The emergence of conservative women is invigorating on the right and baffling to the left. A.C. Kleinheider’s piece in the Nashville City Paper would be funny if it didn’t capture the begrudging puzzlement of the larger media as to why the conservative movement suddenly looks so female:

Beyond a steady rightward shift and an increasingly reactionary rhetoric, conservative leadership is taking on another characteristic — it’s becoming more female. Both nationally and in Tennessee, the most beloved and vocal conservative leaders these days seem to be women.

Memo to Kleinheider: conservative women have always been here.  His comments confuse me. Does he not closely follow Tennessee and national politics? The existence of women on the right is hardly new:

Women need to be embraced as leaders — but not out of fear or necessity. It should happen the right way, or else the Right will merely be seen as a bunch of weak-willed reactionary little boys sending their women out to do their fighting for them.

Michele Bachmann was elected before Sarah Palin. Marsha Blackburn’s been involved in Tennessee politics for a long time now. Robin Smith was chairwoman of the TN GOP before Palin was on the scene. In order to have so many women running in 2010 means that women have been working up the ranks of the party and active in their communities for many years. It takes a long time to build up the name recognition, fundraisers and social capital to run for office. I’m surprised that he failed noticed that.

In fact, Republicans and conservatives have seen many of the “first” women across a number of categories. Labels and identity politics are just not as important to us. Just because the media suddenly noticed that women were in the conservative movement, doesn’t mean that we weren’t always there. Most of my political viewpoints come directly from my mother, who became a staunch conservative in the early 80s.  We’ve always been here. Now we’re getting the recognition that we deserve.

Palin is the catalyst not the movement.

Ironically, we owe it to the feminists and liberals in Congress for galvanizing all of the suddenly-visible conservative women that are shocking! Kleinheider.

This movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. Palin was the catalyst and should be analyzed, but the media, liberals and bloggers need to look at the bigger picture. Conservative women have always been in the movement, but Sarah Palin was the first woman to resonate with us. Prior to Palin, I always admired Elizabeth Dole. However, she was a DC insider with an Ivy League education. I could admire her (and the struggles she faced at Yale) but couldn’t identify with her. When Palin arrived, we had someone who reflected us.

Had the media and feminists said, “Great. The conservative movement is finally acting on what we’ve been preaching for 30 years,” I doubt that conservative women would now be so vocal. It was the the angry reaction of the feminist movement and the media that attacked Palin,  her family and her education. Suddenly liberals questioned if a woman could work and raise a large family. Her state education was ridiculed and her middle class existence was mocked. Those were the strengths that Palin represented. She was conservative and lived a very different lifestyle from the career politicians and bi-coastal elites, who are constantly telling us how to live.

By mocking Palin and what she represented, the media and feminists were collectively slapping the faces of every conservative woman in the country. This outrage is what motivated the  conservative women’s movement to come together, and what I’ve been writing about for over a year now.

This anger motivated countless numbers of bloggers. My friend, Tabitha Hale,  started her blog directly because of Palin. It led Teri Christoph to start Smart Girl Politics. It motivated a number of women who are now running for office.

Palin wasn’t the only factor though. Conservative women, just like conservative men, are angry at the government and our free-spending Congress. Women are just as involved as men in the Tea Party. The policies and activities of the Bush Administration and now the liberals in power are motivating men and women alike to stand up. Perhaps it’s a combination of our “traditional values” and anger that have caused women to be visible.

My dad told me this week, “I’m just as conservative as your mom, but I don’t have time to go to Tea Parties.” Ironically, the traditional values and roles that conservatives have long defended are what free women up to be active in the Tea Party movement. If Congressman Blackburn noticed that Tea Parties are largely female, it’s because there are more housewives on the right. My mom has always been a conservative activist because she had the time. If women control most of the purchasing power in this country, is it surprising that we’re actively protesting the wasteful actions of our government? Tea Parties are a reflection of the masses of Americans waking up to what Congress is doing, not a sudden pink-wash of the right.

Kleinheider, and others like him, should try to do a little research.  Again, this movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. My advice to reporters and academics would be to widen your angle beyond Palin, Bachmann and Blackburn. Palin was the catalyst and deserves to be analyze.  It is shortsighted to say that the conservative movement suddenly turned pink. You’re just now noticing us.

