...now get back to makin' babies....
Oh, the word games. The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund has included our own Kristi Noem among eight women it endorses as candidates representing "authentic feminism." The SBA List are the same folks who bring you Team Sarah, which should tell you about the shallow cult-of-personality politics the organization is after.
So what would these conservative wordsmiths have us believe "authentic feminism" is? The only distinction their endorsement of Kristi Noem appears to make between her and the by-implication fake feminists of the Democratic Party (because, of course, all eight of the SBA List endorsees are Republicans) is that they want to ban abortion. SBA List's raison d'être is to promote "pro-life" female candidates. They doctor up their endorsement in all sorts of other amusing code words about restoring femininity to feminism (what, because Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is too butch for you?). They blow vagueries about returning to Susan B. Anthony's suffragist roots (what, because SHS wants to repeal the 19th Amendment?).
But all they really want is for government to control women's uteri, with the votes of useful women as convenient cover. They want to reinforce the patriarchal message that women can only achieve "equality" by fulfilling the traditional role of motherhood.
Feminism has room for strong women of opposing views. Feminism has room for women who would never choose to have an abortion. But feminism does not have room for women who would take that choice away from all women, as men have tried to do for generations.
Get real, Republicans. Sarah Palin and Kristi Noem and the SBA List are not feminists. The SBA List wants to put lipstick on the paternalist pig of abortion bans.
[Note: The author recognizes the irony (arrogance? contradiction?) of a man presuming to comment on the boundaries of feminism. The author pleads the court of feminist opinion's indulgence.]
Kristi Noem is the anti-civil rights candidate campaigning for government control over womens' rights to privacy as described in the Bill of Rights.
ReplyDeleteThe TP wing of the GOP who say they loathe Government really want courts to capitulate to the supernatural so the Citizens for Libertyness s can stone abortionists in the public square all the while praying for the souls of the preborn and launching wave after wave of Predator drones to kill sleeping Afghan and Pakistani children.
Love the post, Cory!
ReplyDelete"The author recognizes the irony (arrogance? contradiction?) of a man presuming to comment on the boundaries of feminism."
ReplyDeleteSo Cory, are you adopting the PC totalitarian position that men should shut up and not be allowed free speech?
Larry,
Where is the Constitution does it say that any citizen has a "right" to kill another citizen, as long as it is done in a private setting?
Steve Sibson
Cory,
ReplyDeleteYou headline is a complete lie. It is the far-left Progressives that have rejected the "Rule of Law" and replaced it with the "Rule of Men"...tyranny. [For you PC Cultural Marxist worshipers read it "Rule of Men/Women/gender confused".]
Steve Sibson
No, Steve. I do not adopt any positions that exist only in your imagination.
ReplyDeleteRight next to the passage that reads, "You have the right to invade a sovereign country under false pretenses and kill 200,000 children while they sleep," Steve.
ReplyDeleteSecond trimester, it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
Cory,
ReplyDeleteWow. I'm amazed someone can with a straight face say what you did.
I don't know a single pro-life woman who holds this position because of they were told to hold this position by a man. Instead, by their experience as women, they have determined it was a human life they held in their body and to terminate its life intentionally would be murder.
Disagree with them if you choose but to be so arrogant and condescending is amazing, especially for one who claims to stand up for women.
Personally, at least for the women in my life, I've learned I don't have to stand up for them. They do quite well on their own. By the way, their views on abortion are stronger than mine.
What boggles me, Troy, is that Noem and her endorsers can claim with a straight face that a single issue, their willingness to deny women reproductive choice, distinguishes them as authentic feminists. They do not understand the term.
ReplyDeleteLet's see we have one group supporting women candidates who oppose abortion (Susan B. Anthony group) and another group supporting women candidates who support abortion (Emily's List). Yet only one is criticized by you.
ReplyDeleteI guess I shouldn't be surprised a liberal would think a woman can't be a feminist if she opposes abortion. Liberals don't think a person is really black unless they support liberal positions.
Hmmmm. Why are those who claim to be intellectual and rational are so threatened by people using their minds and reason to reach positions opposed to them? Is it because they only consider people "intelligent and reasonable" if they agree with them?
No, Troy, I'm not obliged to criticize Emily's List by any of the claims I make here. Both SBA List and Emily's List are entitled to coalesce around single issues and promote candidates on the basis of their positions on that single issue. But if you read the links above to This Week in Lady News, you'll get a better picture of where I'm coming from in saying that SBA List's effort to co-opt feminism on the basis of this single issue touches on larger issues that are fundamentally patriarchal and anti-feminist. Emily's List does not make any equivalent, logically untenable claim and thus does not draw my criticism in this post.
ReplyDelete(And don't get me going on the black question -- that's not relevant to the position I'm laying out.)
"No, Steve. I do not adopt any positions that exist only in your imagination."
ReplyDeleteNot my imagination, you typed it yourself. So go ahead and prove it a second time by banning me again.
Steve Sibson
Cory, from your Lady's News link:
ReplyDelete"Here at TWILN, we like to abuse dogs by reading them the latest authorized biography of Rush Limbaugh. Have any pictures of your cat reading Glenn Beck, your bird reading "Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity," or maybe your beloved pet snake with one of Ann Coulter's literary triumphs? Send to TWILN!"
So what is their problem with Ann Coulter...she is too white?
Steve Sibson
Cory,
ReplyDelete"co-opt feminism". What is feminism?
Can a woman who has become a CEO, elected to office, and supported equality of opportunity for women throughout her life be a feminist if she is pro-life?
Cory & larry,
ReplyDeleteSo what is the source of our rights?
[hint: the answer is found in the document we just celebrated.]
Steve Sibson
You mean this one, Steve?
ReplyDeleteTroy: Yes, just as I can be a feminist and still get some feminist positions wrong, and just as you can be a Christian yet still fall short of Christian ideals in your human fallibility (nothing personal!).
ReplyDeleteDenying women the right to terminate a pregnancy is not a feminist position.