Archive for the ‘Conservative Women’ Category

Katha Pollitt Proves Feminism is a Shill for Democrats

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

One arguments against the feminist movement is that they sold out to Bill Clinton in order to advance their political interests within the Democratic Party.

For years, conservatives and independents have lobbed this point at feminists, and that leftist group of women have always responded that it was “just about sex” or “Monica was a consenting adult.” In fact, some groups use Monica as a champion of advancing the sexual revolution and opening the door for women to assert themselves through use their bodies or sexuality.

Katha Pollitt’s comments on Journolist effectively prove that feminists did sell out to the Democrats in order to protect Clinton, and they knowingly did it:

Katha Pollitt – Hayes’s colleague at the Nation – didn’t disagree on principle, though she did sound weary of the propaganda. “I hear you. but I am really tired of defending the indefensible. The people who attacked Clinton on Monica were prissy and ridiculous, but let me tell you it was no fun, as a feminist and a woman, waving aside as politically irrelevant and part of the vast rightwing conspiracy Paula, Monica, Kathleen, Juanita,” Pollitt said.

Pollitt proves that feminists do not have the best interests of women at heart. They care more about advancing the causes of their political party. Put her quotes in perspective of the current debate going on over conservative women and feminism. If they distract us or try to “refudiate” the issue by making fun of certain Mama Grizzlies or issuing mandates that we’re not good for women because we don’t support progressive causes, they’re pulling a Jeremiah Wright.

How can this ideology group be trusted? How do you know when they are working to advance the cause of women and when do you know that their working to protect a slimy politician because he has the precious D after his name? From this point forward, everything, and I mean everything, that feminists say should be viewed from this perspective.

If they previously sold women out over the likes of Bill Clinton, what happens when a true threat comes their way? What happens when conservative women –the apparent blood enemy — are closer to achieving the goals that they’ve never been able to reach in the past five decades?

Things get vicious. Oh, sort of like their coverage of a certain figure from Alaska….

Watch for It: Mama Grizzlies Video is…Racist

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Sometimes the writers at Feministing infuriate me. Other times, like today, I laugh and laugh and laugh at them.

Two weeks ago, SarahPAC released the now famous Mama Grizzlies video. Within hours, there were hundreds of blog posts, articles and tweets examining the video. Almost all of it was positive. There was even begrudging praise from left-wing pundits that it was good.

For the most part, the fem blogs were silent. Most of them mentioned it in their daily wrap-up posts. I guess if you can’t figure out what to say, you just link?

Nearly two weeks later, the gals at Feministing FINALLY have a response. Only, did it come from internal discussions? As the leading feminist blog on the web, you’d think they would be looking for some angle to criticize. After all, these are the next generation of feminist leaders. The future of all womankind rests in their gender-neutral, leftist hands. If they can’t get one good put down of conservative women out each day, haven’t they failed?

Who finally came up with the response? A woman named Kathryn Ruud from Middletown, Md. wrote a letter-to-the-editor in the Washington Post yesterday:

In watching Ms. Palin hugging her supporters and handing out flowers, I saw something else. I noticed only one slightly off-white face among the many people she was reaching out to. And Ms. Palin pointedly says that conservative women are “mama grizzlies,” more formidable than “pit bulls.”

Of the deeply feminine women I know, none of them exclude people of color from her personal embrace. And a claim to be nastier than a pit bull degrades, rather than elevates, the relational power women bring to politics.

I saw this letter earlier today in my Google alerts and rolled my eyes. Honestly, I was surprised that no one inferred racism earlier.  However, following the NAACP’s proclamation, it must be so.  Forget how staged “multiculturalism” is more important than the message. Scores of conservative women getting involved in politics isn’t important because…there’s no discernible minority present in the video. Isn’t this a slap in the face of all the diverse women that support Sarah Palin, a number of whom I’ve met? However, because Ms. Ruud from Middletown, Md. didn’t see any of them in the final SarahPAC video, they must not exist.

Ms. Ruud appears to be mighty busy in the Frederick, Md. area fighting for green jobs, so I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest she’s not ambivalent to Sarah Palin. However, I am surprised that it took a random letter to the editor to give the fem writers a talking point. Really, ladies? Usually, you’re up for race-baiting the right. Going soft, aren’t we?

