Posted on 11/23/2006 12:32:59 PM PST by FreeManDC
It was one of those claims that only a feminist could dream up: “A 2005 U.N. Population Fund report found that 70% of married women in India were victims of beatings or rape.” Despite the lack of credibility of anything that comes from the United Nations, this straight-faced claim actually made its way into a front-page article last week in the Washington Times.
That, despite the fact that the research shows Indian women are the gender more likely to abuse. Plus, no one could track down the UN report that supposedly made the claim.
The Washington Times is certainly no feminist rag. So what’s going on here?
In the wake of the November 7 electoral debacle, conservatives are doing a lot of soul-searching. Maybe it’s time to assess whether the feminist ideology has been allowed to invidiously dilute the conservative message.
There was a time, of course, when the women’s movement held the moral high ground. Susan B. Anthony not only championed women’s right to vote, but also took a principled stand against abortion.
But after Anthony died in 1906, her movement fell under the sway of a group of neo-Marxist women who dubbed themselves “feminists.” The Misses of Misery asserted that everything that is wrong in the world can be blamed on the vast anti-woman conspiracy they call the patriarchy. Here’s Gloria Steinem: “Overthrowing capitalism is too small for us. We must overthrow the whole… patriarchy.”
For years, conservatives have underestimated the dogged determination of the women’s libbers to undermine everything that is good and right in our society: the inviolability of life, sanctity of the family, free speech, opportunities not quotas, law based on due process, and limited role of government.
Let’s be perfectly plain about it: Feminism is the antithesis of everything conservatism stands for.
Thankfully, some in the conservative ranks have bravely spoken out against the rad-fem jihad, including Phyllis Schlafly, Ann Coulter, Laura Schlessinger, Catherine Seipp, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Myrna Blyth.
But why are there only six, not 600 conservative women on the list? And what about conservative men? Are the conservative no-shows intimidated or merely complacent? Why haven’t the mainstream conservative organizations come out four-square against radical feminism?
To be sure, one reason is that the conservative movement has become beholden to the electoral imperatives of the Republican party, fearing that any criticism of feminism might stir a backlash on election day. This fear is misplaced, however, as only a quarter of American women call themselves feminist, and 22% of women say that being called a feminist would be an “insult.”
Another reason is that many conservative men – especially politicians and newspaper editors — confuse ladies-first chivalry with becoming water-carriers for the latest feminist myth-de-jour.
It’s time that these guys wise-up to the feminist bait-and-switch. These gals claim to be the complete equals to men. But voice any doubts about their ideology, and they lapse into a pathetic cocoon of hurt feelings.
And then there are those ladies who claim to be straight-laced conservatives, but bristle with an anti-male hostility or spread poisonous gender myths.
Take conservative columnist Suzanne Fields who had the habit of making nasty asides about men. Finally her readers objected en masse, their letters appearing under an editorial headline that took exception to Fields’ “Anti-Male Diatribe.”
And then there’s marriage maven Maggie Gallagher who never passes on the opportunity to diss men. Once Gallagher claimed that, “battering is largely a male prerogative, the way a tiny fraction of evil men seek to control the women they sleep with.”
Really, Mrs. Gallagher?
Try telling that to the family of Dennis McGlothin of Peoria County, Ill., who last week was run over and killed by his ex-wife Krystle. Just to make her point, the woman also rammed his pickup truck and smashed his windows.
This case is not an aberration. Psychologist Renee McDonald has found that American wives are twice as likely as their husbands to engage in severe domestic violence.
A few months ago Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden reflected on the feminist opportunists who seize on military sex scandals to push for women in front-line combat positions. Prudent ridiculed the flat-footed military brass as “Powerful men who know better are unable to stand up to the stamp of little feminist feet.”
It’s time that conservatives found the moral courage and personal gumption to say ‘no’ to the latest feminist demands, lest we bequeath to our children and grandchildren an unruly and emasculated culture.
Only if we let them define the term the way Gloria Steinem does.
Like 'conservativism', 'feminism' also has multiple meanings. I think we need to push for women's rights, but not the way current feminists do. Susan B. Anthony has shown us examples of what to do.
PING!
Uhh...this is about 25 years late. They're realizing this now??
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
My diagnosis is it is a new disease called Republicanitis.
That's because the way you define conservatism and feminism. I have no problem whatsoever with women entering labor market, getting a fair payment, etc. At the same time, I don't want them to think aborting babies, denouncing men, etc. The fist list is a feminist issue that I support. The second is not, because I'm a conservative.
"That's because the way you define conservatism and feminism. I have no problem whatsoever with women entering labor market, getting a fair payment, etc"
You still aren't making yourself clear.
"Feminism is the antithesis of everything conservatism stands for"
In some ways, modern feminism is conservative, given the way many thinkers talk about the "female mode of knowing" and so forth. Traditional liberalism, being more abstract, looks at human beings qua human beings and emphasizes uniform rights instead of respecting "ways of being in the world" and other nonsense. Here is the conflict between instinct and reason.
Postmodern thought in general is much closer to De Maistre than it is to J.S. Mill.
I just typed a parole hearing in which the inmate considered himself abused because for part of his childhood he grew up poor.
For Lifetime Channel watchers, an abused woman is one who is expected to mother her children.
I noticed this drivel when it appeared, fabricated feminist victimization boilerplate. I read the Washington Times precisely in order to avoid this sort of leftist propaganda, but the paper is no longer reliably conservative. Editorial page editor Tony Blankley gave the Democrats a huge gift with his ill-timed calls for Dennis Hastert to resign for the Foley kerfuffle. Blankley gave undeserved legitimacy to the notion that it was a Republican scandal, not just a Mark Foley scandal. It's time for him to collect his payback for point shaving in the championship game, and go to work for the Washington Post.
Many of the recent WT editorial page cartoons could have been taken from the Post or the NYT, they are simply humorless Republican bashing. I still trust Wes Pruden and most of the WT columnists, but something is very wrong with the paper's current leadership.
yes it absoluly has.
women who state the conservative believes still also jump into the feminist propaganda points in order to support quotas, set asides, and feminist support groups.
That is because there is a vast difference between being Feminine and being a feminist.
Women who are feminine love being women.
Women who are feminists do not and resent the real differences between men and women.
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