Much of the fault lies with academics. As Ronnee Schreiber notes in her book, Righting Feminism, hardly any academic study has been conducted on conservative women…ever. There was a small amount of research done after the failure of the ERA, but they assauged their failure by concluding conservative women are no different than conservative men. Since the 1980s, they’ve assumed that conservative women view politics indentically to men. Since we’re barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, we vote as our husbands and fathers do. They fail to see that conservative women are independently conservative because that’s the political movement they agree with. Since liberal feminists created the field of gender studies and created cushy jobs for themselves, it makes sense that they wouldn’t research areas that could potentially harm the movement and their sources of income.

To be concluded in Part 2.

The Network of enlightened Women has a post up today about Title IX, the federal policy that equalizes programs for men and women across all   levels of education. Their post is in response to a Phyllis Schafly’s Townhall.com column on the subject:

We were shocked to read a November report from the U.S. Army that 75 percent of America’s 17- to 24-year-olds are not eligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, involved in crime or ae physically unfit. According to this report titled “Ready, Willing and Unable to Serve,” 27 percent of young Americans can’t join the military because they are too fat and out of shape, can’t do push-ups or pull-ups, and can’t run.

The Obama administration claims that the solution for this dilemma is to spend lots of money on pre-K schooling, but that doesn’t pass the laugh test. A better remedy would be to terminate “Title-Nining,” the malicious anti-masculine weapon used by feminists to eliminate men’s sports in college and high school

While I have the utmost respect for Schafly, I disagree that Title IX is the reason why only 27% of young men are eligible to join the armed services. As a society, we are fatter and more out of shape than previous generations. That’s a family-level problem and not one that can legislated. Furthermore, collegiate sports typically require elite skills, and the majority of male and female undergraduates lack those abilities.

Title IX is  just one more example of the federal government trying to create utopian policies that don’t work in real life. It has support from both sides of the aisle, and Sarah Palin frequently praises it in her book.  It’s one of those policies that has a good intention but is difficult to administer. How do you ensure equality in programs for men and women? A straight numbers game ends up hurting one sex over the other.

Currently if 50% of women are enrolled in college, 50% of the sports must be female.  It doesn’t matter if there is demand for one sport over another or if men are more interested in sports than women. You can’t have more male teams over female. Surprisingly, this hurts more men at major “powerhouse” universities where one or two sports take a majority of the funding and resources.

As I frequently mention, I attended the University of Tennessee  from 2000-2004 and had a friend on the men’s rowing team. One day during my sophomore year, I saw him on the UC Plaza participating in a fundraiser for his team. I was taken aback. Why did a UT athletic team have to fundraise? The UT athletics department is one of the wealthiest in the country with major endorsements from Adidas and Verizon.

It turns out that the men’s rowing team at UT was categorized as a “club” sport, and didn’t receive much funding. Thanks to Title IX, a few men’s varsity sports  were re-categorized as club sports while their female counterparts were elevated to varsity. Because UT has a powerful football program for men and a nearly powerful basketball team for women, it throws the dynamics off for all sports. While the women’s rowing team is a varsity team, the men’s side was only marginally higher than an intermural sport. Even though the men competed against varsity teams at other colleges, the UT system didn’t support them. Is this right?

On the other hand, Title IX had an unintended effect at UT. For generations, the state of Tennessee did not allow sororities to have houses on campus. A nineteenth century law mandated that any house with more than 13 women was considered a brothel. (Go ahead and laugh.) After years of complaints and watching fraternities build nicer and nicer houses on campus (and subsequently trash them. I’ve been inside those houses. Yuck!), it was finally decided that universities were discriminating against women by providing fraternity housing for men but not allowing sorority housing to be built.

Thus, Title IX both helps and harms students. As a former sorority member, I’m glad that women finally have equal access to housing on campus. Had Title IX not been around, the state legislature would have never struck down the brothel  law. However, Title IX does discriminate and men are frequently the victims.

