"I found it interesting and exciting because so many people in that department are active in that subject," Doyle said. "I didn’t consider myself a feminist — I was interested in politics and women’s issues because I am a woman. I go to a Jesuit university, which is very big on activism. Protests and rallies — it’s just the environment on campus to be involved in those things."

So when summer rolled around and Doyle landed a 10-week internship at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Organization for Women (NOW), she and her women’s studies professors were stoked.

Imagine the devastation Doyle’s professors must have felt when, just three weeks after beginning her internship with NOW, she quit. Abruptly.

"I quit for a lot of reasons," Doyle explained later. "The big things they push, no matter what they say in their newsletters and such, are abortion and homosexual rights. What they’re working for didn’t pertain to me, since I’m Catholic and heterosexual."

Doyle also had some big problems with the way the organization went about its business. The work she did for the political action committee — researching congressmen and potential Bush appointees — she described as "basically digging up dirt."

"The things (NOW) claims are typically false," Doyle said. "One of the things I was researching were voting records. They make a claim that all these Republican senators voted against allowing abortion in the military, which is not true. What the bill actually states is that the government is not responsible for paying for or providing abortion doctors for women in the military stationed in other countries. They said if you want one, you have to find the doctor and pay for it yourself."

Doyle stayed with NOW until she received a headquarters-wide memo telling members they should be protesting another feminist group, the Independent Women’s Forum, at a certain college campus.

"I went to my computer, looked them up, and realized I was working for the wrong organization," Doyle said. She promptly quit NOW — and spent the rest of the summer interning at IWF.

No Fresh Blood
If Doyle’s experience with NOW could be construed as typical, it would go a long way toward explaining the apparently growing disillusionment college women have with the term "feminism" in general and NOW in particular, as the movement's flagship organization.

According to a recent Gallup poll, only 25 percent of American woman call themselves feminists — down from 33 percent in 1992. While the numbers of women who do consider themselves feminists appeared evenly split between younger and older women, significantly more Democrats than Republicans identified with the term. Meanwhile, a Polling Co. survey reveals that 41 percent of women consider themselves conservative, 28 percent say they’re moderates and only 21 percent call themselves liberals.

"The issues that NOW stands for, they project as though that’s what all thinking and active women in America wake up with each morning, when in fact it’s quite the opposite," said IWF campus project manager Kate Kennedy.

"Women want to know how they can be stay-at-home moms and not become Barney junkies. They want to know how to get their employers to provide flex time for them. We happen to think that there is much more to what goes on in the lives of American women than just abortion and gay rights and this victimology attitude that seems to do more harm than good in connecting the two sexes to live in a peaceful coexistence."

That might explain the poor turnout former NOW president Patricia Ireland got when she toured 30 colleges in the wake of George W. Bush’s White House win to personally recruit students to attend an abortion-rights rally.

"Our PR person went to hear her speech at George Mason University, and she said there were about 25 people there," said Concerned Women for America spokeswoman Wendy Wright. "The rally they ended up holding was so poorly attended that they didn’t even do any media for it — no press conference, no press release. It was almost as if they were hiding from their own event."

While NOW’s overt group activities seem to be fading into obscurity — how much is hard to say, since the organization doesn’t advertise specific campus chapters on its Web page and its spokespeople don’t exactly trip over themselves to return calls from Boundless — its hardcore feminist ethos is thriving in more subtle venues: women’s studies departments.

Studying Women
Since the first such department was founded at San Diego State University in 1970, the movement has mushroomed to include more than 600 at colleges of all stripes today.

What goes on in a "women’s studies" department? That varies a bit from school to school, but according to the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute’s Lydia Percival Meuret, there are several common threads running through them all.

* Anti-intellectualism
Women’s studies departments tend to be infused with a touchy-feeliness that disputes the value of testing students to see how much they actually know. Lectures are eschewed in favor of "discussions"; proper knowledge is not held in as high regard as proper political perspective.

* Paganism
"While Judaism and Christianity are mentioned in many university’s Women’s Studies departments, rarely are they given the same respect granted to other beliefs," Meuret writes in her report, "The Slovenly Science: A Look at Women’s Studies." "Most of the religion classes in Women’s Studies seem to denigrate both Judaism and Christianity."

* Sexual orientation
Meuret examined several hundred women’s studies departments for her report; of those, only four didn’t list any classes in lesbian or gay studies, and most offered more than one. Here’s a gem: Wellesley College’s seminar called "History of Sexuality: Queer Theory," which "examines queerness in its various manifestations and practices, butch-femme, transgendering, cross-dressing, bi-sexuality and third gender."

* Family
"Whereas family was regarded as sacred in an earlier time, it is treated with hostility and contempt in current Women’s Studies," Meuret writes. "The majority of courses on family suggest that the ‘traditional family’ is somehow incomplete and should include such non-traditional liaisons as same-sex marriages in the definition."

So what does a degree in women’s studies do for graduates?

The short answer, according to experts, is this: It doesn’t really do much of anything.

"We called (some Women’s Studies departments) and asked them what their graduates do, and not one could give us an answer," said Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute spokeswoman Lisa De Pasquale. "Some of them said, ‘Well, they have to go out and get a master’s degree so they can get a job.’ That doesn’t sound liberating to me. And in most women’s studies departments, you won’t hear anything about conservative women in power. It’s more learning about lesbian readings and things that say women are all victims of patriarchy and there’s nothing they can do about it."

Research backs up that charge. A report from the Duke University Women’s Studies Department found that after majoring in women’s studies, most graduates are unable to tell the difference between the personal and the political. As a result, they take jobs with a political spin, such as using a law degree to fight sexism or working at an abortion clinic. Rather than giving the student a broad range of career choices, Meuret writes, Women’s Studies "limits vocational horizons and focuses the intellect sharply on ideological questions.

"One wonders if these proponents of Women’s Studies are actually ‘spies for the patriarchy,’ intending to keep women in their place by ensuring that they think only ‘women’s thoughts,’ and therefore withdraw from the ongoing dialogue about more important matters that continue to take place in society at large."

While that might work for the kinds of students who eventually become dues-paying members of NOW, it doesn’t work for women like Doyle.

"I’m no longer a women’s studies major," she said shortly before returning for her junior year at St. Louis University.

"If I can find a way to help other girls who are in women’s studies classes who are tricked like I was, I’ll definitely do it."