Ayn Rand and Women
In a discussion of Ayn Rand’s view on women, it is first important to note the primary time period of her most notable works of fiction – the late 1930’s to the the late 1950’s (Anthem: 1938, The Fountainhead: 1943, Atlas Shrugged: 1957), when American women were only just beginning to trickle into industry as a result of the 19th Amendment (1920) and the World Wars (beginning in 1914 and 1939, respectively) and the glass ceiling was an omnipresent reality. While Rand continued to publish philosophy into the early 1970’s, her fictional writings (for the purpose of this essay, primarily Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead), by creating variations on a single theme of dystopia, better portray her view of woman’s role in society.
First, distinctions between the two women:
Dagny Taggert (Atlas Shrugged) is the Vice-President of Taggert Railroads, despite the handicapping factor of her femininity. She has earned her position, unlike her nepotistic brother, James, Taggert Railroads’ President. She prefers suit-pants and wears dresses only occasionally. She smokes. She loves only successful men. She builds things only to have society destroy them.
She fights faltering industry, searching for competent workers. She wants to make the world work, wants to make it better, regardless of how hard it lashes back at her.
She wants to make her railroad work. Because it’s hers.
She works against Galt because she wants to have faith in people. And because she doesn’t want to let go of her own property.
Dominique Francon (The Fountainhead) is the wealthy heir of an architect. She loathes society: It repeats, it copies, it steals. She writes a column about architecture in a Wynard paper, for the general public, as all Wynard articles are. She despises the masses, but she chooses to prod fun at them by participating in the system.
She doesn’t make full use of any of her talents. She destroys beautiful things to avoid letting society destroy them. She tries to defeat Roark because he is beautiful, and she believes she has to beat society to the punch.
Dominique sees through society, knows masses are motivated by ignorance and laziness, are easily led. And so she mocks. But Dagny sees the problems without understanding the motivations. She is a doer and not a sardonic watcher-on. So she tries to fix. Desperately.
Dominique must learn to accept mankind’s foolishness without living in fear of it. To live within society and try to achieve, regardless of the world. Dagny must learn to turn her back on the world and her achievements, until mankind is ready to accept them.
Understanding Rand’s point of reference, her major female characters are prodigious – born into wealth and success, but possessed of the will and nerve to maintain reputations free of stereotype. Indeed, in terms of occupation and behavior, Rand’s women are deliberately more masculine than feminine. This woman-as-man character is feminine only when she chooses and primarily in terms of sexuality (Dagny and Dominique) or as a means by which to gain unsavory respect and favors (Dominique). This is both progressive for the era, by suggesting that women both can achieve great goals and deserve the chance to do so, and regressive – it only sees women as successful if they are successful in the same ways as men and never as the ultimate establishers of revolution and progress.
In each book, the male alone, the perfect male (the one I firmly believe Rand would have been attracted to, were he alive), succeeds in fully changing society: rising above all expectations and pre-concieved patterns through his own individuality and self-confidence or by founding a private utopia to restore vitality and innovation to the world. He begins with incorruptible ideals and even she, his counter-part, must learn from him: to abandon society’s opinions and ignorance or it’s slovenly greed nestled behind altruism. He studies hard math or science (Roark – Civil Engineering; Galt – Physics and Philosophy); he is physically fit, tall, sharp-boned and striking. Galt at least, with his blond hair and blue eyes, could be Russian in physiognomy, by description. (Though not so, Howard Roark, whose most outstanding physical characteristic is his redheaded-ness.)
In Atlas Shrugged, in particular, Dagny overpowers men in almost every field. Except for that of sexuality. Here, she is submissive almost to a fault, seeking only to be used for the male protagonist’s pleasure. Even when Hank Rearden believes his desires towards her degrade her, she wishes only to be “degraded”. In Dominique’s case, she even wishes to be “raped” in order to feel more completely owned by Roark. This, perhaps, is Rand’s way of showing that sex is not disgraceful, that a woman may succeed within her career but still have womanly instincts. But must womanly instincts be also submissive instincts?
As both Dagny and Dominique feel similarly about sex, one can only assume that Rand herself was looking for a “perfect” man to be dominated by.
Something else worthy of note: in her two primary novels, both Roark and Galt face true competitors for their positions as prime-lovers. Roark by Wynard, the empire-savant, and Galt by both Francisco d’Anconia, Dagny’s adolescent lover, and Hank Rearden, the inventor of Rearden Steel. And yet, overall, neither had even the possibility of being displaced, for both have such charming self-possession, intelligence, work-ethic and natural confidence that they are glorified almost to the immortal. Both women do have real emotional attachment towards the other men, but neither allow this to overtake their affection for Galt or Roark. And in both stories, he knows it, flaunts it, doesn’t let her forget that she can’t live without him.
(An interesting exception here is Peter, whom Dominique never loves, never tries to love, and who, while successful, is never so in his own right. He is “competition” for Roark only in the sense that time Miss Francon spends with him, even in marriage, is time Roark doesn’t have. Which is precisely as Dominique intends it.)
Besides these few competitors, both women are essentially chaste. Dominique, for all her icy beauty is a virgin until her encounter with Roark. Dagny has been with both d’Anconia and Rearden before John Galt but staunchly avoided anyone between these far interspersed relationships. From this, we can gather that Rand doesn’t want her characters labeled whores, but rather seeks to prove that women too can have multiple partners.
It’s difficult to determine whether Rand was a true believer in women’s equality, or only an ardent feminist in terms of social, rather than sexual, gender relations. Furthermore, must the two be different? Could supporting social equality be all that is required of feminists, while sexual preferences are left as an altogether separate issue?