Feminism

For the second edition of James Dobson’s Family Talk program criticizing the feminist movement with former Focus on the Family vice president Diane Passno, the two fielded questions from an audience of young adults. One young woman asked what they would recommend to a person like herself who is “not ready to be a mom and a wife” but does have career aspirations. Passno, who is promoting her new book that criticizes feminism, told her that it is wonderful she has so many “opportunities that women of my era never had,” seeming to overlook the fact that the tremendous growth in opportunities for women is one of the accomplishments of the feminist movement. But she did caution her that she may only have those career aspirations because of what she hears from her parents and colleagues.

Questioner: What is your advice to young women like myself who—I’m not ready to be a mom and a wife and I have aspirations and I do have longings and hopes and desires to do things, is there a balance for that future? What’s your advice to me now as singles who are built with passions to serve the Lord and to do different things?

Passno: It’s wonderful. You have opportunities that women of my era never had and so I can totally understand when you say ‘I’m really not ready for marriage, I don’t even have a boyfriend and actually I’m really looking forward to taking my education and having a great career.’ My caution to you would be this: career isn’t everything and always use discernment in your professional life. Are you doing what you’re doing because you’re getting plaudits from your parents? From people you went to college with? Are you climbing up the corporate ladder because it’s what you’ve been told is important? Just remember to submit yourself daily to the Lord and He will guide you to where He wants you to be.

As Passno and Dobson later explained, the culture has been inculcated with “lies” from the feminist movement, leaving society with unhappy childless women, immature men, and remorseful feminists.

Dobson: You know what’s happening over and over now is that young women hear this message and they either postpone or decide not to have babies and then at 33 and 34 and 35 they start to panic and they realize they’ve missed an opportunity and it’s getting very late and there are many childless women today who would love to hold a baby and they were sold a lie. I resent the lies that are being told to the young women that are out there because in twenty years they will regret it, many of them will regret it and it will be too late.

Passno: I resent the lies that are fed to the young men as well because we have a generation of men who don’t know what it means to make a commitment, who don’t know what it means to protect a family, who don’t know what it means to cherish a woman and remain pure until marriage. The feminist movement has distorted so many things that were precious and that the Lord said in Scripture were precious.

…

Passno: There are many older feminists who are now looking back at their lives and questioning what they indoctrinated this generation with and they’re questioning it and they’re going ‘maybe I didn’t have all the answers,’ and unfortunately so many of them will never look to Christianity for the answers.

Dobson: And their children are even more confused because they’ve gotten mixed messages and the passion with which the early feminists started has now kind of diminished with time in the present generation.

James Dobson dedicated yet another program on Family Talk to criticizing the “radical feminist movement,” this time interviewing Diane Passno of Focus on the Family, the Religious Right group founded by Dobson. Passno is out with a new book, Feminism: Mystique or Mistake?, which features a foreword by conservative talk show host Janet Parshall. Passno claimed that the feminist movement has “distorted” its Christian past and “is now completely antagonistic to the Christian faith,” and revealed her own unfamiliarity with feminism by arguing that contemporary feminism solely relies upon a “love affair with abortion” and a belief that men are not “necessary.” She told Dobson that women no longer scrutinize “the nonsense that’s being shoved down their throats” and the modern feminist has become “an exact replica of ‘male chauvinist pigs’ of thirty years ago.”

Passno: What’s so tragic about the feminist movement today is that what started as a Christian movement based on Christian principles and the wonderful examples that Jesus gives in Scripture—there’s so many women that are mentioned specifically in Scripture whose lives He touched and whose lives He changed for the better—and a movement that started in that way has become so distorted and is now completely antagonistic to the Christian faith.

Dobson: With a lot of either unintended consequences or consequences that were hidden. The National Organization for Women and what I would call the radical feminist movement really boils down to two issues today; you got them on the tip of your tongue?

Passno: Yes, you can define feminism today really as having two foundational issues. One is abortion, and of course this is a result of their love affair with abortion and so many of our listeners know that and understand that. What is less understood is the fact that what the feminist movement has done it’s gone from wanting equality with men to being a movement that doesn’t think men are really necessary at all.

…

Passno: I’m terribly disappointed in women today and I’m terribly disappointed that they are so quiet about some of the nonsense that’s being shoved down their throats and they swallow it, never question it. As a result, women, feminists today, are an exact replica of male chauvinist pigs of thirty years ago.

Phyllis Schlafly is an all-around right-wing activist who has been around forever. You could say she was Tea Party before her time, railing against liberals and taxes and the UN's threat to US sovereignty. Her 2009 "How to Take Back America" conference was an amazing gathering at which health care reform was described as fascism, President Obama was described by Rep. Trent Franks as an "enemy of humanity," and attendees were encouraged to buy guns and ammo to defend themselves against impending tyranny.

