Ronald Reagan was elected president in order to fix the country's economic woes resulting from the 1970's, and along with his conservative economics came conservative social ideas. The availability of abortion is a main factor in determining where the feminist movement stands in society. The access to a safe and legal abortion was a major freedom fought for by the feminist groups of the 1960's and early 1970's. By the 1980's, vocal anti-abortion groups had begun forming. Many housewives were involved who viewed abortion as a threat to their role in society, and to them it represented selfish individualism and the (unnatural) anti-nuturing female. Reagan appointed abortion opponents into office and federal judicial positions including the Supreme Court. The President also prevented abortion clinics from getting federal funding. In the 1980's, pro-choice groups formed to fight for the continued availability of abortions, but feminists now had to be careful about labeling abortion as a feminist issue. Conservative attitudes about abortion had infiltrated society enough to make a "litmus test" for abortion obsolete. Unlike previous times when a feminist was someone who was pro-choice, now someone could call themselves a feminist and be anti-abortion.

This reduction of influence earlier feminist groups had in the consciousness of society was reflected in popular media. Fatal Attraction provides a dichotomy of women, one good and one evil. This film portrays Alex, the single independent professional woman, as unappealing and disturbed. It is Beth, the domesticated housewife, who is the ideal female. She is the one who destroys Alex at the end of the film, and she is the one who retains her husband and her family. Honest decent women are at home like Beth. The working professional woman is out to destroy the sanctity of marriage and the family.

Therefore, the public's sympathy did not side with Alex, even though she had been deeply hurt by the male lead, Dan. She is viewed as the violent presence is his life, but Dan actually is the first to physically attack her twice before she ever attacks him. In the first instance, Dan violently grabs Alex by the throat and threatens to kill her if she tells his wife about the affair. The second attack was after Alex nonviolently kidnapped Dan and Beth's child Ellen from school in order to take her away to an amusement park for a couple of hours. Dan breaks into Alex's apartment and almost succeeds in choking her to death in revenge. Alex's first physical attack on Dan in which she approached him with a knife was only after his attempted murder of her. Still, Alex is seen as the violent threat to Dan's life. The director had written the movie so that Alex would "go after" the child twice by killing Ellen's pet rabbit and by luring her away from her school. This was done in order to manipulate the film's audience into disliking her character. If Alex had attacked Dan only, she still may have been viewed as a threat to the family in the conservative public climate. However, having her become a threat, however slight, to an innocent child guarantees that there will be no audience sympathy for her actions. The public was not supposed to sympathize with Alex's character and the inclusion of the wife and the child in Alex's harassment made sure of that. In the final confrontation of the movie which results in Alex's death, Alex attacks Dan's wife instead of him. This is another calculating factor that reduces sympathy for the career woman looking for love and family.

This desperation that Alex feels to have a family is another attack on feminism. The liberated career women of the 1980's was portrayed as unhappy with a biological clock she could not ignore. When Alex becomes pregnant in the film, she even notes her age and that this could be her last opportunity to have a child. She hints at having regret for putting off marriage and children in order to pursue her career. She is lonely and desperate for love. She does not appear to have any friends or a social life at all. One scene that emphasizes this idea is when Dan and his wife go out for a night of bowling with friends, and the happy companionship of two married couples is inter cut with the image of the single Alex sitting in solitude in her apartment listening to opera and turning a lamp on and off.