Feminists won a mighty battle with Title IX and have used it to demand that equal numbers of male and female professors per department or assistantships be evenly split. They also demand  more scholarships go to women to decrease gender gaps, particularly in science, technology, engineering and math. At graduation in 2004, I remember a female African-American student, who was sitting behind me, bragging about her full ride to medical school despite her C average. She was well aware that her scholarship was awarded because of programs like affirmative action and Title IX and quite happy about it.  I just hope that I’m never one of her patients.

Call me crazy, but I never took a class because the professor was a man or a woman. I did take classes because a professor was the best in the field. I didn’t care what gender they were. I wanted quality and knowledge. The same goes for TAs. I would rather have a knowledgeable male TA than a female, who helped the department meet quotas but was otherwise unqualified.

Ultimately Title IX hurts students and the quality of their education. While it has good intentions, we all know where those lead, and  I doubt that feminists in the 70s meant for this policy to help sorority women. Programs like Title IX should not exist. It should be up to the individual school or body governing that school to decide how resources are used. Title IX takes power away from the students, faculty and administrators and gives it to bureaucrats.

There are days when I think I should have lived in the 1950s. Fabulous clothes, nice manners, traditional gender roles and lots of martinis. Forget social media. Life would have been better. When I read about what feminists are trying to do to Taylor Swift, I have those moments.

Earlier this week, I posted a link to the firestorm that Amanda Hess set off by attacking Swift’s wholesomeness. Other bloggers have picked up the theme and continue attack her for wearing sparkly dresses, the frequent use of the Cinderella theme in her videos, and the lack of man-hating in her lyrics. Now, I like Taylor Swift. I don’t identify with her music since I’m long past high school, but it’s fun and catchy. It’s great for road trips when I amuse myself by singing to my iPod.

I don’t understand the debate. Unlike Britney or Jessica Simpson who  made a big deal over their values and virginity, Swift hasn’t said anything. She hasn’t made any proclamations about her faith or values. She hasn’t leveraged her purity to sell more records, and her dad hasn’t made creepy comments about her.  She isn’t beating any sensitive, politically correct liberals over the head with Bible verses or being “intolerant.” In fact, all she’s done is put out catchy music and wear lots of formals in her public appearances. The closest thing to being “offensive” was  dating a Jonas Brother, who have made a big deal out of their faith.

I don’t know the motivations behind Swift’s image. Her parents are extremely wealthy and moved to Nashville in order to pursue her music career. Most up-and-coming singers  don’t have their own recording studios at home. Her image could be a ploy to be the good girl and then take the path well-traveled by Christina, Britney, Lindsay and Miley Cyrus once she’s solidified her fan base.

Or, perhaps Taylor Swift could just like romance and pretty dresses. What’s wrong with that?

Thus far, Swift has conducted herself with poise and dignity. She has not used sex or her body to fuel record sales. In most career paths, we would call that mature and professional. As a society, are we so desensitized to raunchiness  that when a young woman conducts herself as a lady, we question her motivations?

Are feminists attacking her because Swift is nearing 20 and not “exploring her sexuality” by putting out raunchy videos? Or, is the media getting tired of her wholesome image and trying to manufacture her downfall since Swift seems to be mature and happy? Is there not enough drama for tabloid fodder? Jezebel puzzles over this:

She’s completely non-threatening to some because she doesn’t rely on overt sexuality to sell records, and yet she’s incredibly threatening to others because her image seems to rely on the suppression of sexuality in order to sell records. Taylor Swift, in short, is confusing the hell out of everyone. As Amanda Hess of The Sexist writes, “I don’t know if Taylor Swift is a feminist role model, or a palpable pop princess sent from the Christian right to corral the youth of America into antiquated gender roles.”

These types of posts truly disgust me. Why are they giving Taylor Swift the Palin treatment simply because she doesn’t adhere to established stereotypes and frames? Not many women set out to disprove the Cinderella story. In fact, most women never quite give up the princess fantasy. Watch a few episodes of Say Yes to the Dress if you disagree.

Taylor Swift is not surreptitiously forcing old-fashioned values or “anti-feminist” ideals on anyone. She’s boldly writing music about her own perceptions and experiences in life. The fact that she’s so successful shows that she resounds with most people, particularly tweens and teenage girls. She has guts to attack ex-boyfriends by writing songs about them.

