Pat Robertson, the televangelist who once said that feminism is “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians,” today hailed the effort by some activists to “reclaim” feminism as a conservative movement.
Robertson’s “700 Club” program profiled activists promoting what they call “maternal feminism,” which emphasizes preserving traditional family structures and banning abortion. Robertson hailed these activists for showing the world “what true feminism is.”
He said that women “don’t have to go out and have some parade and march around topless and say nasty things like these former feminists.” Feminism, Robertson said, had been distorted by “radicals” who wanted to “tear down the f-ing patriarchy and on and on.”
“‘Let’s be radical and let’s be free’ and a whole generation of college women were probably scarred by the rhetoric of these people,” he said. “But what we found as we’ve gone deeper into it is that some of those who were writing about feminism were actually making stuff up and lying.”
