FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN OF N.E.W.
Posted on 09/10/2005 7:57:49 PM PDT by Lorianne
It has far fewer campus chapters than NOW, but a fledgling group called NeW is mounting a cultural challenge to the National Organization for Women and joining a growing attack on the progressive culture of U.S. universities. ___ WASHINGTON, D.C. (WOMENSENEWS)--"Out with the NOW, in with the NeW!"
That is the motto of the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW), a fledgling college group in Virginia that wants to change the campus culture of feminism and challenge the agenda of groups such as the National Organization for Women, which has more than 100 official and unofficial campus chapters in the nation.
Staking out turf for more traditionally minded women, members of the startup--who number between 20 and 30--have not formulated a collective issue agenda but do consider themselves social conservatives. As such, they tend to oppose policies backed by their feminist peers who campaign for women in military combat roles, pay equity between men and women and ending gender discrimination in the workplace.
The founder and president of the group, Karin Agness, a senior at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, is a history major and aspiring lawyer. She hopes to influence the agenda of the campus women's studies department, which she says ignores conservative women and their views in the syllabi and in class discussions. She also aims to get women who hold conservative views on personal and political issues more press in school publications, which she says are often overlooked.
The result of the virtual invisibility of conservative women on campus, she and others argue, is the perpetuation of harmful gender-based myths, such as the assumption that women can only find success in the workplace--and not in the home--and that the traditional family headed by a heterosexual couple is "dead."
They say a liberal orthodoxy in women's studies classes unfairly paints men as evil and society as an oppressive patriarchy and ignores differences between the sexes.
"In the women's studies department, they're not focusing at all on children," Agness said. "Simply put, they say all women should be CEOs and presidents and lawyers and doctors. But they don't include anything about children and husbands . . . They're not talking about how to balance work and family."
Agness hopes the group will serve as a sanctuary from college Republican and other conservative clubs, which she says tend to be male-dominated, career-oriented and not focused on issues of concern to women.
First Chapter at University of Virginia After spending the summer of 2004 as an intern on Capitol Hill, Agness began to search for a group that would address her interests as a traditionally minded woman. When she didn't find one, she started up her own. It's structured as an informal book club that features works about conservative women and hosts speakers. Members had their first meeting last year and met regularly while school was in session. The group has had two meetings this year.
"Now, fortunately we've got a conservative women's club," said Phyllis Schlafly, head of the right-wing Eagle Forum, based in Alton, Ill., and an outspoken critic of women's studies programs. "Of course they're not for women at all," she said, referring to the programs. "They're just for their own intolerant, radical feminist and usually lesbian beliefs."
Following Agness' lead, women at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and Drake University in Iowa have started up their own NeW chapters. Agness says she is working with other women to help them inaugurate more chapters on campuses this fall.
Despite its name, NeW's mission is not new. It aligns itself with organizations such as the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, the Independent Women's Forum and Concerned Women for America, all of which are organizations in and around Washington, D.C., that have tried to reach out to college-aged women for years.
What is novel, however, is that it appears to be run for and by college-age women.
Supporters say the group is the natural outgrowth of an emboldened religious right that now exerts strong influence over the White House, both chambers of Congress and is further energized by conservative radio and television news programs that have mushroomed over the past decade.
"I think there is a new openness and a new conversation about having groups represent different women, since clearly those old-guard groups don't represent all women," said Carrie Lukas of the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Women's Forum. "The National Organization for Women doesn't speak for most women."
Attack on Progressive Culture Critics depict the group as the latest attack on progressive culture in the United States. First came welfare, they say, then came media and now the target is academia.
"How much can they continue to go after the welfare state and the liberal media when it's kind of obvious to most Americans that they dismantled the welfare state and there is no liberal media?" said Esther Kaplan, author of "With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House."
Martha Burk, chair of the Washington, D.C.-based National Council of Women's Organizations, agreed. "Conservatives have been taking on women's studies departments ever since women's studies departments existed. It's part of larger strategy by conservative forces in society to legitimize their own point of view."
While NeW is still quite small, some say it could grow fast.
Katie Blouse, the 20-year-old president of the NOW chapter at Rutgers University, said she doesn't think it would be "too much of a jump" for a group like NeW to start a chapter even on her strongly liberal campus in New Jersey.
Suzannah Porter, the 28-year-old president of NOW New Jersey, agreed that right-wing campus groups have become more vocal in recent years, energized by conservative and Republican groups that are funneling millions of dollars to college groups to tilt opinion in their favor.
Students for Academic Freedom, based in Washington, D.C., is one such group. It opposes the sway of liberal thought on college campuses--especially in women's studies and English literature departments--by pushing colleges and universities to adopt an "Academic Bill of Rights." The bill requires professors to teach a wider range of viewpoints on a given subject, avoid controversial issues unless they are germane to the course's subject matter and end what some say are unfair grades for conservative students.
Still, Porter is not overly concerned about NeW gaining the upper hand on campus.
The current generation of students is "far more progressive than previous generations," she asserted, noting that the majority of college students favors reproductive choice and is comfortable with same-sex marriage and interracial relationships.
To bolster her case, she pointed to last year's March for Women's Lives, a reproductive rights rally in Washington, D.C., that organizers said drew more than 1 million participants.
"Give 'em 10, 20 years and the neoconservative movement is going to be really hurting," she said. "I really think the majority of today's students, especially women, don't buy into it."
