Free Republic

Katy Perry recently joined Taylor Swift, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and French former first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in the ranks of prominent women who declined to identify themselves as feminists when prompted by reporters. Internet responses to this trend ranged from outrage over their false consciousness to snarky derision of their stupidity to concerned introspection about the failures of feminist branding. Another possibility that should be considered is that feminism seems largely irrelevant to an increasing number of Western women because it often appears to be at odds with their experience of reality and their desires. Bruni-Sarkozy explained, “I’m not...

The end of the airman's pin-up: U.S. Air Force orders pictures of naked women to be taken down after sexual assaults soar All active, reserve and Air National Guard units have 10 days to complete the sweep for offensive images Air Force believes pin-ups are contributing to a rise in sexual assaults Over 700 cases of sexual assault were reported in 2012, 100 more than 2011 By Helen Pow PUBLISHED: 09:43 EST, 7 December 2012 Pictures and calendars featuring half-naked women will be stripped from U.S. Air Force work spaces and public areas under a widespread inspection to stamp out...

American media are excitedly reporting that women are smarter than men, according to IQ tests. Not equal to men, supposedly the goal of feminism, but superior to men. That is quite a jump, all in a matter of decades. How could such a thing happen? After all, biology tells us that genes tend to be stable over generations. An ABC News blog reported: “James Flynn, a New Zealand-based researcher known as an IQ testing expert, said...that women have closed the gap and even inched ahead in this battle of the intelligent sexes...Deciding which is the smarter sex is an ever-controversial...

CRANSTON, R.I.—School officials in the Rhode Island city of Cranston have ended their traditional father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames, saying the activities are a violation of state gender discrimination law. School Superintendent Judith Lundsten tells the Providence Journal ( http://bit.ly/Pv6SzE) the move came in response to a complaint from a single mother, who brought her case to the American Civil Liberties Union after her daughter wasn't allowed to attend a father-daughter dance. Lundsten says school attorneys found while federal gender discrimination laws exempt such events, Rhode Island's law does not.

What's most interesting about the Fluke comment, though, is that it points to a central cultural contradiction of feminism. Libertarian feminists sometimes argue that left-wing ones aren't "true feminists" because they want women to be dependent, albeit on government rather than on men. But feminism is about sexual equality or female supremacy, not freedom or independence. As long as the government isn't masculine in character ("patriarchal"), its size and scope are irrelevant to feminism. When one considers the specific context of Fluke's above-quoted comment, however, it turns out to be as patriarchal a conception of government as one can imagine....

FULL TITLE: 11-year-old Zoe Griffin tells the story of how pro-abortion women attacked her as she was praying outside Democratic National Convention. I want you to meet my friend and fellow abortion abolitionist, 11-year-old Zoe Griffin. In a world when grown adults ignore, deny or just don’t care about the abortion holocaust that has claimed over 55 Million of Zoe’s generation, she is willing to take a stand no matter what people think. Zoe joined her mother and friends to lay thousands of roses outside the site of the democratic convention and pray for the babies, the politicians and this...

The EU commissioner for justice and home affairs, Viviane Reding, will table a proposal in October or November that would fine or sanction state-owned companies whose supervisory boards are composed of less than 40 percent of women by 2020. The draft legislative proposal—seen by the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times—aims to tackle persistent gender imbalances across the EU. … Women currently occupy less than 14 percent of board positions in top publicly-listed companies, according to EU data published in January. In 2010, it was 11.8 percent. …

2012 Republican Convention: Protesters Dressed as Vaginas Greet Delegates (Video) 10:48 AM PDT 8/27/2012 by Paul BondPro-choice protesters accost delegates at the Republican National Convention as they arrive to party with country star Rodney Atkins. TAMPA, Fla. -- Giant, walking vaginas have descended upon the Republican National Convention. Several demonstrators from the feminist group Code Pink wore frilly pink costumes while others adorned with cardboard cutouts resembling the sexual organ were milling about Sunday looking for Republicans. [...]A Florida website called Shark-Tank.net captured video of some of them during their preparation (video below). The protesters carried signs saying such things...

Although the ad got a lot of playtime on MSNBC Friday, a recent so-called “Republican women for Obama” video advertisement has turned out to be a disingenuous campaign ploy. That ad, posted on the official Barack Obama campaign YouTube page on Friday, claimed to show a group of women that had previously voted Republican but later abandoned the party because they felt it went too far to the right, leaving them no alternative but to vote for President Barack Obama this November. The problem is, so far two of these women have been shown to be Democrats who had previously...

The radical anti-American Code Pink group is encouraging their members to send snapshots of their vaginas to the RNC Convention in Tampa, Florida. LifeNews reported: Taking the silly “War on Women” rhetoric to another disgusting level, the pro-abortion feminists at CodePink have come up with a new campaign: Send your vaginas to the Republican convention. Upset that Republicans and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney support religious freedom for groups opposing the Obama HHS mandate and wants to end taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business, CodePink thinks it has a great idea on how to respond. The “women’s group”...

