effects of modern feminism in recent years. Definitely one of the better books of this type that I've read so far. My only complaint is that she leans on emotional persuasion too often. Gets extra points because her Roman Catholic bias does not color the text too much.
This book references Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
This book references Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
December 20, 2025
I have so much beef with this book I'm not even sure where to begin. Maybe by touching grass. We all need to touch grass after this.
Thank goodness it is short.
Here is what I liked so I can get that out of the way: I liked that the author directly quotes the feminist writers she critiques. I thought her goal of tracing the roots of Marxist ideology in feminist theory was interesting. I enjoyed the biographical details about familiar names like Betty Friedan and Mary Shelley. The author brings up an interesting point about the abuse suffered by many feminist thinkers and how that colored their worldview. She also consistently sticks to her thesis that feminism is Very Bad and womanhood is Very Good.
The problem is that she never adequately defines either feminism or womanhood. And this book desperately needs some definition because it is all over the place. If you read it with no prior knowledge of feminism, you'd probably think it is a philosophy where the highest good for women is to engage in free love, lesbian relationships while tracking down and murdering men. And possibly something with transgenderism, Marxism, and Wonder Woman. But that might be giving this book too much credit for clarity.
It is almost worse with the definition of womanhood. You better believe she loves to throw out that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson couldn't define a woman, but neither does this book! Finally, at the very end, the author says something about how being a woman is really just motherhood. Women can have babies. Men can't. Ergo, women are mothers! Throw in some lines about nurturing and the joy of seeing kids grow up and monogamy's importance for civilization and that's her answer. But see, mother is not a substitutionary word for woman and the lack of anything more substantial in this book drove me crazy. The author tries to blur the line, encouraging women to embrace their children and support their husbands and make the home beautiful. Then she throws the obligatory bone to childless women by insisting they too 'mother' everything around them. Which would imply that mothering is something more than physically being able to bear a child, and is instead some kind of attitude or mentality that is unique to women. But what that entails and how it is unique to women she never says, instead preferring to go back to fluffy generalities about the beauty of suckling babies and caring for people.
When not reminiscing about great the patriarchy is (another entirely undefined phrase), she's taking pop shots at the current favorite targets of a certain political demographic, like drag queens in the schools, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, or The View. Some of her targets are just plain weird, such as her almost obsessive beef with Meghan Markle or random snide comments about fur babies or Wonder Woman. (Equally puzzling: her disgust with feminists targeting the Miss America pageant in the 1960s. Is Miss America somehow representative of ideal womanhood now?)
There is one other puzzling absence in this book: any substantive mention of men. Now, that might be a strategic choice as the author focuses primarily on feminism and the women who pioneered it. But especially considering with how willingly she calls for a return to patriarchy and gushes about supporting a husband from home, the actual nature or role of men remain entirely unaddressed. At most, she complains that men can't "fight" women in any fair sense, so they just roll over or get accused toxic masculinity. (I believe this was around the same part of the books where she oh-so-helpfully explains that women are catty and make terrible bosses because they tear one another down and also that women very much want to fit in with the crowd so we will go along with whatever anyone else thinks because we're such social creatures. I can only assume men must not cave to peer pressure or group think since this is posited as such a female problem.)
Men are mentioned in this book, but only negatively. She brings up names like Percy Bysshe Shelley and Hugh Hefner repeatedly, clearly laying out how their warped philosophies hurt the women around them. In fact, because one of her main arguments is that feminist leaders tend to have a warped view of men in general, the author spends quite a bit of time talking about the abuses suffered by women. The weird thing is how unsympathetically she glides past it. "This woman was pimped out by her dad and then had the audacity to turn to spiritualism! and run for president! And modern feminists look up to her. Imagine the horror!" Not every evil act needs to be explicitly called out as evil, but on more than one occasion I found myself agreeing with a quote or person she held up with horror.
Which I think goes back to the definition problem, and maybe an audience problem. She spends the majority of the book condemning feminists for free love and Marxism without ever bothering to explain why those things are problematic. I might think so (I do, in fact.) but she seriously assumes an immediate revulsion that I just don't think is warranted. She is a little better near the end of the book when laying out the harms of transgenderism, porn, or abortion. At the end, she also addresses a little bit more why free love (or at least, the absence of monogamy) harms civilizations. But at that point, it is too little too late.
Overall, I want to like what this book aimed to do. I think there is a need for a book like this. It cuts through a lot of the academic jargon around feminist theory and history and provides a fairly straightforward description of it. But the lack of definitions and politically hot button rabbit trails ended up seriously driving me away.
Thank goodness it is short.
Here is what I liked so I can get that out of the way: I liked that the author directly quotes the feminist writers she critiques. I thought her goal of tracing the roots of Marxist ideology in feminist theory was interesting. I enjoyed the biographical details about familiar names like Betty Friedan and Mary Shelley. The author brings up an interesting point about the abuse suffered by many feminist thinkers and how that colored their worldview. She also consistently sticks to her thesis that feminism is Very Bad and womanhood is Very Good.
The problem is that she never adequately defines either feminism or womanhood. And this book desperately needs some definition because it is all over the place. If you read it with no prior knowledge of feminism, you'd probably think it is a philosophy where the highest good for women is to engage in free love, lesbian relationships while tracking down and murdering men. And possibly something with transgenderism, Marxism, and Wonder Woman. But that might be giving this book too much credit for clarity.