...National Organization for Women, which has more less than 100 official and unofficial campus chapters in the nation.
Porter has good reason to worry.
I suspect Rush, Newt and several others would be more than happy to sponsor this effort and probably offer some financial backing. I would be happy to participate in funding.
"Just curious: Why would a young woman who thinks that wage discrimination and gender discrimination (or whatever you want to call it) is perfectly acceptable even bother going to college? Why spend all that time and money learning whatever and willingly agree to be paid less than men for doing whatever or not even getting the job doing whatever in the first place because you're a woman? Why not just seek out some vocational education and a like-minded spouse?"
Because they know it isn't really true. These figures on gender inequality is something like the figure that the average family has 1.8 kids. It is an average and has no real-world equivalent. These women know that, in fact, women actually make slightly more than men when the facts are identical. The disparity comes when one compares graduates of a particular school, for example, twenty years later and find that the male graduates are earning more than the female graduates. They refuse to consider the issues of long-term commitment to a career, stability and other factors as influencing or justifying the disparity in that pay.
Gender equality people want a 40-year-old female executive to make the same money as a 40-year-old male executive, despite the fact that the woman spent several years working reduced hours or with limited willingness to travel in order to raise her children. The gender equity proponents also want female-dominated careers such as secretaries to be paid equivalent to male-dominated careers such as heavy labor, even though the tasks are nowhere similar.
NeW will probably say that wage discrimination and gender discrimination is not at all acceptable. They will argue that one must fairly determine if it is happening, without just picking out gross disparities between superficially-similar groups with actual gross disparities among them. NeW would probably also say that if a woman can truly prove gender discrimination or wage discrimination, then the laws already exist to exonerate her and NeW members would be the first to assist the woman in claiming her rights.
Enlightened women want to be judged by their own merit and not some group victimology. Enlightened women know that they can't have it all and don't expect the work world to make it up to them.
What planet does this kook live on?
I only wish we had dismantled the welfare state.
No lib media? Sure. And my wife says it's OK to have a harem. Uh, no. Make that she wants me to have a harem.
Martha Burk, chair of the Washington, D.C.-based National Council of Women's Organizations, agreed. "Conservatives have been taking on women's studies departments ever since women's studies departments existed. It's part of larger strategy by conservative forces in society to legitimize their own point of view."
Um, I think it's the feminazi's who are trying to legitimize their point of view. It's not like NOW'S kind of thinking has been around a long time. They're just trying to make normal, everyday opinion sound like some kind of radical, whacked out thinking to sway people. Conservative viewpoints are already legitimate.
NOW's definitions of issues such as "pay equity" and "gender discrimination" are hardly authoritative (though they try to make them so in law with the help of many lawyers of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg mold). The way that left feminized left usually defines "pay equity" is NOT to look at whether a man and a woman of very nearly identical qualifications are paid the same, it is to make all sorts of tendentious arguments about why some federal "pay equity" czar will have to issue lots and lots of intricate judgments about why this job must be paid more, etc. To accept the NOW version of "pay equity" is to have the government take over the market economy in employment.
It's nice to hear about some college girls with a little common sense. They know that "women's issues" go far beyond abortion and so-called pay equity and no one group can speak for every female.
Have you been reading my e-mails again?...............FRegards
Why would I clobber you? You seem to see this strictly in materialistic terms. The reward of a mother/wife for assisting her husband and family are worth more than any retirement fund. Yes, society ought to value more the contribution of mothers and wives. They used to--indirectly. At one time, a man could hardly be promoted unless his family life was solid. Nowadays, society punishes those who place family first--men or women, and rewards those who put the company first. I am the first one to say that isn't fair but it is the name of the game.
Let's assume that you can wave a magic wand and force companies to reward men and women equally, regardless of how much time they devoted to the company. Do you really think it would help? I think it might help those already employed by the company but I think it would also dry up the future job market for women because they will be perceived as often less productive over the long haul than the males. Think of it this way: given that all other options are equal, would you drive a car that gets 15 miles to the gallon, or 22 miles to the gallon? And would you want the government or society to force you to drive the 15 mpg car just to be fair to the makers of that car?
Fairness has to be economically justifiable or come from within or it is unenforceable except through coercion. I will take the rewards of motherhood and wifehood than anything a 401k could offer me. Which, by the way, is exactly what I did.
Your point is well taken and in a truly just society, stay at home mothers would be well rewarded for benefitting society with well-adjusted, contribution children. At the very least, moms ought to have first call on their children's social security contributions. But, it doesn't work that way and the rewards will continue to be quite intangible.
I know Europe is better at encouraging stay at home parents by subsidizing them but even that is part of a house of cards that will eventually tumble. Moms and wives have to find their rewards in the non-monetary fields. Lucklily, most of us are fully aware of that choice and make it anyway.
My husband's and my retirement years won't be as cushy is they might have been, but since we have to choose, we choose love and hope for the future beyond our own lives.
Thanks for your thoughtful discussion of the matter. It would be nice to make the world complete fair but we aren't God and I don't believe even God will do that in this life. Have a good week. May you accomplish everything you need and want to do.
What? Women who know they are women and proud of it? That's NEW!
Spoken like a true brainless MoonBat. So quick to underestimate the powerful change in culture in favor of kultursmog!
Jack.
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