Watch out! Other lefty sites will likely pick up on this meme: The NAACP declares Tea Partiers racist. Sarah Palin has supported the Tea Party movement. Her video appears to lack any visible minorities in it. Therefore, SHE’S RACIST.

I’m also happy to know that Feministing seems to have the same Google alerts set up as me.

Are Conservative Women Not ‘Real’ Women?

Monday, June 14th, 2010

It appears that depending on your political views, your gender can be questioned. At least to a certain Democratic female state legislator from Tennessee.

According to Post Politics this morning:

Rep. Janis Baird Sontany (D-53) said of female Republican state legislators, “You have to lift their skirts to find out if they are women. You sure can’t find out by how they vote!”

Rep. Sontany is reported to have said this at a Davidson County Democratic breakfast this weekend.

I hope Rep. Sontany’s remarks were a bad joke, but they hint at a pervasive attitude that permeates the groupthink known as feminism on the left.

Women on the left have determined that they decide the correct attitudes and opinions for all women. The rest of us should just follow them and issue fealty to the Democratic Party. They are the Voice of Women,™ and it is not our place to question it or diverge from the sorority.

I guess all of the conservative women who are now running for office or engaged in the political process missed this memo.

Rep. Sontany’s remarks and this general attitude are incredibly condescending. All morning I’ve searched for the appropriate word. Sexism? Perhaps. What’s the definition of women-on-women hate?

These types of remarks are wrong. They are wrong regardless of whatever party said them. Sexism directed towards a conservative woman by fellow Republicans is wrong. Sexism (or whatever it is) directed towards women by other women over political difference is also wrong.

Women have the right to decide for ourselves what political positions we want. Even if you disagree with those views, you should respect my right to hold them. Despite what liberals and feminists think, they are not the authoritative Voice of Women,™ and it’s clear that many other women across the country agree with me on this issue.

I’m sick of the whole debate revolving around abortion. I’m unequivocally pro-life and will always be. Do I agree with you if you support abortion? Absolutely not. However, I respect your right to hold those views as a fellow American and a voter. I will never challenge or question your right to hold those views.

Isn’t this a type of McCarthyism from the left? Women are only allowed to express “acceptable” views that align with what the Feminists™ and  Voice of Women™ proclaim? Those that dare speak out will be savagely attacked in the media?

More at Red State and Michelle Malkin.

Mama Grizzly Round Up

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Four conservative women won last night. Two of them were endorsed by the Queen of Mama Grizzlies. Expect wall-to-wall coverage of this issue for the next few months on both sides.

The subject of conservative women emerging in politics is one that I’ve covered for more than a year. Since the infamous Mama Grizzly remarks by Sarah Palin, I’ve refrained from commenting* and watched the debate evolve. The role of conservative women in feminism is another, much-needed blog post, but I’m excited to see the discussion. On the right, this is a subject that no one has ever wanted to discuss. On the left, it engages a decades-old debate on how to exactly define feminism. Among feminist circles, this is still a messy internal argument. In the coming months, expect a lot more from me on this subject.

With a number of upcoming primaries with female Republican candidates like Robin Smith in my home district of TN-03 or Pamela Gorman, the game continues.

Update 6/10/10: Even more stories via Google alerts.

WaPo: Can Sarah Palin Claim Credit for Last Night?

New York Daily News: GOP primaries: Sarah Palin helps South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Calif.’s Carly Fiorina win big

CBS: GOP Women Dominate in Tuesday’s Primaries

The round-up so far today. First the feminists.

Jezebel has a fair round-up posted. Well, as fair as Jezebel (i.e. Gawker) folks get. Since two Democrats were on the list, they couldn’t do hatchet jobs on the rest.

Double X gets a few points wrong about the Mama Grizzly endorsements. Orly Taitz is a birther. I don’t know if even the radical fringes of the Tea Party would accept her. To use her as an example of a Palin loss is inaccurate since Palin never even touched that race. Claire Grossman wrote:

Though they’re just as extreme as their female counterparts, male candidates affiliated with the Tea Party like Rand Paul are shown (in a far less head-scratching spirit) as Ayn Randian, spear-carrying individualists. Whatever you think of their political beliefs, mama bears don’t deserve to be hit with the tired “hysterical woman” stereotype.

