Posted on 03/22/2007 7:31:40 AM PDT by liberty1971
Conservative feminist? Most would say those two words together make an oxymoron. Not if you are describing Resident Scholar of the American Enterprise Institute Christiana Hoff Sommers.
“In classrooms today there is a one-party system… it’s radical and you’re not welcome if you’re not on the same page,” former Clark University professor Sommers said. On behalf of the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute, Sommers most recently spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C to a small audience comprised mostly of college students.
She insists that a majority of female professors’ classrooms are platforms for liberal pro-women, anti-male agendas. Girls are being fed lies, they are being taught they are oppressed and it is turning them into angry women.
“Once women get into the habit of regarding women as a subjugated gender, they’re primed to be alarmed, angry and resentful of men as oppressors of women,” she argues. “They’re also prepared to believe the worst about them and the harm they cause to women.”
“They may even be ready to fabricate atrocities.” She gave as an example the Super Bowl “statistic” in 1993 in which a Denver-based psychologist told several media sources statistics show a rise of battered women on Super Bowl Sunday.
The media frenzy went even as far as warnings telling “at risk” women not to remain home during the game. The hoax was finally exposed by a Washington Post reporter who did some digging for the study… a study that was never found. Much to the embarrassment of the psychologist, after the Super Bowl ended, battered woman help-lines and shelters reported no unusual rise in the numbers.
Sommers also opposes The Vagina Monologues crusade that is running rampant on many college campuses. The “Vagina Warriors,” as followers of the “play” call themselves, hold “V-day” campaigns nationwide on February 14th, to raise awareness of and hopefully end rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery.
“A day that is set aside to celebrate love and romance is now dampened by a bunch of feminists,” she points out. “That’s like on Mother’s Day having rallies about child abuse by mothers.”
She fears the VM crusade will not be going away anytime soon, “It’s becoming like a religious holiday on some campuses,” she noted. She urged students to do something about it, like utilizing the “The Vagina Monologues Exposed” information and speakers provided by the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute.
The AEI scholar has not always held the conservative position. In the 70’s she was a Vietnam protester and self-described raging liberal.
Sommers credits the “Semester at Sea” trip she took with the University of Pittsburgh as her awakening moment that converted her into a conservative. “I was on this ship with a bunch of radical liberals ranting about these crazy views they hold,” she remembers. “I came off the ship a right-wing nut!”
Despite her disagreements with what she calls “Gender feminists” she still considers herself a feminist. “I am a feminist who does not like what feminism has become,” the author of Who Stole Feminism? explains. “The new gender feminism is badly in need of scrutiny.”
“Only forthright appraisals can diminish its inordinate and divisive influence.” She claims that the mainstream of women today identify with the feminist movement that began in the 1800’s, enabling women to vote, to work, etc., which she believes has been accomplished in the United States.
Most women do not want to be identified with the new feminist movement that places woman into a sect of resentful, anti-male, oppressed way of thinking. She does not see an end to this movement in sight, at least anytime soon, “Possibly when the ‘Baby Boomers’ are gone,” she reflects. “It will end by the weight of its own mass.”
Wendy Cook is a staff writer for Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, please e-mail mal.kline@academia.org
"Girls are being fed lies, they are being taught they are oppressed and it is turning them into angry women."
And then they wonder why no man wants to date them, much less marry them. Surprise!
As a Baby Boomer I have to say that we are the most pampered, ill educated and narcissistic generation in history. So much of the "knowledge" we have gained is political and self-serving. It is most evident on college campuses where free speech is only allowed if it is in synch with liberal/left wing "truths".
Nice post dude! Lots of stuff in it! :-)
My college, I am disappointed to report, presents the "Vagina Monologues" every year.
Ever read this piece of crap? It reduces women to chattle, and fills them with anger.
I have suggested, to folks at my school, that men should have a show entitled "The Penis Profiles," but no one in the room laughed.
We are raising a generation of outraged women.
Outraged people, I have found, are sledom happy or well adjusted.
I think there is quite a bit of ground work done on liberating women just to get them in the doors at college.
I've been hanging out on a feminist blog, checking out what they had to say. In one post a woman was talking about the fear she felt when she was walking down a street only to have a car with two men in it slow down as it passed her in the direction she was walking and then stop about 40 feet down the street with no apparent reason.
I posted and suggested that she buy herself a handgun. Well, it turns out that this happened in New Zealand and that's not an option there. But the crowd turned on me. Apparently this was not the "men are horrible and they need to be socially re-engineered" response that was desired.
I personally thought it was the epitome of feminism; don't be dependent on the actions of a man, take charge of your own life. Are you afraid of a man? Make him afraid of you. But while in a private discussion the moderator said they were aware of "2nd Amendment feminists", I sure didn't see any posting on that board. To these folks, feminism and socialism is all of a piece, and any time that they want to seek a solution to an evil in society, they think that the means to that end is government, not private action.
I want to see NUMBERS on how many rapes and genital mutilations this stupid Vagina Monologues "play" has stopped. Further, I'd like to see some of these screeching harpies try to present that play in a country like Iran.
What is the website to this feminist blog you frequent?
conservative feminist seems to be just another way to say RINO OR
it just means the woman married a Republican and is "conservative by marriage".
I disagree, from my experience. My descent into liberalism occurred when my naive parents forced me to choose an art college instead of a big university; my rebirth to conservatism occurred when I sent myself through grad school and took a Constitutional Law class. My husband was apolitical.
I have many friends who, like the author of this piece, started out life in the arts, media, a Blue state or some other liberal incubator, and woke up one day like St. Paul on the road to Damascus to the ridiculousness of the crap they were hearing from the left and started educating themselves.
Many of us also have FR and Jim Robinson to thank for helping the Internet to galvanize grassroots conservative opinion, since precious little of it is permitted in classrooms nor printed in the media.
"As a Baby Boomer I have to say that we are the most pampered, ill educated and narcissistic generation in history."
I guess that would depend on where you were raised and what college you went to. You must be from the one of the Blue states.
Freepmail wagglebee or little jeremiah to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]
it was started by radical leftist man haters. Its lies continue to twist and poison another generation of children.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This people are alive and well in all of our government K-12 schools as well as our universities and colleges.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.