Literature, reflecting deep-seated prejudices in the culture, has misleadingly made women out to be passive and dependent.
Feminists claim that their work goes largely ignored on account of what they call gender politics on the part of men, but they underestimate the degree to which they themselves discourage serious discussion when they claim they possess an order of understanding not available to make intelligence. Feminist response has a tendency to naturalize women's victimization by making it the inevitable and obsessive topic of discussion, thus denigrating women in addition to failing to elevate their image, as was originally intended. In a field where women's excellence is incontestable, feminist literary critics have ended up fostering an image of women at least as insulting as any they set out to protest.