Cosmopolitan Conservative

It’s nice to be a member of the most hated minority out there: conservative women.

Lately, there’s been a firestorm against us. Aside from the endless Palin hatred and the David Letterman comments, there was the Playboy.com “hate f__k” story. Why? Aren’t we allowed to voice our opinions and advocate for our beliefs with the same level of respect and attention that liberal women maintain?

In fact, there’s been a shortage of solidarity with the sisterhood. Jezebel( a Gawker blog) was the only online pub to condem the Playboy.com article and until today, I haven’t seen anything else. It’s wrong to malign any race, minority, group identified by sexual preferences, profession, political party or religious group, except for women who identify themselves as conservative. Apparently, those conservative broads deserve every sleazy, sexist, misogynistic or inappropriate attack they get.

It was a pleasant surprise to find this article on Slate.

If there was any question that a stubborn strain of old-school sexism persists in Obama’s America, one has only to look at certain leaders of what the right wing loves to call the “liberal media” but which is sounding and acting, recently, more like the frat-house media. There, like a virus hiding in the body before, perhaps, staging a comeback, misogyny has found a place to lurk almost undetected, at least by the usually sharp eyes of progressive feminists.

I simply can not understand why those “open-minded” women on the left won’t stand up and support conservative women when so many blatantly misogynistic comments have been made in close succession. It’s a mark of shame on the entire feminist movement (aside from the 45 million lives lost from abortions since 1973). When your ideology is so rigid that you can not condem something that is wrong by any standard, you’ve got a problem.

Imagine that it’s Friday morning, and you’ve just clicked on Politico. You read this story.

Joe Biden was standing in a brilliant black suit with an aqua tie inside a packed Gotham Hall in Manhattan one evening last week, waiting to address hundreds of people at an awards ceremony for a leading gay and lesbian organization.

Would you find that odd? How often do hard news stories describe what a male politician is wearing? However, this is normal treatment for women:

Jill Biden was standing in a brilliant aqua dress inside a packed Gotham Hall in Manhattan one evening last week, waiting to address hundreds of people at an awards ceremony for a leading gay and lesbian organization.

And this article was written by a woman, Carol E. Lee.

Why is sexism tolerated in the press? This is vague and inherent but it does display a double-standard. The same double-standard that was shown when the color of Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits were discussed or the controversy over Sarah Palin’s designer clothes were the subject of ad hominem attacks while Obama’s custom-made $1,500 suits were ignored.

Now, I’m hardly a hardened feminist. In fact, after reading books by Phyliss Schafley and Kate O’Bierne, I don’t even claim the label of conservative feminist anymore. However, why are women’s clothes, hairstyles or children discussed at length when it’s never mentioned for men?

There is also a time and place for fashion. I love fashion and gossip magazines, but I don’t read Politico to discover what Jill Biden is wearing. When Politico launches a Fashion Week blog, they can start commenting on what people wear. Until then, please report on the hard news. I have Go Fug Yourself for fashion critques, not DC news web sites.

While I haven’t been able to post much lately for a variety of reasons, this blog hasn’t been far from my thoughts. Lately, feminism is a subject that I think about often. In my About page, I declared myself a “conservative feminist.” Since my visit to CPAC in February, I’ve been re-thinking that, especially after reading Phyliss Schafley’s Feminist Fantasies.

While I believe that some type of women’s rights movement was needed in the last 100 years, I’m still at a loss at what to call myself. I simply can’t consider myself to be part of a movement that is built on Marxism that depends on government special interests to advance the cause. Secondly, I don’t want to be caught up in a movement that is largely responsible for the unhappiness of women and the disintegration of the family over the last 50 years. There doesn’t seem to be middle ground for women (and men concerned with women’s issues) like me.

One of my favorite bloggers is Carolyn McCulley, who tackles issues being a Christian woman in a feminist society. Her new book is on my current reading list, so I can’t comment on it yet.

In her current post, she writes about a new study that finds men are happier than women despite the feminist movement. Click here to download the study.

Is this true? I have no way of knowing. I do know that as I read through Schafley’s book, I couldn’t help but think about the feminist lines that I had absorbed even in my attempts to rebutt feminism.