I agree with Grossman’s sentiment. Women should be discussed and debated on the same terms of men. If you’re going to do a fashion story, look at male candidates too or refrain from style all together. However, I wish Grossman had used better examples. Birthers are crazy and deserve to be ridiculed.

Debra Medina also waded birther territory. She also ran against an incumbent with high name ID who ran a stellar campaign in Texas. Palin also endorsed Perry, Medina’s opposition. Birthers are so far to the extreme of conservative politics, that pushing them aside and calling them crazy is the only option. To given them any serious consideration would only hurt the entire movement. Grossman doesn’t look at coverage of male birther candidates. They’re viewed just as nutty as the women are.

This cycle does prove that women are treated differently. Much of the coverage of these women did result in mud-slinging and name-calling. Haley’s campaign should enter the record books for new lows in public life, but the race in Nevada also got ugly at times. The California race was largely fair. Neither Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina seemed to be attacked or held to double-standards, despite Fiorina releasing the most bizarre campaign commercials ever. I’m disappointed in Fiorina’s victory,* but both women held their own in a tough state while running against men who were positioned further to the right.

EMILY’s List is scared of Carly Fiorina, which is a silver lining for me personally. Bwhahaha!

Stephanie pointed out that Fiorina is already going on the attack against Barbara — no great shock, since she’d been lobbing attacks on TV at Barbara before she even won the party endorsement. Already, choice is becoming a top issue in this race, and we can’t afford to lose Barbara’s leadership on women’s rights in the Senate.

Fiorina’s got a war chest filled with money from the $21-million golden parachute she received after being fired from her job at HP. We’ve got to help Barbara fill her campaign coffers now and make sure she’s ready to fight back!

Given EMILY’s List struggle to adapt to younger feminists and raise money, good luck with that one.

The Right-of-Center Folks:

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Feminism’s Last Chance for Legitimacy

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Be careful for what you wish. The fem blogs finally noticed the craziness going down in South Carolina. Rather than use this as an opportunity to attack the establishment good ol’ boy network, they question if the allegations were true.

Note the Jezebel’s headline, which is the only fem outlet to cover this story the entire time, “Nikki Haley Refuses Polygraph.”

An article on The Daily Beast makes my skin crawl. This is exactly the type of journalism that propels me to fight feminists:

Granted, Haley has a hypocrisy problem: Like Mark Sanford, the adulterous and love-sick Republican governor she’s trying to replace, Haley is one of those preachy “family values” conservatives who seem to think the rules apply to everyone but themselves. In a May TV ad, Sarah Palin is seen describing Haley as “a strong pro-family, pro-life…conservative reformer.” A campaign flyer announces that Haley “supports traditional, family values,” and in her latest TV spot, produced after the sex scandal broke, Haley introduces her silent and slightly dorky looking husband, the possibly cuckolded Michael, in what might be termed a Spitzer reversal. Watching the ad made me cringe; it’s uncomfortable to see Michael standing there next to Nikki, just as it was uncomfortable to see Silda standing by Eliot. “What are they thinking?” you wonder. “Why aren’t they mad as hell?”

Given that the allegations are likely false, and South Carolina has the political machine that would make Huey P. Long sick, how can feminists do this? They aren’t taking the high road or waiting for evidence. They’re sitting with baited breath waiting for clear proof to come out against Haley. They’re dying to bring her down.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. This is exactly the same hypocrisy that feminists demonstrated with the womanizing Bill Clinton. This is one of the few times that feminists could have transcended party lines and fought for a true pro-woman cause. Every feminist blog, magazine, spokesperson and pundit should denounce the sexist operation going on in South Carolina. This type of campaigning should not be allowed to exist.

By primly sitting back, feminists are silently endorsing this sleazy behavior.

Is it too much for feminists to take a few minutes each day and read right-wing blogs? If they only read Red State, they would have seen the post penned by Lori Ziganto, a South Carolina voter, on the state’s corruption.That was the focus of the Haley campaign. Nikki Haley took on establishment corruption. Shouldn’t all women respect that regardless of political affiliation?

Hanna Rosin at Double X likens Haley to Riot Grrl, an early third-wave feminist movement. That’s a silly comparison because Haley has campaigned on her record for demanding accountability and transparency in a state that nearly operates under a cloak of darkness. Riot Grrl was a small under-the-radar movement that gave us the conflicting and ambiguous third-wave feminist definition of “as long as you’re empowered to make choices, you’re a feminist.” But through their actions over the past year, that’s proved hollow.

