All over the web, I’ve read the reaction of feminists to the Tebow Superbowl commercial and almost universal laughter at their charge of domestic abuse. When I first saw Amanda Marcotte’s tweet and then saw that NOW, Women’s Media Center and other organizations were going with that angle, I rolled my eyes. This was clearly a group that picked an unwise battle, came out on the losing side and was desperately trying to save face.

After seeing Megyn Kelly’s interview with Women’s Media Center spokesperson, (always use gender neutral speech when referencing feminists) Shelby Knox, I remembered a few facts about the feminist movement’s relationship with domestic violence. After the video, let’s examine other high-profiles of domestic violence* and the feminist movement. It’s not such a supportive history.

Superbowl Sunday 1993
The week prior to the Superbowl, numerous women’s groups announced that calls to domestic violence shelters dramatically increased the day after the Superbowl. Watching men beat each other up on the gridiron caused men to rough up their wives, girlfriends and mothers.

Wrong! It turns out a “coalition of women’s groups” in California had fudged some numbers from a study conducted at Old Dominion University and actually misquoted an expert on domestic violence in their press release. However, the damage was done. If you Google “Superbowl, domestic violence” hits come up for nearly every year since then. Christina Hoff Sommers also examines the evolution of this myth in Who Stole Feminism?

O.J. Simpson 1994
In her book, The New Thought Police, Tammy Bruce recounts here experience in leading the California NOW chapter’s efforts to fight domestic violence after Nicole Brown Simpson was found murdered. Regardless if OJ did it or not, there was clear evidence that she has frequently abused in the relationship. Bruce use the high-profile story to lead candlelight vigils and increase advocacy efforts to fight domestic violence. She was making so much noise in California that conservative Christians were donating money to their domestic violence efforts.

A problem emerged when higher-ups in the NOW told Bruce to stop. She was making the NAACP and other minority partners upset. In the grand scheme of leftist politics, race counted more than sex (according to Leslie Sanchez’s book, We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe, this was also was a factor in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign). According to the hierarchy of Democrats, feminists couldn’t highlight the domestic abuse issue in the OJ Simpson case because OJ was black. Despite the good that might come about, it ruffled feathers in the liberal coalition. Bruce was maligned by the highest levels of NOW and the feminist movement and officials distanced themselves from her.

Bill Clinton, late 1990s
Despite mounting evidence that Bill Clinton took advantage of women and potentially raped them. Aside from Monica, which would have been deemed inappropriate by any private workplace, (Harassment of interns should never be tolerated even when “consensual.”) there was Juanita Broadderick, Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones. Not one feminist group stood up to Clinton. Like the Bruce situation, they sacrificed one for the team in order to protect their waning voice in Democratic politics.

Domestic Violence in LGBT Relationships
Domestic violence PSAs and images are very stereotyped. What do you call a man’s sleeveless undershirt? A wifebeater! Where do you think that name came from?

A dirty little secret among feminists and other liberal groups is that domestic violence is just as prevalent among LGBT intimate partners as it is among heterosexuals. That mans that middle-aged white men are not the most dangerous individuals around, as feminists would have you believe. Anyone can perpetrate violence against an intimate partner, women against men, women against women and men against men. When was the last time you heard that talked about during Domestic Violence Awareness month?

Feminists are quick to play the domestic violence card when it suits their purposes. However, whenever it might place them in a sticky situation or make their friends look bad, it doesn’t happen. Every time they cry wolf about an issue and then fall back on a domestic violence charge, it cheapens the actual problem of domestic abuse in our society. Every false charge hurts women (and men and children) who are stuck in violent situation. Having seen and talked to kids and women who were real victims, it makes me sick to see them attempt to gain political capital from a bad strategic decision.

High profile groups such as NOW and Women’s Media Center may give lip service with a few PSAs and press releases throughout the year, but they cause real harm to the small groups and hard-working advocates fighting this terrible problem in society. On the same day that they called Pam Tebow’s tackle “bizarre” or “violent,” a real case of high-profile abuse by a Warren Sapp, former NFL player and Dancing With the Stars finalist, was reported. Did you hear any feminists condemn his actions? Joe Henderson, columnist at the Tampa Bay Tribune has a problem with the situation:

NOW fights legitimate issues and has been a strong (if occasionally strident) voice against real problems in society.

This isn’t one of them.

A statement like this actually hurts women’s causes because it comes across as irrational wide-eyed rhetoric, especially when you consider the timing.

Hours before the Tebow ad ran, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Warren Sapp was arrested in Miami on a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery against a woman.