It is almost worse with the definition of womanhood. You better believe she loves to throw out that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson couldn't define a woman, but neither does this book! Finally, at the very end, the author says something about how being a woman is really just motherhood. Women can have babies. Men can't. Ergo, women are mothers! Throw in some lines about nurturing and the joy of seeing kids grow up and monogamy's importance for civilization and that's her answer. But see, mother is not a substitutionary word for woman and the lack of anything more substantial in this book drove me crazy. The author tries to blur the line, encouraging women to embrace their children and support their husbands and make the home beautiful. Then she throws the obligatory bone to childless women by insisting they too 'mother' everything around them. Which would imply that mothering is something more than physically being able to bear a child, and is instead some kind of attitude or mentality that is unique to women. But what that entails and how it is unique to women she never says, instead preferring to go back to fluffy generalities about the beauty of suckling babies and caring for people.
When not reminiscing about great the patriarchy is (another entirely undefined phrase), she's taking pop shots at the current favorite targets of a certain political demographic, like drag queens in the schools, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, or The View. Some of her targets are just plain weird, such as her almost obsessive beef with Meghan Markle or random snide comments about fur babies or Wonder Woman. (Equally puzzling: her disgust with feminists targeting the Miss America pageant in the 1960s. Is Miss America somehow representative of ideal womanhood now?)
There is one other puzzling absence in this book: any substantive mention of men. Now, that might be a strategic choice as the author focuses primarily on feminism and the women who pioneered it. But especially considering with how willingly she calls for a return to patriarchy and gushes about supporting a husband from home, the actual nature or role of men remain entirely unaddressed. At most, she complains that men can't "fight" women in any fair sense, so they just roll over or get accused toxic masculinity. (I believe this was around the same part of the books where she oh-so-helpfully explains that women are catty and make terrible bosses because they tear one another down and also that women very much want to fit in with the crowd so we will go along with whatever anyone else thinks because we're such social creatures. I can only assume men must not cave to peer pressure or group think since this is posited as such a female problem.)
Men are mentioned in this book, but only negatively. She brings up names like Percy Bysshe Shelley and Hugh Hefner repeatedly, clearly laying out how their warped philosophies hurt the women around them. In fact, because one of her main arguments is that feminist leaders tend to have a warped view of men in general, the author spends quite a bit of time talking about the abuses suffered by women. The weird thing is how unsympathetically she glides past it. "This woman was pimped out by her dad and then had the audacity to turn to spiritualism! and run for president! And modern feminists look up to her. Imagine the horror!" Not every evil act needs to be explicitly called out as evil, but on more than one occasion I found myself agreeing with a quote or person she held up with horror.
Which I think goes back to the definition problem, and maybe an audience problem. She spends the majority of the book condemning feminists for free love and Marxism without ever bothering to explain why those things are problematic. I might think so (I do, in fact.) but she seriously assumes an immediate revulsion that I just don't think is warranted. She is a little better near the end of the book when laying out the harms of transgenderism, porn, or abortion. At the end, she also addresses a little bit more why free love (or at least, the absence of monogamy) harms civilizations. But at that point, it is too little too late.
Overall, I want to like what this book aimed to do. I think there is a need for a book like this. It cuts through a lot of the academic jargon around feminist theory and history and provides a fairly straightforward description of it. But the lack of definitions and politically hot button rabbit trails ended up seriously driving me away.
May 30, 2024
I may eventually write a longer review, but, in short, this is an appallingly terrible, mediocre book. The broad-brushed statements and conclusions of this author are intellectually flawed, and easily disproved with basic research. I genuinely do not understand the plethora of five star reviews. Conservatives should stop upholding hackneyed books like this, and start producing better books.
August 22, 2023
😂 review bombing a book they haven’t even read. Makes me want to read it all the more now.
March 19, 2025
Gress sets out to prove that feminism is erasing womanhood. She does not exactly succeed.
Gress' argument is as messy as her writing style. She has a central point: Hierarchy (all hierarchy) is good, women who oppose hierarchy (any hierarchy) are misguided or evil. Feminism is bad because is opposes hierarchy. Women are mothers, even the ones who aren't. It is better to be a mother than a human being, and women should not try to be human beings. And she hates Meghan Markle (that's not relevant to any of her arguments, it just comes up a lot). She constantly confuses radical feminist ideas with liberal feminist ideas, while failing to acknowledge the radical feminist movement exists. She thinks only Matt Walsh knows how to define a woman as a human female adult, despite the fact that radical feminists were screaming Adult Human Female at the trans cult years before Matt Walsh decided to start honking his clown nose into a microphone and calling it a podcast. She does not seem well versed in history, particularly the history of feminism. And her work centers only on feminists she can dig up dirt on - though not all of her claims are correct. All of this makes her work into a nearly unreadable word salad, comprised entirely of old conservative jargon that she desperately tries to present as fresh and interesting.
So let's go chapter by chapter and try to make sense of this mess.
Part I : The Lost Girls
Gress tries to debunk feminism by illuminating how corrupt the 'founders' of feminism were. In this section, she tries to connect feminism with whatever movements were popular at the time of each chapter (Enlightenment, Romanticism, Spiritualism, Communism). But she fails to adequately connect these movements to feminism as a whole. The most she can do is produce one or two individuals who may or may not have been feminists and were attached to the movement she dislikes. This formula overwhelmingly fails to convince.