I wish the Dana Goldstein, the sleazeball masquerading as an editor at The Daily Beast, and Hanna Rosin, sadly one of the more reasonable writers at Double X, would wake up and see how futile this quote is:

Weathering a scandal of this magnitude would help conservatives see modern women as we really are: complex, sexually liberated, and free to make our own decisions about what we do with our bodies.

No Dana and Hanna. Perhaps feminists should understand how silly and marginalized your movement is now? Modern women are far more complex and view politics through a wider lense than just abortion. That’s why your movement is decreasing in size. That’s why fewer and fewer women identify as feminists. That’s why pro-life PACS are out-fundraising the old dinosaurs like EMILY’s List and NOW. That’s why more and more Americans are identifying as pro-life. And that’s why mostly conservative women won primaries across America tonight.

Feminists, you had one last redeeming chance to prove that your movement was legitimate. I’d say you failed…miserably.

The Deafening Silence of Feminists on Nikki Haley

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Imagine that a woman is running for office. She’s a pro-abortion Democrat and is leading in the polls. Two weeks before a contentious primary, a political blogger claims to have conducted an affair with the candidate. The only problem: this blogger has a questionable past with a court record for violence against women, a fascination with this candidate on his blog and a creepy satirical video in which he threatens to beat up the said candidate.

Wouldn’t feminist organizations rush to the aid of the woman? Clearly she’s taking on the good ole boy network and the patriarchal status quo doesn’t like it.

As the allegations of Nikki Haley, (R-candidate for governor in South Carolina) reverberate across the web, I’ve noticed one segment of the media and blogosphere that’s been strangely quiet.

The femblogs have barely mentioned the story.

Unlike previous situations when conservative women called out feminists, this story  has been all over the news: Washington Post, Politico, Huffington Post, CNN, Talking Points Memo, Mediaite, and Daily Kos have covered every second. Since the right-wing blogs have fixated the story, there’s really no excuse for why they haven’t mentioned it.

Could they be purposely ignoring it because it puts feminists in a sticky corner that got them in trouble for defending the actions of Bill Clinton in the 90s for political gain? Or, do they have a reason to stay quiet and watch this situation unfold, hoping that it drags out as long as possible?

By calling out Nikki Haley, which you know they want to do since she was endorsed by the “evil one” (aka Sarah Palin), they would have to side with a guy that has a guilty record for domestic violence, a history of making jokes about beating up women, and a paper trail that veers closely into creepy stalker territory. This video alone should cause feminists to lead the charge that whatever the truth, Will Folks is up to no good.

What’s a left-wing gal to do? Completely ignore the story and hope that it goes away or make the difficult job of defending a (gasp!) conservative female candidate from allegations by an extremely questionable source?

At this point, the evidence is unclear. The released text messages are hardly a smoking gun. Haley very likely could have engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Folks. If so, she should come clean and face the potential consequences. However, as Allahpundit pointed out, Folks is making everyone feel sympathetic to Haley by his sheer creep factor.

Even if Haley is guilty and had some type of affair with the then unmarried Folks, shouldn’t feminists call him out for his blatant misogyny, intimidation tactics and threats towards her physical well-being?

Quite the opposite. Their silence implies agreement. Jezebel, the only fem-outlet to cover it, all but called her guilty. As Erickson stated at Red State, they’ve all but called her a whore. By not defending her, they’re perpetuating stereotypes and the virgin/whore dichotomy that they so detest. But since Haley is a conservative, it doesn’t matter.

The concept of a women having affairs isn’t new to fem blogs. Last year, Politico ran a story on the absence of female candidates and electeds from sex scandals. Reports show that women cheat, but few female politicians have been caught. Either they are sneakier, or they don’t commit adultery while trying to balance a family and career. In April, The Atlantic and Yglesias asked the same question.

You know that feminists have to be salivating over this story. In their quest to show that there are no differences between men and women, especially regarding sex, they would love it if a conservative woman was the first one to make major news over a sex scandal. Wouldn’t it be sweeter for them if it was a Palin endorsee, particularly a pro-life Christian woman?

If definitive proof emerges that Haley did have an affair, how quickly will the smirked cries of “hypocrite!” emerge?

