One might have reasonably hoped that we had heard the last from that ancient anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly.
Alas, no.
Now 90, the woman credited with turning back the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is still pontificating about the evils of the women's movement.
Her most recent salvo, published on the conservative World Net Daily last week: There would be fewer campus rapes if there were fewer women in college.
She wrote that efforts to stop sexual violence on campus are part of feminism's man-hating narrative, and in any case it would be solved if there were not so many women competing for so few men in ways that require the women to debase themselves.
She based her argument on American Council of Education data showing that women have averaged 57 percent of all college enrollment since 2000 and women earned nearly 60 percent of all degrees in 2010.
She advocated for a strict 50/50, male/female split in admissions and — insulting men while she was at it — argued that colleges should reinstate all the men's sports eliminated as a result of Title IX so the guys would have a reason to go to college.
She also suggested in her essay that the elimination of student loans would require students to work their way through college –—as she did at a World War II munitions plant — and there would be less time for parties and the opportunities for sin that they present.
Ms. Schlafly has been the gold standard for hypocrisy and magical thinking since she launched her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 by declaring that it would require unisex bathrooms, eliminate a father's obligation to support his children and require women to register for the draft and serve in combat zones.
She said women should remain at home to care for their young children, though this mother of six earned a masters degree and a law degree, ran for Congress, managed a political campaign and launched a career as the god-mother of religious conservatism — all while her children were still home.
That sure looks like a working mother to me, but she has said that it was all just a "hobby." Besides, she said, she had her husband's permission.
The president of the National Organization for Women once said that if she had a daughter, she'd want her to be a "housewife" in the Schlafly mold. But feminist Betty Friedan said that she'd like to burn her at the stake. (Ms. Schlafly has also written that there can be no rape in marriage because by saying "I do," a woman consents to sex, presumably in all its variations.)
Ms. Schlafly first emerged when she self-published a book in 1964 titled, "A Choice Not an Echo," which immediately sold 3 million copies and launched the presidential nomination of Barry Goldwater. Her grass-roots theories wrested control of the Republican Party from the Rockefellers and the East Coast elites for the firebrand Arizona senator.
She used those grass-roots skills to single-handedly defeat the ERA, which polls showed had the support of a majority of the American people. Her campaigning and her testimony in state legislatures all over the country resulted in its rejection by 15 states. Five other states rescinded their ratification, and the amendment failed by three states.
She has also said as recently as December that "it is really dangerous for a guy to go to college these days." Once there, she said, he should avoid contact with women students.
"The feminists are perfectly glad to make false accusations then claim all men are capable of some dastardly deed like rape."
It has been more than 40 years since the introduction of the ERA, and women seem to be fighting many of the same battles: equal pay, equal opportunity, the availability of affordable quality child care and an end to sexual violence.
But I didn't think we had to make the case that allowing women to go to college does not cause rape.
Susan Reimer's column appears on Mondays and Thursdays. She can be reached at sreimer@baltsun.com and @SusanReimer on Twitter.com.