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When radical feminism erupted in the United States, the prevailing view in Europe was one of bemused puzzlement. Up until then, most Europeans had thought of the United States as a matriarchy. When I first arrived in America, I took this view for granted, but after several years I realized that it was one of the many myths that have been exported about God’s own country. American men, it is true, are more chivalrous toward women than Continental European men, but American men, it is also true, take women less seriously in human terms.

This is probably a result of America’s Northern European heritage. Johanna Schopenhauer, mother of the famous philosopher and herself a bestselling author, visited the British Isles in 1806-07; if you read her memoirs you will find a clever woman’s reaction to the position of English and Scottish women at that time.

EK

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Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

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When radical feminism erupted in the United States, the prevailing view in Europe was one of bemused puzzlement. Up until then, most Europeans had thought of the United States as a matriarchy. When I first arrived in America, I took this view for granted, but after several years I realized that it was one of the many myths that have been exported about God’s own country. American men, it is true, are more chivalrous toward women than Continental European men, but American men, it is also true, take women less seriously in human terms.

This is probably a result of America’s Northern European heritage. Johanna Schopenhauer, mother of the famous philosopher and herself a bestselling author, visited the British Isles in 1806-07; if you read her memoirs you will find a clever woman’s reaction to the position of English and Scottish women at that time.