By keeping silent and not bringing up the questionable motives of Folks allegations, the feminists are allowing this story to drag on. With less than two weeks before the primary, it’s in their best interest to make this stick. Even if the allegations are proven false, by keeping quiet, they can potentially damage a Palin endorsement. If the allegations prove correct, they can jump in and yell, “hypocrite!”

Feminists are quick to call out guys for street harassment (and rightfully so) and search for signs of sexism in politics and pop culture, unless it involves conservative women. Remember when Arlen Specter was disrespectful to Michele Bachmann, or the countless crass sexual innuendos aimed at Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin or any other prominent female conservative? Feminists never defend women on the right in those situations. (They are quick to attack a respected 73-year-old black economist though for making sarcastic comments.)

Red State claims to have evidence that this was a set-up to bring down Haley. If this is true, will the feminists finally go after a guy for intentionally using sex and intimidation to continue the good ole boys network in South Carolina? Will they actually stand up for the women that they claim to represent and exclaim that this is not acceptable?

Once again, they have an opportunity to prove that they aren’t just shills for the Democratic Party. Will they do the right thing?

Wannabe Housewives

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Earlier this week, the LA Times focused on the trend of women purposely opting for traditional housewife roles. My friend, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, wrote about it and drew my attention to the story. The article focused on several female bloggers. Most were moms, but one woman, Taryn Cox The Wife, is single and writes about her expectations for wives and pushes styles and etiquette of bygone eras.

Finding her 18 rules for wives was discovering a kindred spirit. Taryn is much more affluent and moves in different social circles (I could be the middle class version), but her rules essentially sum up my lifestyle. She posts ideas and guidelines that I’ve never been brave enough to publish on my blog.

Shocked, I posted it on Facebook. Some of her rules, I disagree with, and I would add some.*  While I think her blog is a bit pretentious and the use of WIFE is taxing,** I mostly agree with her. Surprisingly, a number of my friends also replied that they loved it.

It was extremely validating to discover that I’m not alone in desiring the traditional life. Even in the midst of career-obsessed cities like New York and DC, there are other women out there like me.

What has prompted this? Pop culture? A rebellion of conservative morals? A yearning for simplicity in a world that has dramatically changed in our lifetime?

I think the answer is a combination of all three.

Being a housewife is hardly a new trend. Even in the height of the radical women’s movement, there were still young women who chose traditional roles and opted for the home and hearth. My mother is a prime example.

Until there’s an emergence of a counter-cultural movement that combines pop culture with politics, the media takes no notice. Between the show Desperate Housewives, the reality show spin-offs Real Housewives and the sudden appearance notice of conservative women on the political scene, the media has discovered that not all women want careers or march through the streets burning bras.

Much of this is driven by pop culture. Kitsch is very much in right now. Having collected vintage furniture and memorabilia since I was about 10, I’ve noticed the price of items from 1940s-1960s skyrocket. There are also new lines of retro-inspired decore and gadgets for the home. Thanks to Mad Men, the 1950s/60s style has returned to clothing, and martinis have been popular since Sex and the City launched the return of the Cosmopolitan in the late nineties.

A return to nostalgia was inevitable.

Keep in mind that the Millenial generation is just approaching 30 (gulp). We’re starting to buy homes and start families. We are also the generation raised by the most liberal group in history. Many grew up with working mothers and permissive guidelines. Is it surprising that adults who grew up in daycare would want a different family environment for their own offspring? At some point, the generation raised in the hyper-sexual media landscape will say “enough is enough.” We’re a generation without a shock factor. It’s counter-cultural to be traditional.

Secondly, it is typical for younger generations to rebel. The Baby Boomers rebelled against the traditions and morals of the Silent Generation. What we don’t hear about is that the Silent Generation rebelled against the excesses of the Jazz Age. It’s a generational cycle.

People also return to “simpler ages” when society radically changes.

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The True Heirs of Suffragists

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Over the past year, the theme of women in the conservative movement has taken off. After decades of bubbling below the surface, the media has finally noticed that conservative women are out there.

