Suzanne Venker

When Sarah Palin was chosen as the GOP nominee for vice president, Phyllis Schlafly hailed her as a role model of the non-feminist woman who by her very existence discredited the women’s movement. Feminists “are really spooked by Palin because she’s done everything and she is a success,” Schlafly said, “besides she is pretty and they cannot stand her.”

Now that Palin’s star has significantly subsided and she has become one of the most unpopular politicians in America, Schlafly’s niece Suzanne Venker is crowning Michele Bachmann as the new conservative woman who destroyed feminism. Venker, who co-authored The Flipside of Feminism with Schlafly, told James Dobson that women shouldn’t pursue challenging professions like brain surgery because it might prevent them from having children.

In an article for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today, Venker lauded Bachmann for showing the bright side of biblical “submission” and proving that the women’s movement has contributed nothing beneficial to society. Venker writes that for “the first time in decades, the liberal feminist establishment is up against something new: outspoken conservative women who undermine the feminist agenda.” But haven’t conservative women, like say, Phyllis Schlafly, been involved in politics for decades?

Venker argues that now Bachmann is being unfairly depicted as “a religious nut and a doormat,” and says a man would never be asked about biblical submission (not so). And even though Bachmann may be one of the easiest GOP candidates for President Obama to defeat, Venker says that she is actually making liberals run scared:

For 40 years, this country has endured a social movement that has been relentless in its goals. Women on the left believe the feminist movement is responsible for liberating women from constricted lives; women on the right see things differently. Feminists are consumed with their place in society; conservative women are not. They are especially uninterested in fighting a gender war. That's why the Submission Question could be asked only of a conservative female candidate. It's women on the right, we're told, who want to keep women in their place. Conservative women are anti-woman.

So what to do when faced with a female candidate who's conservative and popular? Why, portray her as a religious nut and a doormat, of course! Indeed, feminists know most women won't identify with that kind of woman. And they're right: they won't. Women on the left don't appreciate that traditional values, even Biblical values, are not at odds with female empowerment. No matter what you think of Bachmann or Sarah Palin, these women have proved this in spades. No one gets to their position by being oppressed or mousy.

For the first time in decades, the liberal feminist establishment is up against something new: outspoken conservative women who undermine the feminist agenda. Conservative women are supposed to stay home! Conservative women are supposed to lead nice, traditional lives: raise a gaggle of children, be subordinate to their husbands and stay out of the public sphere. Why are they asserting their independent minds?

…

The implication that Michele Bachmann is a Stepford wife in disguise was a pitiful attempt to bring down a female conservative candidate who has sinned in the worst way possible: She does not carry the feminist torch. And, yet, she still won the Iowa straw poll.

Perhaps feminism really is dead.

Phyllis Schlafly is enjoying a bit of a renaissance at the moment, thanks to the recent publication of the book she penned with her niece Suzanne Venker entitled "The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know -- and Men Can't Say."

The point of the book is that feminism, as Schlafly puts it, has "made women unhappy and it's to make them believe that we live in a discriminatory and unjust society, and that they should look to government to solve their problems."

As Schlafly likes to remind everyone who will listen, she managed to obtain a college degree, a master's degree, a law degree, run for Congress, stop the ERA, and raise six children, all without any assistance from feminism or anyone else for that matter:

MARTIN: How did you manage, though? As a mother of six, as your husband was -certainly had a busy career of his own, and being as significant a national figure as you have been, how did you manage?

Ms. SCHLAFLY: Well, politics was my hobby. And I really spent 25 years as a full-time homemaker before I did any particular traveling around. And by that time the children were well along in school or college. And they were very supportive. My husband was very supportive. I told the feminists the only person's permission I had to get was my husband's.

But, as it turns out, Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times got Schlafly's niece Venker to admit that she did, in fact, have help:

I recently called Venker at her home in St. Louis because I had some questions, not least among them: How did Schlafly manage to raise all those kids and pursue such a prominent career? Granted, at 25 Schlafly married an older, well-established lawyer, and granted, she herself didn't go to law school until she was in her 50s, but did she have help? If so, she never seemed to mention it.

Venker seemed to almost despair at the question: "I'm in a pickle because I haven't been asked this directly before," she said. "I'm going to say this the best way I can. She had domestic help.... She wouldn't have called them nannies, but she had people in her home. That's what she chose. Did she mention that fact enough to get her point across to young people about how she managed to do it? No, she did not."