Where was Terry O’Neill on that one? (H/T NeW)

Groups that claim to fight domestic violence should not be selective when it has the potential to get their names in the news and raise a few dollars. Either they fight every case or they don’t engage. Sadly, there are enough high-profile domestic violence cases that they could made an difference if they actually lived up to their name. Instead, they tried to fight pro-lifers and looked like idiots, so they changed strategies and exploited a cause that has the potential to inflict real damage in the lives of women.

It’s rare that a Washington Post columnist echos sentiments that were written here. Sally Jenkins, a sports columnist and self-declared feminist defends Tim Tebow over the silly media frenzy that NOW has concocted in a desperate plea for media attention. While I disagree with her politics, Jenkins nails it with her column on several points.

1) NOW doesn’t represent all women, just women who support abortion without restrictions. Jenkins writes:

I’m pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the “National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time.” For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow’s 30-second ad hasn’t even run yet, but it already has provoked “The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us” to reveal something important about themselves: They aren’t actually “pro-choice” so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Now, where have I heard that before? Possibly here?

Many have complained that this isn’t fair because CBS has apparently changed a policy. Get over it. Do you really think they’re going to favor a fervently conservative organization? CBS is in the business to make money not win brownie points with Christians. If Focus was the first group to benefit from a policy change, that leaves feminist groups looking like whiny kids. At some point in women’s history, the “It’s not Fair!” charge has to end.

2) Free speech works both ways.

This is a lesson that both liberals and some right-wing groups could learn. Just because someone says something that you don’t like, you can’t silence them. Free speech is still a right in this country. As an organization, it is your job to ensure that your message is strong enough to withstand attacks from the other side. Clearly, NOW has issues with the validity of their message when they won’t even allow it to be debated. Jenkins explains:

Let me be clear again: I couldn’t disagree with Tebow more. It’s my own belief that the state has no business putting its hand under skirts. But I don’t care that we differ. Some people will care that the ad is paid for by Focus on the Family, a group whose former spokesman, James Dobson, says loathsome things about gays. Some will care that Tebow is a creationist. Some will care that CBS has rejected a gay dating service ad. None of this is the point. CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening — or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.

Tebow’s ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it’s apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.” This is what NOW has labeled “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.” But if there is any demeaning here, it’s coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren’t real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.

3) The abortion debate should be about eliminating the need for abortion not destroying the other side. I absolutely agree with Jenkins here, and believe that pro-lifers could learn a thing or two.

There’s not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the “need” for abortions wasn’t so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow’s ad.

A liberal friend of mine noted on Facebook that no one is winning the culture war. I agree. Rather than proactively working to reduce the number of abortions or the need for them, both sides just take pot-shots at each other and struggle to have the final word.

This is a touchy subject within the pro-life community. Perhaps I’m a pragmatist, but I believe that under any circumstance abortion is murder, so we should work to build a society where it is not accepted. Part of this is restoring the sanctity of human life, which pro-life groups work towards. It also involves practical public policy decisions regarding access to contraception and sex education. The jury is still out on what type of sex ed works (there’s a new study out today that shows abstinence does work). Even though I used to write grants on reproductive health programs at a nonprofit, I’m still unclear what works best, and I’m familiar with the data. However, I believe that pro-lifers need to be a little more willing to work on these issues.

Conversely, anti-lifers need to face facts about how terrible abortion is. There’s nothing wrong with parental notification or requiring a woman to have a sonogram before aborting. If you are willing to end a life that you created, you should have to face that life. Convicts facing the death penalty at least get to face their victims or families of victims. The unborn do not receive that right. Instead, the anti-life movement makes it appear that abortion is some magic pill that makes a baby go “poof!” I think they’d get a lot further with their “choice” argument and feeble attempts to claim that they want to “reduce” abortions, if they came clean about the horrors of the medical procedure.

A post at Hot Air covers the anti-life/Tebow debate currently going on from an interesting perspective. After reading it, I started wondering if the true debate over feminism and all the underlying issues is the definition of female empowerment? Doctor Zero writes:

It’s nostalgic to read a press release from NOW again. The organization was last seen sinking into the bubbling tar of the Clinton impeachment saga, babbling incomprehensibly about how sexual harassment really isn’t such a big deal when pro-abortion Democrat presidents do it. Like every appendage of the socialist state, NOW has no principle beyond fealty to the political party that grants it power, and the Democrats used to grant them a remarkable amount of power – enough to end the careers of Navy officers and combat pilots, after “investigations” that stopped just short of waterboarding. When NOW talks about “empowering” women, it speaks in the collective sense. Empowerment comes from obedience to feminist organizations, which use that power to drag an oversized chair up to the grim carving table where the Democrat Party wields its redistibutionist cleavers.