Some advice to the folks at Marylou’s coffee chain, now under investigation by the EEOC, on how to fight back: Start laughing. Back during the Clinton years the EEOC went after Hooters for its alleged hiring bias (we all remember how hard Bill Clinton was on women... uh, let me re-phrase that). Hooters refused to hire men to wear the infamous “orange short-shorts and white tank-top” ensemble. The EEOC spent four years pressuring them to hire male waiters, which would have ruined the Hooters concept. Hooters tried reasoning and logic. As one would expect when dealing with bureaucrats, they failed...

Yesterday I attended a meeting of pro-choice colleagues working to ensure women throughout this country get safe, compassionate abortion care. Today, I received an email from one of those colleagues, detailing the ordeal through which she was put by American Airlines on her flights home. They actually forced her to miss her connecting flight and demanded she change her top. The reason? Her politically salient pro-choice t-shirt was offensive to the flight crew. That sign said: "If I wanted the government in my womb, I'd f*** a senator." ...

The feminist bullies are at it again. Nearly two months after Rush Limbaugh apologized for terming professional activist Sandra Fluke a “slut” after Fluke appeared before Congress and demanded that a Catholic organization pay for her birth control, the National Organization for Women have launched their “Enough Rush” campaign. Terry O’Neill, president of NOW, told The Daily Caller, “He is going to be whining and calling us out about his First Amendment rights. There is nothing in the Constitution that says Rush Limbaugh gets $38 million a year for being on a radio show.” There is also nothing in the...

NOW Launches "Enough Rush" Campaign Directed at Local Advertisers, Radio Stations April 19, 2012 Today, the National Organization for Women is launching the "Enough Rush" campaign, which aims to deliver the powerful message to Rush Limbaugh and his apologists that bullying is no longer profitable. Since Limbaugh's three-day attack on law student Sandra Fluke, scores of advertisers have left the show and two radio stations have dropped Limbaugh's show. Now, through the "Enough Rush" campaign, grassroots activists across the U.S. will reach out to local businesses that continue to advertise on The Rush Limbaugh Show and local radio stations that...

``STUDENTS, faculty and guests of Wellesley College, welcome. As you know, Barbara Bush was supposed to be our commencement speaker. But at the last minute, she was asked to baby-sit for some of her grandchildren. Because she considers that to be a more fulfilling task, she has asked to be excused. ``In her absence, we have invited Chicago columnist Mike Royko to address you. Unlike Mrs. Bush, Mr. Royko has never been a housewife or mother. And he has a working career. So except for not being a female person, he fulfills the requirements of the 150 student feminists who...

Facebook, the most popular social networking site in America, is under fire from women’s groups because its board of directors consists entirely of white men. With the company about to go public in May, advocates are beginning to pressure the company to diversify its leadership. On Thursday the women’s rights group Ultraviolet began circulating a petition calling on Facebook to appoint female board members. According to the group, the lack of women is “nothing short of shameful.” “Facebook owes it success and makes a ton of money off of its women users. Women are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We're gonna start Columbia, South Carolina. Naomi, a southern Christian woman who's looked down upon by Washington Democrat women. It's great to have you on the program. CALLER: Thanks, Rush. When I heard those clips that you played I was absolutely furious. I am a white working woman. I am not a racist and I'm not stupid. Those women are doing so much to put us back decades by letting us being victimized, thinking that we can't control our own bodies and we have to have someone else pay for our birth control, that I can't see...

[...] These are just a few samples from the arsenal of degrading language Limbaugh deploys on women, people of color, lesbians and gays, immigrants, the disabled, the elderly, Muslims, Jews, veterans, environmentalists and so forth. Limbaugh doesn't just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames -- and the bigger the lie the more effective -- inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, "femi-nazi," doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore, an example of how rhetoric spreads when unchallenged by...

LifeNews Note: Reprinted with permission from Ethika Politika, the blog of the Center for Morality in Public Life.Remember the Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, who was forced to suffer through $3,000-worth of protected sex during her stint at law school? Turns out, thereÂ’s a bit more to the story.According to some sources, Fluke might just have been a well-placed fake. Not exactly the young-and-helpless female law student most took her for, FlukeÂ’s LinkedIn profile speaks for itself:With a six year hiatus between her undergraduate time and GT Law, Fluke is probably closer to 30. And sheÂ’s had plenty of involvement...

The Georgetown University law student labeled a "slut" by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh says his apology changes nothing and that Americans have to decide whether to support companies that continue to advertise on his program. "I don't think that a statement like this issued, saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything, and especially when that statement is issued when he's under significant pressure from his sponsors who have begun to pull their support," Sandra Fluke told ABC’s "The View” on Monday. The 30-year-old Fluke said she hasn't heard from Limbaugh since he issued a...