Right-Wing Newspeak: "Authentic Feminism" = "Do What Men Tell You"

...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.]

Science Says: Keep Daugther Away from "Hot Babes"

Todd Epp is right: "Middle Border Sun May Be Hazardous to Your Health"... not to mention cognitive and emotional development. Or so says the American Psychological Association in its report on the negative impacts of sexualization on girls, a report more parents ought to read:

Psychology offers several theories to explain how the sexualization of girls and women could influence girls’ well-being. Ample evidence testing these theories indicates that sexualization has negative effects in a variety of domains, including cognitive functioning, physical and mental health, sexuality, and attitudes and beliefs.

...Frequent exposure to media images that sexualize girls and women affects how girls conceptualize femininity and sexuality. Girls and young women who more frequently consume or engage with mainstream media content offer stronger endorsement of sexual stereotypes that depict women as sexual objects (Ward, 2002;Ward & Rivadeneyra, 1999; Zurbriggen & Morgan, 2006). They also place appearance and physical attractiveness at the center of women’s value.

...Exposure to narrow ideals of female sexual attractiveness may make it difficult for some men to find an “acceptable” partner or to fully enjoy intimacy with a female partner (e.g., Schooler & Ward, 2006).

Adult women may suffer by trying to conform to a younger and younger standard of ideal female beauty. More general societal effects may include an increase in sexism; fewer girls pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); increased rates of sexual harassment and sexual violence; and an increased demand for child pornography [Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, executive summary, 2007].

Fortunately, some of us are already doing what the APA says we should to help our daughters combat the sexualization and objectification the popular culture tries to impose on them:

Strategies for parents and other caregivers include learning about the impact of sexualization on girls and coviewing media with their children in order to influence the way in which media messages are interpreted. Action by parents and families has been effective in confronting sources of sexualized images of girls. Organized religious and other ethical instruction can offer girls important practical and psychological alternatives to the values conveyed by popular culture.

Girls and girls’ groups can also work toward change. Alternative media such as “zines” (Web-based magazines), “blogs” (Web logs), and feminist magazines, books, and Web sites encourage girls to become activists who speak out and develop their own alternatives. Girl empowerment groups also support girls in a variety of ways and provide important counterexamples to sexualization [APA].

"Ridiculous," says Pat Powers? "What's the big deal?" says the supposedly but unverifiable female "Fastidious"?

Funny, I thought it was just good parenting.

Babes and Pigs for Munsterman? Campaign Manager Considers...

A Dakota War College commenter asks Pat Powers if the Munsterman for Governor campaign, which Pat Powers manages, will add babes to the campaign blog. In a twist on the daughter test for sexism, I wonder if Powers will get Munsterman's daughters and wife to pose in bikinis on Munsterman campaign literature. After all, there's nothing wrong with finding the opposite sex attractive... and if it drives traffic to the campaign website, it's all good... right?

2010 could bring one hot campaign....

Pastor Hickey Claims Feminist Credentials...

...and he might be right.

Far-right blogger and Church at the Gate pastor Steve Hickey is claiming credit for leading the outrage over the ratings-grab sexism of reinvented South Dakota blog Middle Border Sun:

The left half of the South Dakota blogosphere, and now the right, is fully caught up in an outrage that I was first to decry… liberal blogger/attorney Todd Epp's sexism with his new "Babe of the Day" feature [Pastor Steve Hickey, "Babe of the Day—Gianna," Voices Carry, 2009.06.09].

Indeed, Hickey was on the watch to defend women's rights... although decry might be a little strong. Hickey's original feminist stand was more of a glancing rhetorical swipe in the midst of a much longer screed building the case that MBS blogger Todd Epp had misrepresented, libeled, and endangered Pastor Hickey.

But the core of Pastor Hickey's claim is true. He was this week's original feminist.

You can read the outrage here and here. I couldn't agree more, human beings are valuable even if they are undesirable to some. Our worth is not in anyway related to how perfect we are. We can't keep treating people as objects to be used and discarded [Hickey, 2009.06.09].

Hickey can't avoid putting the argument in abortion terms... but then I've been known to hammer my own issues with crossover language from other arguments (I could easily turn this argument to decry private insurers who use people for profits then discard them the moment they actually need health coverage).

Meanwhile, good Catholic and dad Pat Powers says Pastor Hickey is wrong, that this little kerfuffle is silly, and that it's o.k. to be a pig. After all, "finding the opposite sex attractive is hardwired into our systems, and does help in keeping the species going." Powers then proceeds to set an example for his daughters by posting pictures of women he calls hot.

