Jessica Valenti: The Fake Feminism of Sarah Palin
[Jessica Valenti is the author of "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women" and the founder of Feministing.com. She has written previously for Outlook on women's rights in the United States and on virginity.]
...Given that so-called conservative feminists don't support women's rights, how can they paint their movement as pro-woman? Why are they not being laughed out of the room?
Easy: They preempt criticism of their lack of bona fides by aligning themselves with a history that most women are proud of -- the fight for suffrage. They claim they're the real feminists, as Palin did in her speech lauding the Susan B. Anthony List for "returning the women's movement back to its original roots." (She wasn't talking about voting rights; she was referring to the debated notion that first-wave feminists were antiabortion.)
It may seem odd to argue that for women to make progress, they should ground their movement in the past -- but it's appropriate, given the beliefs of conservative "feminists." They don't want to move forward; instead they knock 1960s-era feminism as hooey while claiming to support equality. In her book "Going Rogue," for example, Palin writes that she doesn't agree with "the radical mantras of that early feminist era, but reasoned arguments for equal opportunity definitely resonated with me."...
By tying their "feminism" to the suffragists, whose goal was realized nearly 100 years ago, they're not-so-subtly saying that women in America have achieved equality. In fact, they don't believe that systemic sexism exists. The conservative writer Christina Hoff Sommers, for example, says that women aren't oppressed and that "it is no longer reasonable to say that as a group, women are worse off than men."
If you believe women have made it, you're not going to fight very hard on their behalf. But it's difficult to rally women's support behind a message of inaction, so Palin is doing her best to frame this nonmovement as proactive and, of course, "empowering."
"More young women agree with these feminist foremothers [on abortion] than ever before," Palin said in her Susan B. Anthony List speech. "And believe in that culture of life, empowering women by offering them a real choice." (Exactly what said choice would be once abortion is illegal went unmentioned.)...
Read entire article at WaPo
...Given that so-called conservative feminists don't support women's rights, how can they paint their movement as pro-woman? Why are they not being laughed out of the room?
Easy: They preempt criticism of their lack of bona fides by aligning themselves with a history that most women are proud of -- the fight for suffrage. They claim they're the real feminists, as Palin did in her speech lauding the Susan B. Anthony List for "returning the women's movement back to its original roots." (She wasn't talking about voting rights; she was referring to the debated notion that first-wave feminists were antiabortion.)
It may seem odd to argue that for women to make progress, they should ground their movement in the past -- but it's appropriate, given the beliefs of conservative "feminists." They don't want to move forward; instead they knock 1960s-era feminism as hooey while claiming to support equality. In her book "Going Rogue," for example, Palin writes that she doesn't agree with "the radical mantras of that early feminist era, but reasoned arguments for equal opportunity definitely resonated with me."...
By tying their "feminism" to the suffragists, whose goal was realized nearly 100 years ago, they're not-so-subtly saying that women in America have achieved equality. In fact, they don't believe that systemic sexism exists. The conservative writer Christina Hoff Sommers, for example, says that women aren't oppressed and that "it is no longer reasonable to say that as a group, women are worse off than men."
If you believe women have made it, you're not going to fight very hard on their behalf. But it's difficult to rally women's support behind a message of inaction, so Palin is doing her best to frame this nonmovement as proactive and, of course, "empowering."
"More young women agree with these feminist foremothers [on abortion] than ever before," Palin said in her Susan B. Anthony List speech. "And believe in that culture of life, empowering women by offering them a real choice." (Exactly what said choice would be once abortion is illegal went unmentioned.)...