Shockingly, very little research has been conducted on conservative women. In her book Righting Feminism, Ronnee Schreiber explains the dearth of research on conservative women. Aside from a blip in the early 1980s after the ERA failed, gender studies have completely ignored women on the right. In a twisted form of elitist misogyny, they viewed women on the right as extensions of conservative males. They established an academic rationale that all conservative women were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

How things have changed! Rather than waiting and complaining for the rules to be changed to “level the playing field,” conservative women are plowing through, determined to make a difference and protect the America that they love.

Recently, the Washington Post published an article covering the sudden rise in female candidates running as Republicans.

So far this year, 239 women are candidates for the House and 31 for the Senate, according to data from the Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. Among them, a record 107 Republican women have filed to run for a House seat, according to the National Republican Congressional Committee — surpassing a previous GOP high of 91 in 1994 and a sharp increase from the 65 who ran in 2008. And those numbers could grow. In each year that Rutgers has been keeping track, the final tally has exceeded the late April figure by more than 20.

There are any number of reasons for that. The anti-incumbent movement has a largely female face. Women are the main holders of the purse strings for America’s families. Doesn’t it make sense that fiscal issues would drive us to the streets? the The rise of Sarah Palin can’t be discounted. Love her or hate her, she is the first identifiable conservative woman to make a splash in politics.

A figurehead always has to emerge on the national scene in order to legitimize movements and encourage support. It took a Sarah Palin-type to burst onto the national scene and show the average housewife in Kansas or Tennessee that she could run for office.

Hanna Rosin at Slate also wrote this week on the female face of Tea Parties, “Is the Tea Party a Feminist Movement?” She captures a snapshot of a movement that fulfills what feminism has always lacked–mainstream support from women:

If the Tea Party has any legitimate national leadership, it is dominated by women. Of the eight board members of the Tea Party Patriots who serve as national coordinators for the movement, six are women. Fifteen of the 25 state coordinators are women. One of the three main sponsors of the Tax Day Tea Party that launched the movement is a group called Smart Girl Politics. The site started out as a mommy blog and has turned into a mobilizing campaign that trains future activists and candidates. Despite its explosive growth over the last year, it is still operated like a feminist cooperative, with three stay-at-home moms taking turns raising babies and answering e-mails and phone calls. Spokeswoman Rebecca Wales describes it as a group made up of “a lot of mama bears worried about their families.” The Tea Party, she says, is a natural home for women because “for a long time people have seen the parties as good-ole’-boy, male-run institutions. In the Tea Party, women have finally found their voice.”

Despite their best attempts, feminism never really caught on in Main Street. Even though Hollywood took it up, and women’s magazines became more sympathetic, the movement still remained ensconced in highly educated/urban circles.

Oddly, the Tea Party movement has done what feminism spent millions of dollars and countless public awareness campaigns trying to accomplish. They got women involved in politics in greater numbers than ever before.

While I dislike the Marxist overtones of feminists complaining about the patriarchy and encouraging the destruction of our Judeo-Christian society, their navel-gazing was the biggest turn-off for me. The endless questions about “is this feminist or feminist enough?,” the ever-changing definitions of what feminism is and the groupthink mentality that any deviation from the Democratic party is bad for women drove me to openly become an anti-feminist.

The women profiled by Rosin have done more in one year than fifty years of feminism ever accomplished. They haven’t written countless books, hosted conferences, created academic departments or built cushy government jobs for themselves. Instead they built grassroots movements from scratch from their kitchen tables and motivated their friends and neighbors to get involved with local politics. The women involved with the Tea Party saw a need and did something about it within their communities and states. They empowered masses of women.

Isn’t that what motivated the early leaders of the women’s movement? Isn’t that what the early suffragists did? Wasn’t their goal to inspire women to improve their lives and lives of their families through education, the workforce and public policy?

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Taking on the Lefty Gals

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time writing posts against Feministing. As a commenter Brando said the other day, “as for Feministing, the excerpt you posted is typical of their sputtering vitriol and merits no comment. They’re too busy seething with hatred to let a rational thought enter their heads.”

What an accurate description! However, Feministing is one of the more prominent ones in lefty gal world, so people actually get their information and draw their opinions there. (Does that make you cringe, too?)

It makes my day when kick-ass conservative women bloggers, like Lori Ziganto, take on Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing. Given that Lori actually makes logical arguments and the extent of Jessica’s are typically, “but that’s so f—ing stupid to ME, so THEY are wrong.” (Don’t believe me? Read her books). Apparently Lori ruffled a few feathers, which resulted in Cassy Fiano responding at Hot Air.