Chapter 1 is about Mary Wollstonecraft, whom Gress claims is the first founder of feminism - alas, historians disagree with this, as the founding of the feminist movement occurred at Seneca Falls. Gress wants us to think that Wollstonecraft invented feminism with her Vindication of the Rights of Women, but fails to understand that women were writing on women's rights well before Wollstonecraft, and that merely opposing hierarchy does not make her the originator of feminism, as feminism is not inherently or solely an anti-hierarchy movement. If we want to argue that anyone writing about women's rights before Seneca Falls is the founder of feminism, we would have to examine Olympe de Gouges, Archangela Tarabotti, Moderata Fonte, and Christine de Pizan...but I'm going to go ahead and assume that Gress has never heard of those women. And if we assume that anyone who opposed the notion of hierarchy is a proto-feminist, then we have to propose Martin Luther as a founder of feminism as well, for his work opposing the hierarchal Catholic church. Surely the Catholic Gress has heard of him. Ultimately the threads of this argument don't connect because she doesn't understand the words she's using, their meaning and history, and is grasping at straws to convince us all that feminism somehow is the stepchild of de Sade. If that sounds like a desperate reach, it's because it is.
Chapter 2 turns to Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft's daughter. Or so the title would have us believe. Most of this chapter is about Percy Shelley and Romanticism. She commits the same mistake as above, trying to connect feminism to romanticism and then to Shelley. the problem is that no one views Percy or even Mary Shelley as founders of feminism. Literary greats, yes. Feminist organizers, no. I don't care for the Romantics either, but none of the information Gress presents us about them (which I already knew) connects them to the feminist movement. Strike two, Gress.
Chapter 3 finally gets to women who were actual feminists: Stanton and Anthony. Here Gress tries to connect feminism to Spiritualism, and here she does a better job than previously. She can prove that Stanton was an influential feminist, and that she was also a Spiritualist, and that her feminism was influenced by her spiritualism. Her argument is almost coherent (hold for applause). But she fails to take into consideration that Spiritualism was extremely widespread at the time, and was practiced by many people, not just feminists. She even acknowledges that it affected 19th century Christianity, but then quickly moves to assert that just because some Christians were also spiritualists doesn't mean that the church was necessarily tainted by it. Yet she can't apply the same logic to feminism. Interesting. Gress is forced to acknowledge that Stanton's spiritualism and theosophy caused her to be outcast among other feminists (she remains a controversial figure in feminism to this day, for a lot of reasons), but still insists that it somehow shaped (and tainted) all feminist thought leading to today. Make sense of that.
Chapter 4 is more of the same mistake, in which Gress searches for something she doesn't like in the culture and claims that it made feminism. This chapter's boogeyman is Communism, with a touch of socialism as well for good measure. Again, the fact that Steinem had communist tendencies does not mean that all feminism is communism. This is especially obvious since the author acknowledges that Steinem's communist beliefs were not something she published openly with her feminist work, but something she hid.
Chapter 5 is the messiest chapter in the whole book. Gress' determination to link all feminism with anything she doesn't like by cherry picking and then making tenuous connections to all feminists today is still present, but here she has so many grievances that the chapter feels very much like her throwing things at the wall in the hopes that one of them will stick with the reader. It's a little desperate. Gress talks occultism and the second wave, focusing on the messy personal lives of the women in the movement, never on the conditions they were fighting against. Her list of evil founders of feminism again includes people who were not feminists, and again she displays her lack of knowledge by acting as if Kate Millet is somehow inspiring women today. The truth is that the second wave of feminism is regarded as problematic by many today, and Kate Millet is not exactly a poster girl to modern feminists, for reasons that Gress barely mentions. The fact that generation after generation of women keep turning to feminism to try to improve their lives is because they have the same old problems and want to try new solutions, not because they discovered 1970s Wicca and decided that shooting Andy Warhol sounds like fun. The fact that feminism has different 'waves' testifies to how it keeps being reinvented, leaving behind women like Kate Millet and others and improving as it goes (You can't even find print copies of Dworkin anymore - hardly a culture shaper then, is she?). I guess Gress, being a Catholic, doesn't understand the idea of gaining new information and using it to change one's worldview for the better -- she's too locked into her own canon to understand the idea of growth in others.
Part II: Mean Girls.
Herein Gress tries to persuade the reader that women believe in feminism because of peer pressure from a clique mean old ladies who control the culture. No, really.
Chapter 6: Gress claims that there is hardly an institution in our culture that hasn't been overtaken by feminism, listing Hollywood, politics, academia, and Disney as some of her examples. But she doesn't prove her examples, so I'm just going to laugh at them. Sure, Carrie, women control politics. That's why a convicted sexual abuser is president, again. Gress wants us to understand that women are peer pressured into thinking feminist thoughts because we just want to fit in with the mean old ladies who run the world. Read the stories of women who escape from patriarchy and you may learn the opposite is true. I also have to note that her frequent lack of research is glaring; she claims that no one is willing to discuss the link between abortion and breast cancer in the last few decades, despite the fact that I found two studies from the American Cancer Society on the topic, dated 2018 and 2020. This took me five minutes. Does she not research any of her claims before she makes them?
Chapter 7 opens with Gress asserting that all the top feminist leaders of today are in their sixties and seventies, again revealing her ignorance of what's actually going on in feminism. She's angry that conservative women aren't more popular with their liberal peers, like a child sulking over not being invited to a birthday party. She discusses abortion and speaks against human trafficking, ignoring the fact that radical feminists form one of the most openly anti-prostitution groups out there.
