Yet, Dominique forces herself into misery because of her connection to Roark, living as Mrs. Peter Keating for many years. Again, Rand subordinates women to men and, in doing so, implies that women are given their sense of self by the men with whom they are affiliated. In her most blatant denial of self to women, Rand makes explicit her view of women as creatures without ego during the sex scene between Dominique and her second husband, newspaper editor Gail Wynand. In this scene, Dominque is, out of fidelity to Roark, resolved not to enjoy the sexual act. However, even the self that has been imparted to Dominique is, here, compromised, as Dominique does experience pleasure: “She thought that [her “answer of hunger, of acceptance, of pleasure”] was not a matter of desire, not even a matter of the sexual act, but only that the man was the life force and woman could respond to nothing else” (3). With this scene, Rand furthers her refusal of self to women, arguing that women are not even bound to a particular man who embodies the self that they desire to possess. Instead, women are objects that exist merely to respond to men, without the agency to decide whether or not they wish to do so. Sex, the act that Rand portrays as defining a woman's life insofar as it joins her to the man who supplies her sense of self, and the enjoyment derived from the act are involuntary for women. Thus, women’s lives are dictated entirely by their sexual partners, in that their sexual partners perform the necessary function of completing women's egos and do so regardless of whatever degree of will a woman might possess. Rand deprives women of not only innate but assumed self. Throughout The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand argues that women are selfless dependents of men by having her representative woman character, Dominique Francon, rely upon a man, Howard Roark, to provide her with an ego. Dominique’s actions throughout the next section of the book, particularly her marrying Peter Keating, are dictated by the sense of self Dominique has received from Roark. However, Rand then denies Dominique even this ego that has been forced upon her by having her succumb to the will of a third man, Gail Wynand. Through these interactions of Dominique's, Rand outlines her belief that women are lesser than men because they are incomplete without them, leaving women unable to achieve the ideal of pure egoism that Rand propounds. ZEITGEIST VOL. 2, NO. 1 PAGE 20 Ayn Rand Image owner: Leonard Peikoff, credit :Ayn Rand Archives
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