I swear by my life and my love for it, that I will never live for another man's sake, nor ask another man to live for mine. Citation missing... In the United States feminism is often wrapped up in two categories, right-wing and left-wing, which fall across a political spectrum. Most people associate feminism with left-wing movements, bra burning and man-hatred. For many the movement is collectivist and brings women together as a unit aiming for the benefit of the whole. Collectivism is a perspective that emphasizes the necessary interdependence among human beings. Subsequently, many consider feminism necessarily a collectivist movement. Individualist feminists, as the name seems to suggest, keep the focus on the individual and aim to hold individual progress in the highest regard. Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged challenges the idea that people must rely on each other to be productive members of society. As John Galt's mantra goes, people should also swear on their lives that they will not live their life for the sake of another person or allow another person to do so for themselves. Finding feminist elements within Rand confronts the individual with these notions. going on about mainstream feminism and eliminating the conventions that people typically attach to movements in general. Because of the variety of feminists existing in the present as well as those who have influenced movements in the past, and the generational differences between those who find themselves more inclined to ideas in separate waves, it's difficult to have that a-ha moment with Atlas Shrugged and suggests it as a motivating force for all feminists. To include Atlas Shrugged in our feminist canon we must break the conventional… middle of paper… standards and refuse to even join the Utopia of Gult's Gulch. If I were compiling a list for a women's studies course, I would definitely add the novel Atlas Shrugged to the pulpit and expose students to Rand's notions of individualism and use Dagny Taggert to emphasize the importance of individual fulfillment, which can be quite liberating. itself.Works CitedFeminist Thoughts on Free AgencyAuthor(s): Paul BensonSource: Hypatia, vol. 5, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 47-64Ayn Rand and feminism: an unlikely allianceMimi GladsteinPsyching out Ayn RandBarbara GrizzutiFeminist interpretations of Ayn Rand Mimi Gladstein"A response to the readers (on a female president)", The Objectivist, December 1968, 1 article “The Actuality of Ayn Rand” by Slavoj Žižek Berry Vackers Third Wave Aesthos (include it at the beginning of the article)