Chapter 8 discusses how feminism has weaponized victimhood, in an obvious attempt to forestall real women's real stories of their lives and problems. Gress posits that feminism is insidiously trying to convince women that men have it better and that women's lives would improve if they gained the same advantages. She is against women sharing their troubles with one another because of the way it weaponizes our sense of compassion. She also cites envy and resentment as being at the root of women's attempts to end our troubles, which she says we have made up by talking about them together. These views are not new in conservative Christianity, but they weren't convincing in past decades and they aren't convincing now. Her fear that women are trying to become like men is very vague, but no matter what issue we assume she's talking about (abuse, sexual vulnerability, equal pay, legislative bias, medical misogyny) we see that she truly doesn't care about women's well being. According to her, we have it fine. Go home, everyone, hide your pain and have a bunch of kids. There are no problems and never will be, and if there are problems in society you can fix them by being a wife and mother. If you've read this far in this review, I hope I don't have to explain to you how horrifically malicious this belief is.
Part III: Lost Girls
Gress addresses the current abortion rights, LGB, and transgender movements and claims that they are erasing women. As a rad-leaning Christian feminist, I agreed more with portions of this section than previous ones, but I still chafe at Gress' insistence that women wanting to be seen as human is the root of these problems. Does she know the trans movement is being bankrolled by men?
Chapter 9 is about gay rights and Margaret Sanger, two things that should probably have their own chapters, because again, feminism isn't just whatever exists that Gress doesn't like. Gay rights and feminism are not the same movement. They are two different things.
Chapter 10 addresses the transgender movement. It opens by discussing Simone de Beauvoir. I don't like de Beauvoir, but she continues to be adored by mainstream feminism. Gress, however, misunderstands her famous quote about becoming a woman in precisely the same way that trans activists do (the quote is about gender, not sex). Gress argues for biological essentialism, which is again a favorite tool of the trans movement (it's remarkable how many beliefs conservatives and trans activists share, really. Makes you think). She speaks against transitioning, specifically the transitioning of minors, which I happen to agree with her on (though I think she should talk about male transitions, not just female ones). I also appreciate her point about how transgenderism relies heavily on consumerism.
Part IV: The Way Home
I have read the introduction to this section three times and I still have no idea what she's getting at. Life is too good for most people? Technology makes people forget how hard life used to be? Maybe?
Chapter 11 is titled Motherhood. Here Gress argues that all women are mothers. Even those of us who are not biological mothers are made to nurture and guide and instruct -- this is motherhood, and this is the essence of womanhood, to pour into others regardless of whether we birthed them or not. It is a beautiful image, but I am continually amazed by conservatives insistence that this is a role specifically designated to women. Are men not also called to be kind, to teach and instruct, to practice the fruits of the spirit? Are their arms not also shaped for holding? Cultural Christianity, which answers a resounding no, strips men of the responsibility to be righteous. What a shame, to be so fixated on creating a narrow definition of womanhood, that they box men entirely out of the ability to nurture and instruct. It's the same old same old cultural Christianity that I've seen for years now, but it's not biblical and I reject it. My husband is the kindest person I've ever met, a man who loves to pour his energy into encouraging and instructing people, and that does not make him a woman, because righteousness is not a construct that changes by sex or gender. And for what it's worth, feminists do nurture and teach and love each other -- Gress just doesn't like them doing that, so I guess it doesn't count (Ch. 8).
After writing this whole review (which at this point is probably longer than the book itself) I wonder if perhaps Gress is smarter than I think, because she produced so much illogical and poorly researched nonsense that at several points I considered giving up trying to wade through it all. Maybe that's the point. Maybe she wants to throw so much garbage at the reader that they turn their brains off and just accept whatever she tells them. After all, if she connects every evil in the world to feminism, sooner or later she'll have to be right, right? Right? Right? Right?
That's okay. Let her rage. When she, or any conservative woman, needs feminism, it will be there for them. It always has been, in the fact that they can vote, go to college, publish under their own names, have their own bank accounts, and more. Feminism, the Great Evil, has made all these things possible, even for women like Gress. Far from erasing womanhood, feminism made the publication of this book possible.
Somehow, I doubt Gress will be saying thank you to her feminist foremothers anytime soon.
Gress' argument is as messy as her writing style. She has a central point: Hierarchy (all hierarchy) is good, women who oppose hierarchy (any hierarchy) are misguided or evil. Feminism is bad because is opposes hierarchy. Women are mothers, even the ones who aren't. It is better to be a mother than a human being, and women should not try to be human beings. And she hates Meghan Markle (that's not relevant to any of her arguments, it just comes up a lot). She constantly confuses radical feminist ideas with liberal feminist ideas, while failing to acknowledge the radical feminist movement exists. She thinks only Matt Walsh knows how to define a woman as a human female adult, despite the fact that radical feminists were screaming Adult Human Female at the trans cult years before Matt Walsh decided to start honking his clown nose into a microphone and calling it a podcast. She does not seem well versed in history, particularly the history of feminism. And her work centers only on feminists she can dig up dirt on - though not all of her claims are correct. All of this makes her work into a nearly unreadable word salad, comprised entirely of old conservative jargon that she desperately tries to present as fresh and interesting.
So let's go chapter by chapter and try to make sense of this mess.
Part I : The Lost Girls
Gress tries to debunk feminism by illuminating how corrupt the 'founders' of feminism were. In this section, she tries to connect feminism with whatever movements were popular at the time of each chapter (Enlightenment, Romanticism, Spiritualism, Communism). But she fails to adequately connect these movements to feminism as a whole. The most she can do is produce one or two individuals who may or may not have been feminists and were attached to the movement she dislikes. This formula overwhelmingly fails to convince.