One thing I’ve been guilty of is believing that my career is the most important thing. When I graduated from college, I was frequently asked, “what is your career goal?” My honest answer would have been “1950’s homemaker,” but that’s hardly acceptable in professional circles. Now that I’ve achieved my career and educational goals at the ripe age of 27, I’m left asking, “now what?”

While I think that feminism has opened the doors for opportunities for women, it’s slammed the doors for those of use want traditional lifestyles. If I tell a potential employer that my dream is to stay at home full-time with children I may have in the future, are they likely to hire me? Is it acceptable for a woman my age to say that they want to get married and start a family more than getting a promotion or buying a killer pair of Jimmy Choos?

The popularity of Bridget Jones shows that while women’s opportunities have changed, the desires of women really haven’t. We now live in a society that discourages young women from openly expressing their desires to settle down, have families and live traditional lifestyles. Instead we’re conflicted by society telling us to work, work, work in our 20s and 30s while reading countless articles and columns from feminists in their 50s and 60s who regret not settling down or are desperately trying to adopt or use a fertility treatment to finally acknowledge their biological clocks. There’s a problem somewhere.

While I think that finding an alternative to feminism is a losing battle, why not acknowledge that tradition is acceptable? Why not make all options open to women?

Over the past few months, it’s been nothing short of terrifying to see how the government is expanding and taking over control of the private sector. From financial markets to the car industry, Congress and the White House are out of control.

This morning, I got a scary email from Citibank, my student loan provider. It appears that running the major banks and financial institutions is not enough. They want to control educational loans now. Per Citibank:
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Yesterday, I attended the Chattanooga Tea Party and uploaded some pixs from the event. Libertarian Jesus is my absolute favorite.

I love protests and rallies. While I prefer the ones on right-of-center issues, I enjoy watching the antics on the left and used to enjoy going to all the war protests in DC and mocking the crazy people. While the majority of people at the Tea Party were average Americans, there were a few freaks. Every movement has it’s crazies.

Yesterday, thousands of Americans protested the wasteful spending going on in DC through Tea Parties. Were these parties a carefully-orchestrated strategy by Obama haters and members of a Rovian vast right-wing conspiracy, bankrolled by Republican elites, lobbyists and conservative think tanks? Or was it a true grassroots movement that gave thousands of people throughout the country the opportunity to exercise their First Amendment rights and vent their frustrations at the government’s inability to exercise any form of fiscal constraint?

After growing increasingly frustrated on Twitter yesterday, I decided to put up a post that gave some background and perspective on the Tea Parties. Aside from a supporter of the Tea Parties, I’m not an official organizer. However, I tracked both conservative insider information and media stories on the issue and wanted to address some of the issues that both Joe Lance at Tennessee Ticket and Dan Lehr at Public Interest brought up yesterday in their thoughtful posts.

Not a Sex Act
Many people were suddenly introduced to several new words this week: teabagging (which won’t be explained in this post. Google it yourself) and astroturfing in what I would call a blatant attempt by the media to misdirect the real meaning behind Tea Parties. Fiscal conservatives and frustrated taxpayers throughout the country have followed the progression of Tea Parties since Rick Santelli, online editor for CNBC, came up with the idea out of frustration earlier this year.

The first Tea Party was held in Chicago and erupted into a grassroots movement by fiscal conservatives and libertarians who were tired of not standing up for their values. The idea spread and on February 27, approximately 40 cities held tea parties with more than 30,000 people in attendance. Smart Girl Politics, the DontGo Movement and Top Conservatives on Twitter pushed the idea out to the thousands of conservatives who had flocked to Twitter in order to organize.

Interestingly, this coincided with CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activities in Washington, D.C. The 2009 CPAC ended up being the largest one ever in its 30-plus year history. More than 10,000 conservatives converged on Washington happy to be free from the shackles of big-government, Bush Republicanism and anxious to reclaim the movement that Edmund Burke started more than three centuries ago.

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Over the weekend, President Obama did two things that surprised me in a good way.

1. He authorized force in order to rescue the captured American captain from the Somali pirates
While, he should have gone in with the Navy first before negotiating, Obama ended up doing the right thing. Pirates should be treated as terrorists, and terrorists should be treated as enemy combatants. You don’t negotiate with terrorists.

