ABSTRACT
The feminine voice is one of the most important voices that is missing in most Western accounts of culture, and feminism constitutes one of the most significant anti-Enlightenment narratives found in postmodernist discourse. Feminism's roots are typically distorted as having originated with the liberal and Enlightenment traditions, with little discussion of the Romantic tradition. J. J. Bachofen championed empathy and the heart over rational deliberation and the mind, a cause that is typical of Romantic philosophers from Schopenhauer to Nietzsche. The feminist movement has not embraced the large-scale revival of Goddess worship, and Bachofen's legacy for the 1990s is ambiguous at best. One of the most interesting refractions of Bachofen is found in the work of the American novelist and historian, Henry Adams. In "The Dynamo and the Virgin," Henry Adams used the Great Exposition of 1900 to suggest that modernity is symbolized by the power of the dynamo, whereas medieval European culture derived its "power" from the Virgin.