Chapter 1 is about Mary Wollstonecraft, whom Gress claims is the first founder of feminism - alas, historians disagree with this, as the founding of the feminist movement occurred at Seneca Falls. Gress wants us to think that Wollstonecraft invented feminism with her Vindication of the Rights of Women, but fails to understand that women were writing on women's rights well before Wollstonecraft, and that merely opposing hierarchy does not make her the originator of feminism, as feminism is not inherently or solely an anti-hierarchy movement. If we want to argue that anyone writing about women's rights before Seneca Falls is the founder of feminism, we would have to examine Olympe de Gouges, Archangela Tarabotti, Moderata Fonte, and Christine de Pizan...but I'm going to go ahead and assume that Gress has never heard of those women. And if we assume that anyone who opposed the notion of hierarchy is a proto-feminist, then we have to propose Martin Luther as a founder of feminism as well, for his work opposing the hierarchal Catholic church. Surely the Catholic Gress has heard of him. Ultimately the threads of this argument don't connect because she doesn't understand the words she's using, their meaning and history, and is grasping at straws to convince us all that feminism somehow is the stepchild of de Sade. If that sounds like a desperate reach, it's because it is.
Chapter 2 turns to Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft's daughter. Or so the title would have us believe. Most of this chapter is about Percy Shelley and Romanticism. She commits the same mistake as above, trying to connect feminism to romanticism and then to Shelley. the problem is that no one views Percy or even Mary Shelley as founders of feminism. Literary greats, yes. Feminist organizers, no. I don't care for the Romantics either, but none of the information Gress presents us about them (which I already knew) connects them to the feminist movement. Strike two, Gress.
Chapter 3 finally gets to women who were actual feminists: Stanton and Anthony. Here Gress tries to connect feminism to Spiritualism, and here she does a better job than previously. She can prove that Stanton was an influential feminist, and that she was also a Spiritualist, and that her feminism was influenced by her spiritualism. Her argument is almost coherent (hold for applause). But she fails to take into consideration that Spiritualism was extremely widespread at the time, and was practiced by many people, not just feminists. She even acknowledges that it affected 19th century Christianity, but then quickly moves to assert that just because some Christians were also spiritualists doesn't mean that the church was necessarily tainted by it. Yet she can't apply the same logic to feminism. Interesting. Gress is forced to acknowledge that Stanton's spiritualism and theosophy caused her to be outcast among other feminists (she remains a controversial figure in feminism to this day, for a lot of reasons), but still insists that it somehow shaped (and tainted) all feminist thought leading to today. Make sense of that.
Chapter 4 is more of the same mistake, in which Gress searches for something she doesn't like in the culture and claims that it made feminism. This chapter's boogeyman is Communism, with a touch of socialism as well for good measure. Again, the fact that Steinem had communist tendencies does not mean that all feminism is communism. This is especially obvious since the author acknowledges that Steinem's communist beliefs were not something she published openly with her feminist work, but something she hid.
Chapter 5 is the messiest chapter in the whole book. Gress' determination to link all feminism with anything she doesn't like by cherry picking and then making tenuous connections to all feminists today is still present, but here she has so many grievances that the chapter feels very much like her throwing things at the wall in the hopes that one of them will stick with the reader. It's a little desperate. Gress talks occultism and the second wave, focusing on the messy personal lives of the women in the movement, never on the conditions they were fighting against. Her list of evil founders of feminism again includes people who were not feminists, and again she displays her lack of knowledge by acting as if Kate Millet is somehow inspiring women today. The truth is that the second wave of feminism is regarded as problematic by many today, and Kate Millet is not exactly a poster girl to modern feminists, for reasons that Gress barely mentions. The fact that generation after generation of women keep turning to feminism to try to improve their lives is because they have the same old problems and want to try new solutions, not because they discovered 1970s Wicca and decided that shooting Andy Warhol sounds like fun. The fact that feminism has different 'waves' testifies to how it keeps being reinvented, leaving behind women like Kate Millet and others and improving as it goes (You can't even find print copies of Dworkin anymore - hardly a culture shaper then, is she?). I guess Gress, being a Catholic, doesn't understand the idea of gaining new information and using it to change one's worldview for the better -- she's too locked into her own canon to understand the idea of growth in others.
Part II: Mean Girls.
Herein Gress tries to persuade the reader that women believe in feminism because of peer pressure from a clique mean old ladies who control the culture. No, really.
Chapter 6: Gress claims that there is hardly an institution in our culture that hasn't been overtaken by feminism, listing Hollywood, politics, academia, and Disney as some of her examples. But she doesn't prove her examples, so I'm just going to laugh at them. Sure, Carrie, women control politics. That's why a convicted sexual abuser is president, again. Gress wants us to understand that women are peer pressured into thinking feminist thoughts because we just want to fit in with the mean old ladies who run the world. Read the stories of women who escape from patriarchy and you may learn the opposite is true. I also have to note that her frequent lack of research is glaring; she claims that no one is willing to discuss the link between abortion and breast cancer in the last few decades, despite the fact that I found two studies from the American Cancer Society on the topic, dated 2018 and 2020. This took me five minutes. Does she not research any of her claims before she makes them?
Chapter 7 opens with Gress asserting that all the top feminist leaders of today are in their sixties and seventies, again revealing her ignorance of what's actually going on in feminism. She's angry that conservative women aren't more popular with their liberal peers, like a child sulking over not being invited to a birthday party. She discusses abortion and speaks against human trafficking, ignoring the fact that radical feminists form one of the most openly anti-prostitution groups out there.