But Schlafly’s real bread and butter is the hostility to feminism that fueled her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment – and it was her anti-feminist schtick that she brought to George Washington University in D.C. last night.  I use the word schtick because it’s hard to take seriously Schlafly’s caricature of feminists as anti-men, anti-marriage, anti-family, and anti-child-rearing, not to mention claims like these:

• “Feminists don’t have any role models of happiness.”
• “They don’t believe that women can be successful. You never hear the feminists  talking about really successful  women like Margaret Thatcher or Condaleeza Rice, they just don’t believe women can be successful…that’s why they hate Sarah Palin….”

What?  Feminists don’t believe women can be successful?  That didn’t ring true to the many GW students, women and men, who politely protested Schlafly’s appearance.  During the Q&A, one challenged Schlafly directly, saying her mother is a feminist, a role model of happiness, and had instilled in her children a love of family.  The student said Schlafly seemed to be having a 40-year old argument with quotes plucked from early feminist writers.

Schlafly did have her admirers.  The young woman who introduced her said Schlafly had given her an example of how to stand up against the emerging “gender-interchangeable society.”  Schlafly returned to that theme later, saying that feminists don’t want equality for women, they want “gender interchangeability.”

Schlafly reveled in the recent flap about Ann Romney never having to work outside the home, since she saw it as proof that feminists have no respect for mothers who choose to answer to a husband rather than a boss.  But Schlafly was not on message with the Romney campaign’s claims that women have accounted for almost all job losses during the Obama administration.  Schlafly, who repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration is utterly controlled by feminists, “proved” her case by saying that feminists had successfully demanded that most jobs created by federal stimulus funds went to women.

Schlafly touched on a few other issues, such as her opposition to marriage equality (though she seemed to say she didn’t think civil unions were worth fighting about).  And she pushed the same theme being pushed by Ralph Reed and other strategists trying to build a broad electoral coalition: you can’t separate fiscal and social conservatism.  She took a shot at Mitch Daniels for seeking a “truce” on social values, something she called “impossible.”

In the end, she told the young women, they should get married before having babies, and they should ignore feminists who might poison their attitude toward life by telling them that women are victims of the patriarchy. She derided the notion of a "glass ceiling" and denied that unequal pay is a problem. Men, she said, are willing to do dangerous jobs that women aren't, because "women like nice inside jobs with carpeted offices." American women, she said, are the most fortunate people who have ever lived.  Why, in Africa, she said, some women have to wash their clothing in the river.  “We have all these wonderful modern conveniences that men have invented for our pleasure.”  

Janet Mefferd yesterday railed against what she sees as an emerging “pagan” movement that is leading to abortion, feminism, homosexuality, and the eventual destruction of marriage. Mefferd, who previously declared that pagans are using homosexuality to “wipe out Christianity,” repeated the claim of her previous guest Tony Perkins that homosexuality is “shaking a fist in the face of God.”

Listen:

Mefferd: But this is the mindset, it’s more of a pagan mindset, I go back all the time to the movement of ancient paganism because it is on the rise. Whether people call themselves pagan or not that’s what is at root here: people challenge the traditional authority of God. And when you challenge the authority of God, what happens next? It’s like a sea of dominoes, one goes over it hits the next one, it hits the next one, it hits the next one. If there is no God, if I don’t go to church, if I reject Christianity, if I reject the Bible, all bets are off; I can do whatever I want. I can go down to the Occupy Wall Street protests and scream about the bankers; I can go out in the woods and beat a drum and worship an owl if I want to; I can have sex with whomever I want as often as I want with no consequences and if I do become pregnant I can just go get an abortion and then I can march in the streets and talk about women’s rights and reproductive health; and eventually, I can talk about how wonderful homosexuality is and how it’s just another alternative lifestyle and it’s all about love.

…

Marriage may be done for this culture in certain sectors, in certain pockets, but marriage most certainly is certainly not done because it is the God-ordained institution that mirrors the analogy of Christ and His church, it is the human institution that most closely reflects the heart of God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. That’s why they’re attacking it, they don’t know that that’s why they’re attacking it, they’re attacking it because they’re looking at all the advances in medical technology. I can have a baby without a man, so why do I need a man? I can earn more than a man, so why do I need a man? You can have a baby by adoption, and you can do it with a same-sex partner, so why do you need marriage? This is exactly what the pagans did, way back when, this is exactly what they did: destroy marriage. It’s shaking a fist in the face of God.

With conservative politicians and groups trying to ‘reclaim feminism’ for the Right, it is no surprise to see the notoriously anti-feminist Concerned Women for America jumping on the bandwagon. Concerned Women for America claims it was founded by Beverly LaHaye, whose husband is Religious Right leader Tim LaHaye, to counter the National Organization for Women because “She knew the feminists’ anti-God, anti-family rhetoric did not represent her beliefs, nor those of the vast majority of women.”

LaHaye has said, “Feminism is more than an illness. It is a philosophy of death.” But now, CWA insists that it is actually restoring feminism to its original purpose: to better enable women to serve their husbands.

Janice Shaw Crouse of CWA told the Christian Post that feminism was initially a Christian movement until it “was taken over by lesbians.” According to Crouse, real feminist women in the workplace “don’t view their job as a career or they don’t see themselves as career women – they see themselves helping their husbands.”