As I said earlier this week, feminists desperately need pro-lifers to continue the debate and keep their movement somewhat cohesive. Feminism is such a fractured ideal that abortion, err “women’s rights,” is the only real uniting thread. As long as the abortion debate continues, feminists have one common rallying point. Without it, they descend in to smaller, argumentative groups (lesbians vs. transgendered vs. black women vs. eco-feminists vs. porn stars vs. academics, etc. ).

We saw this in the early days of the radical women’s movement in the 6os. The movement was chaotic and cannibalistic. Every time a leader emerged, the masses destroyed her because they believed an individual female leader would trample the power of the collective. Roe vs. Wade was the only issue that anyone could unite around. After the 1973 decision, radical feminists tried to revive the movement with the Pornography Wars in the 80s but even that was contentious. As Doctor Zero wrote:

Some critics cite unquestioning support for unrestricted abortion rights as the primary demonstration of loyalty power feminists seek from their supporters, but the NOW offensive against the Tebow ad, and their response to Sarah Palin, suggest the true sacrament of radical feminism is not abortion… it’s opposition to the pro-life movement. Power in a collectivist system comes from tribal loyalty, and hatred is a powerful glue for holding collectives together. As with leftist racial groups, NOW has very little positive to offer its supporters these days, so it thrives by pointing fingers at its enemies. Religious people in general, and outspoken pro-life advocates in particular, look very good on the business end of a trembling finger.

Pro-lifers don’t need feminists. We have other issues and religious convictions to keep us motivated. Our movement is tightly defined and is based on absolute truths.We know that as long as abortions are conducted, we have a mission. Feminists derive their mission from fighting us. Resistance to another political force can not sustain a movement. Just look at all the failed third-parties throughout U.S. history.

But what makes feminism so fractured?  I frequently get comments from feminists saying, “If X or Y happens, perhaps all women can unite and vote together.” That simply won’t happen because of the very foundations that feminism is built on condemn it.

This is where things get confusing.  That fundamental opposition is based on the socialistic roots of feminism and the post-modern nature of the movement.

Groups based on post-modernism and moral relativism, the darlings of all left-of-center groups, will always struggle to achieve long-term survival. When truth and reality are different to each of your members, how do you form cohesion that can be multiplied into a strong political force? Dissensions and splintering will always occur. Identity politics ultimately fail. When groups form around superficial qualities rather than tightly defined philosophies, individuals with even more similarities will always join together and break off from the original group. They splinter off into smaller and smaller groups until the multiplier effect is destroyed.

This is why liberalism and progressives have always ebbed and flowed in this country. The movement consists of smaller groups that all believe different things. They were all united in 2008 against George W. Bush, but fell apart after Obama was elected. Just look at the progressive outrage at the health care bill.

Conversely, conservatism has always remained strong. Oh, we’ve achieved political power and lost it, but that is largely due to economic forces, abuse of power, a lack of leadership and the difference between Republicanism and conservatism.  Since the 18th century, the three pillars that unite conservatives have remained largely unchanged. Our labels are different (back then an American conservative would have been a liberal), but our philosophy is consistent.

This is a point that I’ve struggled to formulate for a while. I’ve discussed it terms of gender feminism vs. equity feminism, feminism vs. Feminism and Big Feminism vs. feminism. I continue to write these posts and always feel unsatisfied that I haven’t articulated what I see as the real problem. To go back to my original question, I continue to ask what is female empowerment?

On the surface, feminism is a positive thing. Hardly anyone would disagree that women have been maligned throughout history. Extending equality to cover gender and race was a much-needed step that our country took. I have no issue with this type of feminism known as equity feminism. As I’ve stated before, mainstream society absorbed this level of feminism. There will always be pockets of abuse and misogyny, but we have progressed radically in a few short decades.

To an equity feminist, female empowerment would be defined as providing equal opportunities to men and women. Once women are given the same opportunities as men, it is up to individual women to decide what is best for her life. This is why an educated woman can decide to stay home. Once society ensures the same opportunities for all genders, equality has been established. Equity feminism is built around the individual.

However, the downside is that the political movement that brought about this change has to either radically change, move onto another issue or acquiesce it’s power. It’s a problem of success.

Conversely, we have gender feminists.