Chapter 8 discusses how feminism has weaponized victimhood, in an obvious attempt to forestall real women's real stories of their lives and problems. Gress posits that feminism is insidiously trying to convince women that men have it better and that women's lives would improve if they gained the same advantages. She is against women sharing their troubles with one another because of the way it weaponizes our sense of compassion. She also cites envy and resentment as being at the root of women's attempts to end our troubles, which she says we have made up by talking about them together. These views are not new in conservative Christianity, but they weren't convincing in past decades and they aren't convincing now. Her fear that women are trying to become like men is very vague, but no matter what issue we assume she's talking about (abuse, sexual vulnerability, equal pay, legislative bias, medical misogyny) we see that she truly doesn't care about women's well being. According to her, we have it fine. Go home, everyone, hide your pain and have a bunch of kids. There are no problems and never will be, and if there are problems in society you can fix them by being a wife and mother. If you've read this far in this review, I hope I don't have to explain to you how horrifically malicious this belief is.
Part III: Lost Girls
Gress addresses the current abortion rights, LGB, and transgender movements and claims that they are erasing women. As a rad-leaning Christian feminist, I agreed more with portions of this section than previous ones, but I still chafe at Gress' insistence that women wanting to be seen as human is the root of these problems. Does she know the trans movement is being bankrolled by men?
Chapter 9 is about gay rights and Margaret Sanger, two things that should probably have their own chapters, because again, feminism isn't just whatever exists that Gress doesn't like. Gay rights and feminism are not the same movement. They are two different things.
Chapter 10 addresses the transgender movement. It opens by discussing Simone de Beauvoir. I don't like de Beauvoir, but she continues to be adored by mainstream feminism. Gress, however, misunderstands her famous quote about becoming a woman in precisely the same way that trans activists do (the quote is about gender, not sex). Gress argues for biological essentialism, which is again a favorite tool of the trans movement (it's remarkable how many beliefs conservatives and trans activists share, really. Makes you think). She speaks against transitioning, specifically the transitioning of minors, which I happen to agree with her on (though I think she should talk about male transitions, not just female ones). I also appreciate her point about how transgenderism relies heavily on consumerism.
Part IV: The Way Home
I have read the introduction to this section three times and I still have no idea what she's getting at. Life is too good for most people? Technology makes people forget how hard life used to be? Maybe?
Chapter 11 is titled Motherhood. Here Gress argues that all women are mothers. Even those of us who are not biological mothers are made to nurture and guide and instruct -- this is motherhood, and this is the essence of womanhood, to pour into others regardless of whether we birthed them or not. It is a beautiful image, but I am continually amazed by conservatives insistence that this is a role specifically designated to women. Are men not also called to be kind, to teach and instruct, to practice the fruits of the spirit? Are their arms not also shaped for holding? Cultural Christianity, which answers a resounding no, strips men of the responsibility to be righteous. What a shame, to be so fixated on creating a narrow definition of womanhood, that they box men entirely out of the ability to nurture and instruct. It's the same old same old cultural Christianity that I've seen for years now, but it's not biblical and I reject it. My husband is the kindest person I've ever met, a man who loves to pour his energy into encouraging and instructing people, and that does not make him a woman, because righteousness is not a construct that changes by sex or gender. And for what it's worth, feminists do nurture and teach and love each other -- Gress just doesn't like them doing that, so I guess it doesn't count (Ch. 8).
After writing this whole review (which at this point is probably longer than the book itself) I wonder if perhaps Gress is smarter than I think, because she produced so much illogical and poorly researched nonsense that at several points I considered giving up trying to wade through it all. Maybe that's the point. Maybe she wants to throw so much garbage at the reader that they turn their brains off and just accept whatever she tells them. After all, if she connects every evil in the world to feminism, sooner or later she'll have to be right, right? Right? Right? Right?
That's okay. Let her rage. When she, or any conservative woman, needs feminism, it will be there for them. It always has been, in the fact that they can vote, go to college, publish under their own names, have their own bank accounts, and more. Feminism, the Great Evil, has made all these things possible, even for women like Gress. Far from erasing womanhood, feminism made the publication of this book possible.
Somehow, I doubt Gress will be saying thank you to her feminist foremothers anytime soon.
November 13, 2024
What an awful book. I was expecting an honest critique of feminism, but think I just inhaled and choked on conservative Christian propaganda. The book is full of anecdotes and lacks meaningful substance to back up its extreme claims and seems to be more intent on building this grand conspiracy theory and instilling fear than actually addressing how to come together and address the real societal issues that we face in America. In no way did I feel that this book empowered me or gave me any sort of meaningful next step as a working wife and mother. The best thing I got from this book was the bibliography of feminist resources that I will be working my way through and drawing my own conclusions of.
September 7, 2023
This is an illuminating book. Here you can read the real history of feminism and how it branched out into nightmarish ideologies. This is so spot-on and well-researched; not holding back in telling the truth on what has happened to females in society today. It's a sad thing that it all boils down to the notion of me, me, me in the pursuit of happiness to the detriment of the nuclear family and society.
It makes me think of how shortsighted humans are and how broken. These pages illustrate that true freedom and happiness are elusive when one goes against nature.
Plenty of thought-provoking and very bleak information.