Powers stunningly misses the point. Pastor Hickey, Prairie Progressive, Flying Tomato, Anna, That Girl, Angie, and I aren't talking about referring to women as pretty. We're talking about referring to women as hot.

Hot. As in in heat. As in inviting sex. As in I'm going to project my desire to have sex with that woman who is probably not my wife and never will be onto her so that it feels in my brain as if its her fault that I'm a pig thinking about screwing her.

To any of you who still don't get it, I propose the daughter test. If you don't have daughters available, try it with a friend's family. The test works best with other people, especially your wife, in the room.

1. Turn to one daughter and say, "You are very pretty."
2. Turn to another daughter and say, "You are very hot."

Does #2 make you feel creepy? Will it make you feel creepy if I come to your house and say it to your daughter?

Pretty and hot are not the same thing. Neither are admiration and objectification.

Obama: The Feminist Choice IV

I maintained that Obama was the best candidate for defending women's rights back during the primary, when that opinion made me unpopular with the supporters of another feminist, Senator Clinton.

Well, given the current opposition, Obama's superiority on women's issues should be a little easier to see. Senator McCain is clearly not the standard bearer for women's issues. And Governor Palin? Her position on abortion is pretty clear: more radical than the retread abortion ban we South Dakotans get to vote on this fall.

Perhaps more telling is the policy Mayor Palin supported on rape back in Wasilla, Alaska (you know, Alaska, where the rape rate is two and a half times the national average, the highest in the nation?). During the first few years of Mayor Palin's reign, the City of Wasilla charged women for rape kits. Basically, victims of sexual assault had to pay $300 to $1200 to have the Wasilla police investigate the crime.

This practice stopped in Wasilla in 2000... when Democratic Governor Tony Knowles signed legislation banning police from billing victims for such investigations. This over the objection of Wasilla police chief (and Palin appointee) Charlie Fannon, who fretted that the new law would cost his department $5,000 to $14,000 a year.

Meanwhile, Mayor Palin was running up $20 million in municipal debt to build a sports complex. Ah, priorities.

Oh yeah, and what about that other guy in the race, Senator Obama? His home state Illinois used to let the police charge women for rape kits. Obama co-sponsored legislation to reimburse sexual assualt victims for their expenses under the Illinois Crime Victims Compensation Act.*

If you're interested in protecting women's rights, Obama's still the right choice.

*Big thanks to OpEdna for extended work on this story!

Focus on the Family: Marry a Feminist

There goes Kelsey from DakotaWomen again, telling us to read actual science....

Hey, fellas! Want to have a more stable relationship upon which to build your loving family? Marry a feminist:

[Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan of Rutgers University] found that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier heterosexual relationships for women. Men with feminist partners also reported both more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction. According to these results, feminism does not predict poor romantic relationships, in fact quite the opposite ["Feminism and Romance Go Hand in Hand," ScienceDaily, 2007.10.16].

Go figure!

By the way, as I peruse the original article [PDF alert!], I find this interesting observation on some women's negative responses to the feminist pioneers who have fought for women's rights:

Feminist stereotypes are also unflattering; feminists tend to be stigmatized as unattractive, sexually unappealing, and likely to be lesbians.... The fact that women are just as prone to these views as men is particularly disturbing. It is difficult to imagine any other group stigmatizing the pioneers who struggled for their equality; for example, if African Americans disdained Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights workers, it would be inconceivable and cause for alarm. [L.A. Rudman & JE Phelan, "The Interpersonal Power of Feminism: Is Feminism Good for Romantic Relationships?" Sex Roles (57), 2007, pp. 787–799. DOI 10.1007/s11199-007-9319-9]

When women choose to follow traditional gender roles, that's fine. But they shouldn't need to impose those roles on all other women (and criticize other women for not following them) just to make themselves feel better about their own choices.

