Ayn Rand's Gender

[Concerto of Atlantis]

My girlfriend and I were watching 'A sense of Life' last night after it arrived in the mail yesterday. And she suggested that perhaps Ayn Rand had not received wide-spread acceptance partly because she was female. Especially since she was advocating concepts that were traditionally thought to be quite masculine - i.e. rationality, capitalism, egoism, etc.

Now we're not sure if her gender played any part at all - but I was interested in hearing from people who are more familiar with the climate she and her ideas operated/operate in - especially those who were around when she was alive.

[AMERICONORMAN]

I'm confident that after a certain point in her life, perhaps after the success of the Fountainhead, her gender had little to do with her public reception. It is explicitly her ideas that "doomed" her and her opponents knew it. In philosophy she is the most masculine man in history!

Who can really stop a proud resolute woman!

My mother is nowhere near Miss Rand's level but even she has smashed wall after wall.

Put any man in a room alone, with a guard to defend individual rights, and imagine who will come out fragile, weak, and weeping and emotional, Rand or her opponent?

I suspect that most of Rand's defenders were men.

And imagine, if her gender was in an issue, how far Greenspan would not have gotten, the public knowing that he was one of her students?

But I was born in 1979, so I don't know how her personal political life was.

Thoughts,

Americo.

[WorthyLoverOfExistence]

My girlfriend and I were watching 'A sense of Life' last night after it arrived in the mail yesterday. And she suggested that perhaps Ayn Rand had not received wide-spread acceptance partly because she was female.

I think this is possible, but only indirectly. Her being a woman magnified the effort required to "lead the movement". Had she been a man, she would not have been psychologically tortured in the role of leader the way she must have been as a woman (see her article in the December 1968 issue of The Objectivist subtitled About Woman President). Had the movement had a different leader, it might have been more successful at spreading more sooner and thus have been more "wide-spread".

No one, however, can force anyone to choose Objectivism, and I can't imagine a more persuasive advocate than Rand. There may have been a larger number of people who had the choice earlier in history, but I don't think it would have made much difference in how widespread it is today. I think those who reject her ideas do so because of the ideas, not their originator. But things are what they are, and we can't rewrite history. (On this note - imagine the pain of her believing that she'd found such a leader - a man with leadership potential who truly accepted and understood Objectivism, hoping to be freed from the role, and then discovering that he was a fake.)

[Concerto of Atlantis]

I can't imagine a more persuasive advocate than Rand.

I couldn't agree more. Watching this documentary was the first time I've seen Ayn Rand speak, and wow, what a presence. What incredible clarity, confidence and charisma.