Gender feminism is based on socialism. I hate invoking the socialism label, since many conservatives have cried wolf with it for so long. However, it is true. Feminism evolved out the the radical socialist movement that infiltrated the U.S. in the 1920s. Most of the early leaders in the feminist movement were members of the Communist Party or Socialist Party or were children of members.

The 1960s movement literally started when women involved with the civil rights battle were not promoted into leadership. The overwhelming majority were on the far, far left of the political spectrum and believed that capitalism, private property and right of the individual were hurting minorities and women. In order to win, those foundations had to be eliminated.

Look at the beliefs of gender feminism: men need to be suppressed to promote women, the entire patriarchy has to be destroyed to liberate women, in order to destroy the patriarchy, we have to move past capitalism, eliminate personal property and make sure that the rights of the individual do not trample the over-arching rights of the collective community. Is that not the gender version of socialism?

Remember that in socialism, the community is more important that the rights of the individual.Or as the the writers of Grassroots explained a woman can be pro-life and a feminist until she acts on her pro-life views. At that point, she’s placing her individual beliefs above other women and can’t be a feminist.

Go back to what Doctor Zero wrote:

Like every appendage of the socialist state, NOW has no principle beyond fealty to the political party that grants it power, and the Democrats used to grant them a remarkable amount of power – enough to end the careers of Navy officers and combat pilots, after “investigations” that stopped just short of waterboarding. When NOW talks about “empowering” women, it speaks in the collective sense. Empowerment comes from obedience to feminist organizations, which use that power to drag an oversized chair up to the grim carving table where the Democrat Party wields its redistibutionist cleavers.

If feminism is the gender arm of socialism, it answers to the greater political power. This is why when feminism disagrees with the leadership–the Democratic Party–feminism bends. You don’t see this in conservative circles. Many pro-life groups were blasted when they did not oppose the House’s health care bill. It was simply beyond the scope of their mission. After the Stupak Amendment was added, they were satisfied. They did not bend to the larger will of the Republican Party and rouse their members. They stuck to their individual mission.

Since the Democratic Party and the U.S. liberal community are more important than individual groups, feminists can afford to be hypocrites when it comes to defending Bill Clinton or discriminating against Sarah Palin. The collective is more important than the individual.

This is why empowering women to a gender feminist means forcing all women to agree with a checklist of issues and beliefs. Empowerment is not giving a woman the ability to make the best choices for herself, based on individual goals, beliefs and philosophies, but making sure that a woman makes decisions that uphold the collective’s views. Remember what Doctor Zero also said:

…the NOW offensive against the Tebow ad, and their response to Sarah Palin, suggest the true sacrament of radical feminism is not abortion… it’s opposition to the pro-life movement. Power in a collectivist system comes from tribal loyalty, and hatred is a powerful glue for holding collectives together. As with leftist racial groups, NOW has very little positive to offer its supporters these days, so it thrives by pointing fingers at its enemies. Religious people in general, and outspoken pro-life advocates in particular, look very good on the business end of a trembling finger.

Over and over again, I’ve said that feminism only respects liberal women. Even though a woman can reflect the values of equity feminism, that is not enough to entrenched groups like NOW. The minute they liberate their followers to support the promotion of other women, they lose the socialism war. Every Pam Tebow or Sarah Palin that deviates from the collective must be destroyed completely. Otherwise, the community is left open to asserting their own individual views and questioning the greater fight against capitalism.

I realize that this is an extraordinarily long post, but it more adequately covers my objections to feminism. Beyond the moral objections, I simply cannot support a collectivist group. The more I examine politics, the more I believe that the two philosophies of collectivism/community vs. individuals is the true battle. The issues will always change, but some people genuinely believe that their personal rights should be censored in order to make the community better. This is why liberals rarely object to higher taxes. Conservatives believe that when the individual is empowered, it encourages others to build better lives. I guess it could be described as “it takes a village vs. pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

Nearly every news outlet and blog has a post or story about the pro-life Tim Tebow commercial to be aired during the Superbowl on CBS.

I fail to see why this is a big deal.

The Tebows, a strong Christian family with misguided football loyalties, made a commercial with Focus on the Family about their choices. Focus then came up with the cash to buy the spot from CBS. Why then does this create controversy? Free speech works both ways.

If this ad was purchased by NARAL or EMILY’S List about how Tebow supported his girlfriend in her choice to abort due to an unplanned pregnancy, wouldn’t these groups applaud?