What was all the fuss over? A simple ad in NYC subways that states, “abortion changes you.”

For the past few months, I’ve read numerous reports about pro-abortion women angered at the concept that abortion could change you. As John Hawkins described, it’s rather mild. Yet to feminists, this ad was incredibly offensive. No one should dare question their opinion on abortion. As liberal women, they have the final word.

Cassy touches on a subject that I’ve tried to understand:

It’s like they practically salivate over the thought of another woman getting an abortion. I don’t know why, but it’s sickening how much feminists try to actively convince women to have abortions.

I’ve seen that same enthusiasm and find it cold and calculating. Mentally, I’ve started referring to these type of women as the baby killer cheerleaders. You have women reveling in their abortion stories, bowling for abortion, blogging for abortion and tweeting an abortion. It doesn’t quite resonate with the “safe, legal, rare” drumbeat that liberals tried to use in the 90s. I guess the new motto is “YEA! ABORTION!”

As part of the larger liberal movement, feminists completely eliminate the concept of personal responsibility. A group of women doesn’t want to accept responsibilities for their actions and are convinced that women can and should have the same sexual abandon as a frat boy. They don’t want to deal with the consequences, and abortion makes it convenient for them. Don’t want a baby? Poof! Abortion makes the little unwanted mass of tissues disappear.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, and a majority of Americans agree. Every woman who stands up and says, “this attitude and behavior is not acceptable” only highlights the shallow callousness of pro-abortion women. In order to succeed, they must silence all opposition and bully other women into agreeing with them. That’s the only pro-woman way, right?

Kudos to Cassy and Lori. I wish more women on the right would take on Jessica Valenti and others like her.

Recognizing the Good Guys

Monday, March 29th, 2010

One of my favorite President Reagan stories was told by his former assistant during his post-White House days. Amidst the tales of his thoughtfulness and joy for life, she shared that he would take her elbow and help guide her when walking up or down stairs. She found it endearing that a man in his 80s was helping a twentysomething assistant climb stairs. Men of his era were trained to help women no matter what age.

Does that kind of gentlemanly behavior still exist? Women my age have never experienced having a gentleman stand when we enter or leave a room or walk on the outside of the sidewalk to protect us from getting splashed by passing cars. Chivalry isn’t manners but acts of thoughtfulness.

The Network of enlightened Women created the NeW Gentlemen’s Showcase to prove that chivalry isn’t dead. Across the country, college women are nominating guys who have displayed character and chivalry. According to Holly Hall Carter, NeW’s executive director:

“NeW is challenging women to rethink relationships and gender roles by conducting a search for the remaining gentlemen of their generation. Some say that chivalry is dead on the college campus, but the women of NeW are seeking to revive it by honoring men who treat women with respect. They are looking for the few young men who still open doors, give up their seat on the bus and pay for dinner on a date.”

I think the concept of recognizing modern gentleman is a great idea. Many evenings, I’ve listened to guy friends lament that no one recognizes their “nice guy” behavior. They aren’t thanked when doors are held open for them. Women refuse to let them carry heavy packages, or dates complain when they pick up the bill. NeW’s Gentleman’s Showcase shows that chivalry still does exist, and there are women out there who appreciate it.

If you know a college gentleman, submit a video. Tomorrow is the deadline, so act fast.

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  • Video of Unemployment Rates by County since 2007July 30, 2010

    scary yet interesting

  • hat Lies Beneath: Underground ChattanoogaJuly 30, 2010

    In Chattanooga, early in the first week of March 1867, rains came, and did not stop for four days. People watched as the streets turned to mud and crops were destroyed. The small streams and rivule…

  • Bakon VodkaJuly 29, 2010

    This has no news element, but it involves bacon-flavored alcohol.

  • Year of the Mommy BloggerJuly 28, 2010

    If 2010 is the year of the pro-life woman, 2016 should be the year of the smart “mommy blogger”—because, if the GOP wants to ensure its own long term success, today’s politically-inclined m…

  • Women to head GOP, Democratic tickets in OklahomaJuly 28, 2010

    OKLAHOMA CITY — One broke the gender barrier in Oklahoma politics, holding a statewide seat for a dozen years before winning two terms in Congress. The other succeeded her at the lieutenant gover…

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