The ideological roots of feminism are at least 200 years old, but somehow, as a movement, it has been able to rebrand itself anew every few generations to maintain relevance.
The essentials to the feminist movement – free love, the occult, and smashing the patriarchy – were first brought together as the “women’s revolution” by poet Percy Shelley. I discovered this when researching my forthcoming book, “The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us” (Regnery, August 2023). Inspired by the mother-in-law he never met, Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley took her ideas and added them to his own version of what female freedom should look like. While his wife was writing “Frankenstein,” Shelley created his own creature: the character of Cythna, who was the first independent woman, disconnected from her parents, husband, and children. Curiously, the only relationship she had was with Satan. Cythna became a beacon for budding feminists in the 1800s and beyond.
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