It makes me think of how shortsighted humans are and how broken. These pages illustrate that true freedom and happiness are elusive when one goes against nature.
Plenty of thought-provoking and very bleak information.
August 28, 2023
Gress is a master of storytelling. She unfolds the story of feminism from inception and phase by phase. At times she zooms in on personal narratives and then expands the view to show how ideologies start with particular people and take root in the culture.
I picked up this book as a 29 year professional who LOVES being a wife and mother but struggles to balance obligations between work and home. I consider myself a victim of the sexual revolution and feminism's empty promises: work like a man, have a sexual appetite like a man, and let people pick what makes them happy.
That lifestyle left me burned out, full of shame, and wondering how I got here in the first place. This book is one rung on the philosophical, political, and religious ladder I'm climbing to get out of this trench.
Sometimes I find myself wanting to disagree with Gress, but if I'm honest, the book read me and pointed to lots of areas for growth.
Great for any woman who can sense something isn't right about the path she's on but can't figure out how she got off course.
I picked up this book as a 29 year professional who LOVES being a wife and mother but struggles to balance obligations between work and home. I consider myself a victim of the sexual revolution and feminism's empty promises: work like a man, have a sexual appetite like a man, and let people pick what makes them happy.
That lifestyle left me burned out, full of shame, and wondering how I got here in the first place. This book is one rung on the philosophical, political, and religious ladder I'm climbing to get out of this trench.
Sometimes I find myself wanting to disagree with Gress, but if I'm honest, the book read me and pointed to lots of areas for growth.
Great for any woman who can sense something isn't right about the path she's on but can't figure out how she got off course.
September 18, 2023
Really great read, especially for women who have daughters.
If you are an average American watching where the culture has brought society wondering how we got here, this is a good explainer. If you aren’t concerned, this may still be an interesting read to see the other view point. The author is well researched and presents a lot of evidence, then ties it to current trends we see.
If you are an average American watching where the culture has brought society wondering how we got here, this is a good explainer. If you aren’t concerned, this may still be an interesting read to see the other view point. The author is well researched and presents a lot of evidence, then ties it to current trends we see.
May 21, 2024
I think a lot of us resort to the typical “I’m not a modern feminist, I’m a first wave feminist” line of thinking, or at least I have. But Gress goes through the life and writings of some of the first wave feminists to reveal the more sinister underpinnings of the movement, including the intended abolition of the family structure.
She also shows that many of the influential feminists came from deeply broken homes only to then choose a lifestyle that left them empty, alone, and often regretful. They preached the values of a “progressive” system that directly ruined their personal lives. It broke down a lot of the notions I held, not because I actually knew anything about first wave feminism, but because I grew up in this modern culture where feminism is the holy standard.
Anyway, a good read if you have begun questioning if feminism is really all that it’s cracked up to be.
She also shows that many of the influential feminists came from deeply broken homes only to then choose a lifestyle that left them empty, alone, and often regretful. They preached the values of a “progressive” system that directly ruined their personal lives. It broke down a lot of the notions I held, not because I actually knew anything about first wave feminism, but because I grew up in this modern culture where feminism is the holy standard.
Anyway, a good read if you have begun questioning if feminism is really all that it’s cracked up to be.
January 16, 2024
I tend to agree with the viewpoints and conclusions of the author, yet I didn't find her case to be a compelling one, perhaps because at times it felt like she focused on the most negative aspects and motives of the feminist movement. Her take on the first-wave feminists perhaps felt particularly harsh to me, with her synopsis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein seeming to miss the complexities of the book and the author.
To be fair though, I listened to this book, so I may have missed something in that process. I hope to reread sections when I access a print copy.
To be fair though, I listened to this book, so I may have missed something in that process. I hope to reread sections when I access a print copy.
May 13, 2025
An excellent book, equally fascinating and horrifying to watch the author unravel the threads of feminism and communism that have permeated and overtaken western thought and society so thoroughly. Would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to women beginning to try and understand what it means to be a woman.
March 5, 2025
This book is utterly FASCINATING and equally horrifying. It is a history lesson on the feminist movement that you will never learn in school. It would be hard to contend with much of what is purported in this book (at least the first 2/3 which is where the history lesson is contained) since she pulls primarily from primary source material.
The book is about 65% history lesson, with the last 35% of the book focusing more on thoughts, opinions and ways to move forward. I found it to be well researched, well organized, and for the most part, thoughtfully written.
The book is about 65% history lesson, with the last 35% of the book focusing more on thoughts, opinions and ways to move forward. I found it to be well researched, well organized, and for the most part, thoughtfully written.
September 4, 2023
Carefully documented, the book shows the surprisingly unfulfilled dream-world of the women (and men) who instigated the movement that would come to be known as feminism, the woundedness and dare I say deviance of the women who carried the torch into the second half of the twentieth century, their connection to Marxist ideology, and the wreckage playing out in the lives of girls, women and families in the present day. Don't dismiss this book - there is much to be learned here.
May 5, 2025
Literally the worst.
A very valid criticism of the feminist movement and how it has inadvertently done the opposite of what it aims to do exists, but this isn’t it.
I had heard great things about this book, but that was not my experience reading it. Read like a conspiracy theorist women hating preachy dumpster fire.
And why does everyone have Meghan Markle so much?! So weird to include that in this book… wish I could unread this.
A very valid criticism of the feminist movement and how it has inadvertently done the opposite of what it aims to do exists, but this isn’t it.
I had heard great things about this book, but that was not my experience reading it. Read like a conspiracy theorist women hating preachy dumpster fire.