When did our society arrive at a place that “celebrating life,” as Focus on the Family puts it, is controversial? This ad highlights one woman’s choice. She chose not to abort and look what happened. (Who knows what might have happened if all the aborted people were allowed to live?) Women need to know that choosing life is just as valid a decision. That option is rarely given any attention. Just look at all the anger aimed at Palin for knowingly giving birth to a baby with Down’s Syndrome.*

Educating women about all of their choices should be a priority of the women’s movement. However, this is only one more example of how the anti-life crowd only educates women on pre-approved “choices.” Women deserve to know all of their options. How often do they get those at an abortion clinic or Planned Parenthood facility? Lila Rose has exposed how often women hear about adoption or life at those facilities.

Anti-life forces are in an uproar, but they can only speculate about what’s in the ad. All Focus on the Family has said is:

The 30-second spot from the international family-help organization will feature college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. They will share a personal story centered on the theme of “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

Jim Daly, president and CEO of Focus on the Family, said the chance to partner with the Tebows and lift up a meaningful message about family and life comes at the right moment in the culture, because “families need to be inspired.”

“Tim and Pam share our respect for life and our passion for helping families thrive,” Daly said. “They live what we see every day – that the desire for family closeness is written on the hearts of every generation. Focus on the Family is about nurturing that desire and strengthening families by empowering them with the tools they need to live lives rooted in morals and values.”

Broadsheet admits that no one knows what is in the ad, but since the Women’s Media Center has launched a petition, it must be alarming. Oh my gosh! A petition! Tracy Clark-Flory writes:

A Focus on the Family spokesperson told the Washington Post that the ad isn’t overtly political, but a petition by the Women’s Media Center argues otherwise: “By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers.” There is no denying the organization’s founder, James Dobson, is about as polarizing a political figure as they come.

The problem isn’t that CBS sold the spot to Focus on the Family. The problem is that the anti-life crowd is losing the messaging war. It’s possible to talk about celebrating life without politicizing it. It’s easy to sell pictures of happy families and babies. How many mothers have ever publicly said they regret choosing life? Compare that to the numbers of women who regret having an abortion. Life is the positive. Abortion is the negative.

How do you sell abortion? It’s almost impossible to talk about abortion or “choice” without involving polarizing politics. The images are always of angry women protesting and holding signs. What’s their alternative? Pictures of aborted babies that highlight the truth of abortion?  The anti-lifers are losing this issue. Poll numbers prove it. It explains why anti-life feminists lose it when Focus on the Family celebrates life with Tim Tebow and his family, or Sarah and Bristol Palin are on the cover of a tabloid.

Abortion is still legal in this country. Even though Roe vs. Wade is a horrible judicial decision (an opinion asserted by all sides) it’s unlikely to be overturned any time in the near future. However, every positive pro-life message, every Bristol Palin magazine cover, every photo of amazing neo-natal surgeries, ultrasounds or medical advances put another nail in the coffin of abortion’s public image.

“Choice” is abstract. “Life” is concrete and visual. Every time that you show that a fetus is viable and valued, from medicine science news to Lacey Peterson laws, it hurts the public perception of abortion.  These images don’t affect laws or legal precedents, but they expose the fraud that the “choice” crowd continues to disseminate. That’s why they focus on “choice.” As soon as you focus on a baby, you lose the debate.

As the “choice” debate unravels, it shows that the only difference between a premature baby getting the best neo-natal care and an aborted fetus is desire. If the “planned” or “wanted” pregnancies are the best justifications for abortion, these groups are in trouble. That’s a flimsy excuse for murder, and an extremely brutal murder at that. If abortion was re-created outside of the womb to kill a person, it could only be described as gruesome and barbaric. Why do we continue to do this to the most helpless members of our society? Since it’s hidden and only happens on the inside of women’s bodies, not many people understand how brutal the abortion medical procedure truly is.

Medical science is on the side of life. Rather than spending millions to defend abortion, why don’t these groups work on educating impoverished women on birth control or help them earn an education? (I wish more pro-life groups did the same.) All sides should make abortion the absolute worst-case option. There’s enough money and nonprofit infrastructure to make abortion unnecessary in our society. The problem is that feminists need it to survive.

The simple matter is that abortion and all “attacks” on it are cash cows for groups like NOW, EMILY’S List, Feminist Majority and NARAL. Without us pesky pro-lifers, the money stream from supporters would dry up. These groups need to manufacture crises in order to survive since public opinion and the progress of science is against them.

