How Feminist Movement Drew Ideology From the Occult

The English Romantic poet Percy Shelley, who died in 1822 at age 29, played a significant role in developing the ideas of the feminist movement, author Carrie Gress says. Ideas of the “the occult, smashing the patriarchy, and free love” played a significant role in Shelley’s writing and ideology, says Gress, author of the new book “The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us.” Shelley was a “barbaric man” who was “involved in the occult,” Gress says. His wife was Mary Shelley, author of the 1818 novel “Frankenstein,” she notes, and Shelley drew on the ideas of her parents—a vision of a “women’s revolution where there’s no monogamy, there’s no marriage, all of these things are just erased, and people just live this bucolic life without any reference to their human nature.” Shelley’s ideology contributed to the modern feminist movement, a movement that has led to what Gress calls “The End of Woman.” Gress, also a fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the history of feminism and explain how the feminist movement has harmed women and left women unfulfilled.