And why does everyone have Meghan Markle so much?! So weird to include that in this book… wish I could unread this.
June 6, 2024
fascinating overview of feminism and the less than ideal effects we see today
February 26, 2025
Good book. Kind of an overview of the feminist movement along with a critique of where it has led us. I recommend it, though some chapters were a little long. Still very good
January 31, 2025
RTC
Probably
Probably
February 29, 2024
I have long admired the work of Carrie Gress. Her past book “The Anti-Mary Exposed” was truly eye opening and she hits the nail on the head yet again as she delves into the dark roots of the feminist movement and its devastating repercussions in this book.
I appreciate that Gress has structured this book within the context of an historical framework. This makes it easier to see the clear progression of feminist ideology. She begins with the extreme rationalism and anti-theism of Enlightenment philosophy (yes, the roots of this particular-ism run deep) from the likes of Rousseau and Robespierre which found their expression related to feminism in the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft to the modern faces of the movement like Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem. She also does a fantastic job of connecting the spread of feminist thought and ideals in conjunction with communism and the rise of spiritualism and occult practices.
I have two critiques. The first is that I wish the book was longer. This is a great starting point, but I found myself wanting to delve deeper into the historical and cultural contexts touched on in the first part of the book. Still it is a good, succinct jumping off point for exploring the damage that feminism has wrought on our culture. The second, Gress does use what comes across as an appeal to emotion several times throughout to support her position. While this can have its place, I think this book might resonate more with a secular audience if it relied on more studies, etc. The emotional appeal wasn’t a problem for me personally. I don’t need to be convinced too hard of the validity of her arguments as I share her views. However, I think a more secular audience might not find it as convincing.
I listened to the Audible version of this book which was well narrated, but given the number of people, events, and works mentioned, I will be purchasing a hard copy as soon as they come back in stock. I will definitely be revisiting this one.
I appreciate that Gress has structured this book within the context of an historical framework. This makes it easier to see the clear progression of feminist ideology. She begins with the extreme rationalism and anti-theism of Enlightenment philosophy (yes, the roots of this particular-ism run deep) from the likes of Rousseau and Robespierre which found their expression related to feminism in the writing of Mary Wollstonecraft to the modern faces of the movement like Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem. She also does a fantastic job of connecting the spread of feminist thought and ideals in conjunction with communism and the rise of spiritualism and occult practices.
I have two critiques. The first is that I wish the book was longer. This is a great starting point, but I found myself wanting to delve deeper into the historical and cultural contexts touched on in the first part of the book. Still it is a good, succinct jumping off point for exploring the damage that feminism has wrought on our culture. The second, Gress does use what comes across as an appeal to emotion several times throughout to support her position. While this can have its place, I think this book might resonate more with a secular audience if it relied on more studies, etc. The emotional appeal wasn’t a problem for me personally. I don’t need to be convinced too hard of the validity of her arguments as I share her views. However, I think a more secular audience might not find it as convincing.
I listened to the Audible version of this book which was well narrated, but given the number of people, events, and works mentioned, I will be purchasing a hard copy as soon as they come back in stock. I will definitely be revisiting this one.
June 9, 2025
Carrie Gress punched left so much that her arguments lacked credibility for me. I don't know feminist history, and I couldn't trust that the stories she presented were anything more than anecdotes about feminist leaders cherry-picked to smear the movement. The tone of the book felt very bitter.
It put me in mind of how Jesus rebukes people for pointing out the specks of dust in others' eyes, too foolish to see the logs in their own eyes. Gress complained about feminists circling the wagons, keeping what they think could damage the movement from the public eye. That's a problem. But Gress seemed to have the same tendency.
This quote infuriated me: by asking what is a woman, Matt Walsh has "done more for real women than most any woman has in the last fifty years." Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, Angela Merkel, or any woman who improved any other woman's life through medical advancements, peacemaking, vindicating rights, or even just making people laugh makes this elevation of Matt Walsh seem silly.
This book was my first inter-library loan and came all the way from Alabama. I read it for book club, and of course, the discussion was the best part.
It put me in mind of how Jesus rebukes people for pointing out the specks of dust in others' eyes, too foolish to see the logs in their own eyes. Gress complained about feminists circling the wagons, keeping what they think could damage the movement from the public eye. That's a problem. But Gress seemed to have the same tendency.
This quote infuriated me: by asking what is a woman, Matt Walsh has "done more for real women than most any woman has in the last fifty years." Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, Angela Merkel, or any woman who improved any other woman's life through medical advancements, peacemaking, vindicating rights, or even just making people laugh makes this elevation of Matt Walsh seem silly.
This book was my first inter-library loan and came all the way from Alabama. I read it for book club, and of course, the discussion was the best part.
January 28, 2024
3.5 stars. Gress is a philosopher and I wish she’d played more to her strengths and discussed in greater depth the metaphysics of what it is to BE a woman as opposed to how what we DO as women has gotten mangled. (Her last chapter got into this a bit and was the strongest part of the book in my opinion.)
December 23, 2024
An amazing read, especially for mothers who have daughters. It’s very well-researched filled with historical events I never knew about before but couldn’t help enjoy during my time reading this.
We need women. We need mothers. We are the antidote to the broken world. We can change the world by truly loving our family and coming home.
5.0 ⭐️ a must read in my eyes.
We need women. We need mothers. We are the antidote to the broken world. We can change the world by truly loving our family and coming home.
5.0 ⭐️ a must read in my eyes.
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