So I'm starting to read about Sandra Day O'Connor, her politics, and her role in recent U.S. history. And I find someone that some would call a proto-feminist, but I don't really see her that way. She falls loosely into that category of pioneers who paint themselves as (and probably are) rugged individuals with the strength and gumption to trump everything else they're up against in life. I'm all for individualism, the self, strength and all that, but at the same time, it just doesn't seem to me a very intellectually satisfying or humanly attractive philosophy. It's just another version of the rugged individualist myth, popularised by Reader's Digest and its ilk.