The pro-life side will always have supporters due to our religious faith and the issues of euthanasia, stem cell research and cloning. Our side is evolving. The abortion side is dying. The writing is on the wall for abortion supporters, and that is why their reactions get more hysterical and ridiculous. They ought to be thankful to Focus on the Family for giving them a something to protest since “women’s issues” have become little more than arguments over botox taxes, middle-age columnists regretting not getting married and having babies and debates if Lady Gaga represents feminist ideals.

*Why is the special needs community not more outraged at abortion? Only 10% of special needs children are born, which reeks of eugenics and is a borderline holocaust for this community. What does our society reflect when we only allow the desirable and perfect to be born?

I’m about to write words that I never thought would remotely cross my mind: someone at Daily Kos wrote a post that makes sense.

Angry Mouse writes in Feminism Fail:

No, not that kind of feminism. Not the theory of women’s equality or the history of suffrage or the First Wave or the Third Wave or 18 million tiny cracks in the glass ceiling.

I’m talking about Feminism^TM, as in the largest feminist advocacy organizations in the country raising millions of dollars to fight on behalf of women.

And I’m wondering if Feminism^TM is really such a good investment.

You got that right. After initial successes in getting media attention and making inroads at the workplace in the 70s, feminists realized that they had a good thing going. What’s better than being an activist for a movement? Being a paid activist for a movement. How do you sustain the movement? You create cushy academic programs to ensure that your belief system is passed onto younger generations. Despite all of their gains in certain sectors, like the media and academia, these women are always in a crisis! of some type. Why? Crises are extremely profitable:

And it’s always a crisis. Even under a Democratic president, with a Democratic supermajority in Congress, the nation’s biggest feminist organizations are in crisis mode, raising money but unable to deliver results. They’re just as effective as they were under Bush. Which is to say, Not. At. All.

Could it be that women are catching on that this philosophy is superficial and doesn’t work outside of a hippie commune? This week, the National Journal examined how the Susan B. Anthony List has tripled the amount of PAC money spent compared to NOW, that old stalwart of the feminist movement. However, when all pro-life PAC money is compared to anti-life PAC money, the anti-lifers outspent us. Just what did they do with all that money? Since a majority of Americans are now opposed to abortion, it doesn’t appear that the angry ladies have been very successful. Angry Mouse isn’t too happy about it:

In the last decade, we’ve seen more restrictions on women’s reproductive health, more government-funded sex (mis)education, and budget cuts everywhere — for after school and early education programs, for employment and training programs, for programs to fight domestic violence — all of which directly and disproportionately impact women.

And at every step backwards, the major feminist organizations have been powerless to stop it. Or just plain absent.

Both the Daily Kos piece and the National Journal article discuss how feminist groups were silent on the health care debate until the Stupak Amendment passed in the House. National Journal writes:

The Susan B. Anthony List has been educating its audience on health care reform since early spring, while NOW was getting ready to change its leadership. Yet NOW is well-situated to fire up public pressure because it has 450 regional chapters — some of which have their own paid staff.

And Angry Mouse:

In other words, Emily’s List didn’t bother to raise awareness of the threat to reproductive rights when it might have mattered. You know, before Congress voted on the Stupak Amendment.

Over the summer, while members of Congress were speaking with their constituents about what should and shouldn’t be included in the health care bill, where were the feminist organizations? They weren’t mobilizing the millions of women across the country who would have been only too glad to raise their voices in opposition. Guess it just wasn’t a good time.

No, they were busy sitting on their hands, apparently waiting for the eleventh hour, waiting for it to be a crisis.

Meanwhile, the nation watched wall-to-wall coverage of teabaggers screaming nonsense about socialist death panels. And that tiny fringe of teabaggers, with their signs and their slogans and their stunts, was so effective that they actually succeeded in killing the part of the bill they found objectionable. Score? Teabaggers: 1, Feminists: Big, fat zero.

We’re seeing an overwhelming malaise on the left, particularly among women. Feminists were successful when they had major donors and the media in their pockets. When the news was controlled by only a few, they could make it look like all women supported these efforts. However, now that alternative media and the Web have grown, and conservative female leaders have emerged, feminists can no longer keep up the charade.

Perhaps the biggest change this year is the freedom to be female and conservative. For most of my life, I felt like the lone voice in the wilderness. It’s as though the feminist shackles are removed, and women can be articulate, educated, professional and conservative. While I’m gleeful to see organizations that I’m ethically opposed to struggle, this ultimately gives women more choices. Women no longer have to doggedly follow one set ideology. They have the freedom to decide which side they publicly support. Ironically, the decline of Big Feminism means that the equality goals of feminism could actually be achieved.