2. He adopted the cutest puppy that I’ve ever seen.
I have a soft spot for dogs. Actually, I’m a crazy dog person, so I was thrilled to see that Obama’s adopt a dog for their daughters. Every (responsible) family needs a dog. My first reaction upon seeing the leaked photo of Bo was, “OMG! I want to hug that puppy!”

As an advocate, donor and volunteer for animal shelters, I wish that the Obama’s would have adopted a dog through the Washington Animal Rescue League. A close of friend of mine adopted a dog from WARL and volunteers there. They’re an amazing animal shelter and making a big difference in helping unwanted animals find homes.

Imagine the good press that WARL could have received if the Obama’s took their daughters to visit there. This would have highlighted the plight of shelter dogs and cats in the United States, which isn’t much short of the agonizing Sarah McLauglin ASPCA commercial. The Obamas could have demonstrated that modern animal shelters are a far cry from the scary dog pounds that stigmatize the issue, how shelters work with families to find the right pet and what is involved in adopting a pet.

I understand that the Obama’s wanted a hypoallergenic dog for their daughter, but they could have taken a few steps to help millions of dogs and cats in the U.S.

Earlier today, I got this email from SarahPac:

Statement from Meghan Stapleton, Palin Family Spokesperson
The continuing generosity of Alaskans and Americans is overwhelming as many reach out to assist Governor Sarah Palin and her family with their legal bills.

However, the official legal defense fund for Governor Sarah Palin has not been formed and the Governor cannot accept monies for those obligations from any other entity than the one in formation. Numerous federal and state laws need to be abided by and the official legal defense fund will have very strict donation guidelines.

We thank everyone interested in helping the Governor. The best way to assist her will be through this official fund which will launch later this month.

What? A legal defense fund? Actually, a random, legal defense fund that the Palins are not acknowledging?

I chalked it up to being too busy to follow the news. Then I saw an email come through from on a Republican mailing list asking, “WTF?”

*Team Sarah soon provided some answers and sent out a link to the Sarah Palin Defense Fund.

Again, what?

I found an answer in the strangest of places–the Huffington Post. This is the first time in my life, I’ve ever gone to the HuffPost for information. If it weren’t for Google Alerts, I would have never known to check there.

Fraud or Sarah fan motivated by Bill O’Reilly? Who knows? I’m a fan of Sarah because of her politics, but at this point, she needs to hire a DC bigshot to straighten up her communications.

*I love TeamSarah, but absolutely despise whoever is in charge of their emails. I’ve never seen anything written so badly. Please, please, please, get a ghost writer!

My apologies for the even lighter-than-normal posting. Thing that allows me to pay for bills and satisfy my shoe and handbag habit has me working crazy hours (as in nights, weekends and 14-hour days in between). For the next 6 weeks or so, blogging is likely to be sporadic.

Please stay with me though. I hate to lose the 3 people who regularly read this. I don’t even think my mom remembers to check CosmoCon.

Yesterday, I posted an alert from the Susan B. Anthony List on Senator Coburn’s attempt to reinforce workplace anti-discrimination laws for health care workers refusing to aid in abortions due to ethical conflicts.

Mike K replied with a comment that these laws already exist. This is true. Numerous laws exist that protect workers from discrimination and harassment. This morning, Students for Life of America shed more light on the situation. It appears that Senator Coburn is trying to prevent the Obama Administration from taking away individual rights in the workplace. Per Students for Life of America:

In August 2008, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) took long-overdue action to address a growing crisis of abortion-related discrimination that could force thousands of conscientious health care professionals out of medicine. After several months of public comment on its proposed regulation, in December 2008 HHS finalized a regulation that made clear the protections offered by three civil rights laws passed by Congress with bipartisan support.

Civil rights laws declare that American tax dollars will not fund programs in which health care professionals are fired, penalized or otherwise subjected to discrimination because of their ethical stance related to abortion and other morally controversial issues.

However, in March 2009, following protests from abortion special interest groups, the Obama administration officially declared plans to rescind–get rid of–the conscience-protecting regulation. The administration has, as required by law, called for public comment on the proposed plan to get rid of the conscience-protecting regulation, with a deadline of April 9, 2009.

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