Free Woman by Richard Matheson

Ganine was motionless, pushed back against the chair cushion, staring
at Charlie.
     
         On her face, a look of
abject terror.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    FRIDAY
     
     
     
     
     
    StationKBNY. Doctor David Harper: Candidly Speaking. How can I help you?
     
         Doctor, you said that
woman's lib is failing. I'd like to know what you see as a result of this.
     
         I haven't any simple answer
for that, I'm afraid. In nineteen sixty-eight, however— sixty-eight, mind you—in the American
Journal of Psychotherapy, Doctor Natalie Shainess wrote that women are losing
contact with their inner selves and, as a consequence of this, becoming
increasingly alienated from meaningful life. Unhappily, this alienation
persists today. More than persists, grows more extreme each year.
     
         Expressing itself in what
way, Doctor?
     
         For one thing, women seem to
be putting sex out of theirminds or turning to other women for it.
     
         That startles me, Doctor. Is
that, statistically, correct?
     
         It is. And this widespread
increase of bisexuality and lesbianism could be the forefront of a coming
insurgence, women turning away from men in every way, tired of living on men's
terms. Simply stated, women are sick and tired of being what men want them to
be. They want to be what they want to be.
     
         You worry me, Doctor. Are
there any other signs of this insurgence?
     
         Yes, there are. Women seem
to be turning their backs on life itself as dictated by men. Each year, more
than fifty million abortions are performed in the world. This is more than mere
disenchantment.
     
         I feel defensive now. Are
women to blame for this?
     
         Not at all. They have every
right to resent the fact that, in order to achieve parity in the world, they've
been forced to distort their basic nature, becoming some sort of in-between sex
that suffers male afflictions—high blood pressure, ulcers, nervous breakdowns,
heart attacks—but rarely enjoys male advantages. To quote Esther Harding; by
organizing and conventionalizing herself, a woman has cut herself off from the
springs of life which lie in the depths of her being.
     
         Is that what you think is happening to women?
     
         Candidly speaking, yes. I
think too many women are losing direction by ignoring their inner rhythms and
trying to match the inner rhythms of men. What can possibly be worse than being
dominated by men? Answer: Being dominated by the essence of maleness.
     
         Are men and women really
that much different, Doctor?
     
         I believe they are. To
women, life is cyclic, a force that ebbs and flows in her, not only in daily
rhythms but in monthly ones as well. In the course of one lunar cycle, a
woman's energy waxes, shines, then wanes. These changes affect not only her
physical and sexual life, but her psychic life as well; Esther Harding again.
     
         So what can women do to
regain their. . .inner rhythms, as you call them?
     
         Frankly, I don't know. The
trouble is that, now-a-days, women seem disinclined to look into their own
fundamental natures. They erect a barrier of will between their outward and
inner selves. And it's this inner self—whatever you choose to call it—that's
been 'turned sour', if you will, by eons of mistreatment and misunderstanding.
     
         Do men have any idea that
all this is going on?
     
         Some think they do. It's
primarily intellectualized, though. Little emotional intuition involved. That's
why, to the greater majority of men, women are bewildering and vexing
creatures, beyond their comprehension. And, yet, they're so much more.
Cavendish in Man, Myth and Magic describes them as—quote—in touch with reality through a secret
sympathy with the heart of things—unquote.
     
         Can these differences ever
be reconciled, Doctor?
     
         They have to be. Men and women