SDSU Feminists Take on Blog Challenge

Feminists ahoy! PP has some new noisy blog neighbors in Brookings: the South Dakota State University Campus Women's Coalition has launched The "F" Word: Feminists in South Dakota. it sounds like Initiated Measure 11 is their primary raison d'être, though the student activist authors promise other political discourse. Among the commentary they offer so far is this worthwhile observation on the hypocrisy of pharmacist "conscience":

Now, some drug stores and supporters are taking it a step further. Besides not providing tobacco or porn, these places also refuse to provide birth control of any kind… even emergency contraception to rape victims (or just girls who *gasp* want to be responsible and not get pregnant before they’re ready to bring a child into the world — a little extra reading if you’d like). HOWEVER, these “pro-life” pharmacies will fill that Viagra prescription quick fast and in a hurry for you! [cjg131, "Prescription Predicaments," The "F" Word: Feminists in South Dakota, 2008.06.17]

In other words, the pharmacists who read Bob Ellis (heaven help us) will dole out drugs to prop up men's efforts to have sex, but they won't sell women protection against pregnancy from all those pharmaceutically hornified guys. Encourage men to have sex, discourage women: the only way that makes sense is if those noble pharmacists think the Viagra poppers are all homosexual.

Fire away, Feminists of South Dakota! Your state awaits your further contributions to the discussion.

Obama: The Feminist Choice III

Keesha puts a burr under my saddle, and my morning reading leads me to "Hillary's Nasty Pastorate" by Barbara Ehrenreich, a good practical feminist if ever I read one.

Now my friends of all religious inclinations can spend their Sunday debating whether the Fellowship Foundation (or "The Family," as Ehrenreich refers to it) is just nice folks getting together for breakfast (with Bono, for Pete's sake!) or a secret Christian mafia. What catches my attention is this comment on actual policy:

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics [Barbara Ehrenreich, "Hillary's Nasty Pastorate," The Nation, 2008.03.19].

The legislation in question: the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, legislation that crops up in some form or another regularly in Congress and then disappears into committee. It sounds like a good idea -- it would protect workers' rights to wear religious headgear or refuse to work on the Sabbath. However, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States says the WRFA would unnecessarily upset protections already in current law and make possible these scenarios:

1. An ambulance driver could refuse to drive a woman from an abortion clinic to a hospital.
2. A pharmacist could refuse to fill birth control or emergency contraception prescriptions.
3. A nurse could refuse to participate in an emergency c-section for a woman in danger of bleeding to death.
4. A police officer could refuse to protect an abortion clinic.

Those possibilities motivated the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the National Women's Law Center to oppose the bill.

Those scenarios appeared nowhere in Senator Clinton's 2005 speech to the Seventh Day Adventists Annual Religious Liberty Dinner. Those scenarios also did not prevent her from co-sponsoring the 2005 version of the WRFA. Also signing on to Senator Rick Santorum's bill were Senators Schumer, Kerry, Lieberman, Coleman, Coburn, and Brownback.

Not joining her as a co-sponsor: Senator Obama.

My conclusion: Clinton is willing to put women's freedoms at risk when it is politically convenient. Obama has to play politics as well, but on women's issues*, he's shown a superior commitment to principle.

*"women's issues" -- that's probably a sexist term. Women's issues are everyone's issues.

Feminists Weigh in for Obama

Sometimes you can't win for trying. Senator Hillary Clinton works hard to prove disprove the sexist notion that as a woman, she's not tough enough to be President. She gets on the Armed Services Committee, refers to herself constantly as a "fighter," knocks back shots at the bar with voters... and then feminists criticize her for putting on a macho act.

The Nation executive editor Betsy Reed elaborates on why many feminists, like the 1500 "Feminists for Peace," are backing Senator Barack Obama:

Feminist Obama supporters of all ages and hues, meanwhile, are hoping that he comes out of this bruising primary with his style of politics intact. While he calls it "a new kind of politics," Clinton and Obama are actually very similar in their records and agendas (which is perhaps why this contest has fixated so obsessively on their gender and race). But in his rhetoric and his stance toward the world outside our borders, Obama does appear to offer a way out of the testosterone-addled GOP framework. As he said after losing Pennsylvania, "We can be a party that thinks the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, and act, and vote like George Bush and John McCain. We can use fear as a tactic and the threat of terrorism to scare up votes. Or we can decide that real strength is asking the tough questions before we send our troops to fight."[Betsy Reed, "Race to the Bottom," The Nation, 2008.05.19 print edition, posted online 2008.05.01].

Reed acknowledges that Clinton has faced a constant stream of indefensible sexist rhetoric. But noting how Clinton "has increasingly deployed issues of race and patriotism as a wedge strategy" against Obama, Reed leaves us wondering: Is Hillary Clinton just one of the boys?

Read the full article (warning -- one cuss word included in a Chris Rock quote) for an interesting discussion of sex, politics, and values.