Incidentally, Crouse is a PhD who has built a career working as an antifeminist – she is an author and former presidential speechwriter and currently directs CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute. Her daughter is the president of Americans United for Life:

“For many years, both secular and religious feminists operated with the same definition of equality,” says Crouse. “Then somewhere in the last 30 years that changed. Feminism was taken over by lesbians, by those who wanted quotas and abortion on demand.”

…

“Christian women do not like workplace quotas because Christian women don’t like the idea of being forced into the workplace – Christian women like choice, the option of going into the workplace or not,” says Crouse.

Part of the workplace tension between Christian women and secular feminists relates to how both groups define success. A Christian woman tends not to seek accolades or advancement solely in the workplace but instead views her work as part of her calling as a wife and mother.

“In general, Christian women are not in the workplace for power, they are there because they have some challenge, some very fulfilling responsibility,” adds Crouse. “Many Christian women choose to work part time, to bring in some extra income to help the family, but they don’t view their job as a career or they don’t see themselves as career women – they see themselves helping their husbands. It’s a completely different perspective from modern secular feminists, a fundamental disagreement and a different worldview about what it means to be a woman.”

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.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the sixth annual national conference of the “Network of enlightened Women” (NeW), a college conservative group that “meet[s] regularly to discuss issues relating to politics, gender and conservative principles” – sort of a politically ambitious anti-feminist book club. NeW nabbed a high-powered keynote speaker in Kate O’Bierne, a National Review editor and former VP of the Heritage Foundation. O’Bierne, the author of “Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military and Sports,” spent her hour-long speech viciously bashing feminism and trying to disprove the “phoney baloney wage gap.” O’Bierne insisted that “professional feminists” will never be satisfied, and cannot “declare victory and go home” because they have no home to go to and no job to fall back on.

O’Bierne also railed against the liberal media, but noted what she saw as a silver lining: that liberals don’t know that conservatives exist, or more importantly, what they’re saying and doing. She might want to check in with Bryan Fischer.

Meanwhile, a number of NeW chapter presidents spoke about how to thank the gentlemen in their lives for being so chivalrous, how awful it is that “hookup culture” is depleting their pool of marriageable men, and how a “true beauty” self esteem workshop could be improved by adding makeup tutorials.

Concerned Women for America has led the fight against the U.S.’s ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women since Jimmy Carter first signed it in 1980, and is now ramping up pressure against ratification following a Senate hearing on the treaty. Thanks to pressure from CWA and other Religious Right groups, the U.S. joins Iran, Somalia and Sudan in not ratifying CEDAW, which works to end political, economic and healthcare gender disparities, sex trafficking, and violence and discrimination against women.

In an email to members, Bevery LaHaye writes that ratification will mean that a “twisted ideology of extremist feminism rebelling against God and His law” will allow communist China and North Korea to dominate American society:

Would you trust your children or grandchildren to be raised by Hugo Chavez, the brutal dictator of Venezuela?

Or Hu Jintao, the Communist president of the People's Republic of China?

Maybe Kim Jong-Il, the deranged "Supreme Leader" of North Korea? Of course not! And you and I must act NOW to stop President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and their allies from doing exactly that!

…

Simply put, CEDAW would give foreign thugs and tyrants dictatorial power over American laws related to:

• The legal rights of wives and mothers,
• the protection of life,
• the definition of marriage,
• and the education of your children!!!

…

CEDAW backers like Obama, Clinton, and Reid disagree. They mouth high-sounding language about "equality" and "empowerment" as a fog to cloak their dark plans.

But when I read CEDAW, I see anger, bitterness, the breeding ground for generations of conflict, and the twisted ideology of extremist feminism rebelling against God and His law.

Harold Hongju Koh, a State Department aide who is a past Dean of Yale Law and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, testified in 2006 that allegations from opponents like CWA were “preposterous” and “flatly untrue.” CEDAW is neutral on the issues of legal abortion and same-sex marriage, and many CEDAW-ratifying countries have outlawed both, and the treaty would not lead to international bodies enforcing their laws on the US.

“Our nonratification has led our allies and adversaries alike to challenge our claim of moral leadership in international human rights,” Koh said, “Ratification of the CEDAW by the United States would similarly make clear our national commitment to ensure the equal and nondiscriminatory treatment of American women in such areas as civil and political rights, education, employment, and property rights.”

• FRC talked a big game about how they were going to hold the GOP responsible if they passed another Continuing Resolution that didn't defund Planned Parenthood.  That is just what the GOP did and all FRC can do is thank those members who voted against it.
• Phyllis Schlafly says she has had a great career and owes exactly none of it feminism ... just relentlessly attacking feminism, I guess.
• Hey, Stephen Baldwin directed a music video.  You know you want to watch it.
• Sharon Angle is running for Congress.
• Richard Land demonstrates that dedication to fighting equality begins at home.
• We can now add Rep. Tim Huelskamp to the growing list of members of Congress who have no problem associating with Bryan Fischer.