Why do women in the media spotlight have to ascribe to feminism and be feminist role models? Why do self-proclaimed “feminists” get to decide who deserves the label and attack those they deem unworthy? Taylor Swift  is another example of  a strong, independent woman who doesn’t quite fit within the narrow stereotype of the women’s movement. Unlike Sarah Palin, who was brave enough to call herself a feminist and stand for pro-life values and marriage, Swift is simply an entertainer. What has she done to deserve this backlash?

Swift isn’t a trailblazer nor is she courting the “religious right.” She’s merely being a feminine woman, something which most liberal women will never understand.  She’s like Palin in the sense that the vast majority of women identify with her. Women like to be treated like princesses and look pretty. Most women remember having their heartbroken as teenagers or experiencing unrequited love. She’s popular because most people go through those things. Most women don’t exploit their sexuality as “power” and get ticked off when treated like a $2 hooker. Most women, including myself, like men to be chivalrous. They aren’t going to propose or ask guys out like Amanda Hess complains.

The Chaliceblog does point out a hypocrisy that I noted a few weeks ago:

*It says something that when Buffy the Vampire Slayer slept with a boy who literally TURNED EVIL, this was regarded as more or less symbolic truth and I don’t recall any feminist critiques of the matter.

Women out there should be offended by these attacks on Taylor Swift. Attacks on Swift — like attacks on Sarah Palin — are attacks on women like myself. These bloggers are trying to destroy any media images of traditional values or femininity and be the sole voice for young girls and women. There’s a pattern here, Palin, Twilight and now Taylor Swift. Through these articles and blog posts, liberal women are trying to shut down any image counter to the one they support. If feminine and traditional images like Taylor Swift are allowed to succeed, that’s one more blow to their fragile movement. They simply can not allow the idea to continue that some women like the idea of Prince Charming, acting like a lady or dressing feminine. That negates all of their work, going back to Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique. In order to be successful and survive, Taylor Swift, Sarah Palin, Twilight and any other varation of tradition, romance, femininity or Cinderella must be systematically destroyed. Images of successful, happy women who choose traditional roles or even traditional ways of dressing prove that feminism is not the answer for women and exposes the movement for the fraud that it is.

One unfortunate side of the punditry and blogosphere is the endless dissecting of pop culture for deeper spiritual, political and societal meanings. It happens every time there’s a blockbuster movie, hit song or TV show. Among Christians, Harry Potter has been a divisive issue. Apparently, New Moon of the Twilight series is that way to feminists. Is Twilight that bad, or is it targeted because the author is a conservative Mormon? When compared to other examples in Vampire lore, the feminists are on shaky ground.

Over at Fourth Wave Woman, I’ve written about the left’s attack on Stephanie Meyers and how it seems to be a front for an attack on conservative Mormonism. Then, I ran across a post by Sarah Seltzer at RH Reality Check on how to get over Edward Cullen in four easy steps. Seltzer compares Twilight to other vampire series, namely Buffy and Sookie Stackhouse.

Unlike most of the articles about Twilight that I’ve read, I agreed with a few points, especially the first one. However, the author fails to note that all of the romantic interests of the highlighted vampire series have major issues. As a fan of all three, I deeply disliked the main love interests. Angel (Buffy) and Vampire Bill (Sookie Stackhouse) are just as creepy and controlling as the despised Edward Cullen from Twilight.

Years after the series ended, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the paramount modern feminist heroine. This is despite her weakness for a controlling and domineering vampire boyfriend  in the case of Angel. I loved Buffy because she was a short, blonde who kicked butt and wore cute clothes. I always hated that she was so entangled with someone like Angel.

In all three examples,  I always preferred the alternate love interest (Spike in the case of Buffy, Eric in Sookie Stackhouse and Jacob in Twilight). Unlike the romantic lead, these men/vampires/werewolves respected the heroines and proved steadfast. Angel, Vampire Bill and Edward Cullen all leave the main characters in the lurch. It’s up to the other guy to always pick up the pieces and inevitably rescue the heroine in her time of need. In fact, if feminists are going to fault Twilight, they need to fault the wider vampire oeuvre. Within the pages of fantasy and vampire lore, sexism is rampant, and the heroine is generally in love with a dark, handsome…jerk.

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