Failed Feminism: How Jane Erred and an Anthem Died

I realize this post is a bit far from the usual, but I also know that I enjoy reflecting upon my readings sometimes.  
As a caution, I want to be sure to explain that I'm not unfairly applying the lens of a different time, these ideas were common enough stirrings at the time of the authors, and even before.  
Think Elizabeth Cady Stanton, etc.


Some months ago, I read Anthem by Ayn Rand, and I couldn't shake the feeling that Rand essentially missed the point of her own novel, and a more than suitable platform to express the sentiments of individualism in regards to her gender.  Although the individual is to be exalted over the collective, each person's identity derived through its personal expression, the most important female character in the novel mindlessly follows another: a man.  
How would a Russian woman writing at the beginning of the 20th century pass on this opportunity to critique the status of women in contemporary society?  
I've heard the argument that if individualism is truly cultivated in its purest sense, no one need worry about the gender of the person.  This seems rather after-the-fact because this concept isn't expressed well anywhere in the novel, and has to be searched for to allow modern supporters of Rand's ideology to better justify their beliefs.
She, "The Golden One" or Gaea, as she is named by her male partner, then perpetuates her submission through motherhood and the all-intensive grooming of the new generation of what seems to be some kind of uberman.  Emphasis on man because woman has now become a birthing machine to help populate the planet with the enlightened ones.
Maybe Rand wanted so badly to be rid of the collective ideals of her society that she chose to ignore the congealing feminist movement.  In that case, she was siding with the men's collective.  Great.


Jane Eyre is another book that I've read and felt the urge to comment on.  I guess my commentary is more of a dialogue of questions than anything.  
Why does Jane only find happiness once married?  Why must she be attached to a husband and children to be fulfilled?  Which is such an other wises strong nature dominated by her creep of a cousin?  Why is it that she's only equal to Mr. Rochester once he's blind and left without one of his arms?  Are women really so limited as to be essentially "half of a man"?  How is her peace only found once Mr. Rochester is almost entirely dependent upon her?  Is there no such thing as mutualism?  Can exchanges between genders not take place fairly between two "intact" individuals?  Again, anticipating that some people would say it's more of a commentary on social class than gender, I'm compelled to ask why?  If it's part of the heroine semi-genre so popular at this time, why would the female author, herself and talented sister, from a background in which they were limited due to their gender, ignore the obvious chance to address gender equality through her title character in the same imprisoning predicament?  Couldn't she as easily turn the same microscopic eye with which she addressed English social stations to the relations between men and women?


More recently, I must say I was let down by the ending to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar because it seemed to undo everything the novel had stood for.  Although its to some degree a chronicle of a life falling apart, its told in retrospect by a wiser woman who has found herself and stitched everything back together--only to conform.  Plath's alter ego essentially ran from male domination into the arms of a husband who subdued her individuality by making her the mother she never wished to be.


Maybe I'm too hard to please, but one of the only female authors who seems to suit my feminist ideals seems to be Toni Morrison.  In Beloved and The Bluest Eye, deep psychological portraits of families led by women in deplorable conditions are painted.  The characters try to extricate themselves from societal injustices and internal conflicts.  Although these women are almost always oppressed, they're never pitiable.  You understand their circumstances and enjoy watching them strive for more, confident that they'll succeed.


Authors everywhere: give us real women.  Real women of the society in which we live, who won't let us down.