Feminists Face 'Tough Times'

Monday, January 10, 2005

An amusing story from the Associated Press discusses the hardships women face in the remaining four years of President Bush's presidency.

America's feminist leaders and their critics agree on at least one current political fact: These are daunting times for the women's movement as it braces for another term of an administration it desperately wanted to topple.

"The next four years are going to be tough, so we must be tougher," National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy recently told supporters. "Our health, our rights, and our democracy are teetering on the brink."

NOW, the Feminist Majority Foundation and numerous like-minded groups campaigned zealously against President Bush, contending that his economic agenda would inflict disproportionate harm on women and that his potential judicial appointments could jeopardize abortion rights.

What the story doesn't emphasis, of course, is that NOW is the wonderful organization that supports the freedom of psycho mass child murderer Andrea Yates, who drowned her six children one by one in her bathtub. Just how does NOW find the time to both protest George Bush and fund the defense of child killers?

To the feminists' dismay, Bush not only won — but he sharply reduced the Democrats' "gender gap" edge among women voters. Republicans also increased their majorities in Congress; new GOP senators include several staunch foes of abortion.

Glorious times.

Many of the conservative activists and organizations that cheered the GOP triumph — and now claim expanded influence in Washington — are stridently anti-feminist. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, for example, recently referred to NOW as "The National Order of Witches"

Bush, of course, can make a strong case that he respects women — his new Cabinet will likely have four, including Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, and women for years have been among his closest political and legal advisers.

Beyond Washington, meanwhile, women are making impressive professional gains — as big-city police chiefs and university presidents, for example. They now comprise roughly half the enrollment in U.S. medical schools. And though a wage gap persists, woman now earn 80 percent of what men do, compared to 62 percent in 1980.

"Feminist leaders have failed to keep up with the times," said Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, whose writings are often critical of groups like NOW.

"Women have achieved parity with men in most fields," she said. "You'd think the feminists and women's studies professors would be celebrating, but in many ways they've never been more despondent."

Another conservative analyst of women's issues, Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women's Forum, said feminists "have increasingly marginalized themselves" by embracing an agenda that doesn't reflect most American women's priorities.

"They see government as the answer to all problems — as the national health care provider and day care provider," Lukas said. "And they have made unfettered access to abortion the absolute centerpiece of their movement... Their 'March for Women's Lives' last year seemed like a celebration of abortion."

Indeed it was. But that was the only celebrating you'll see because now feminists are back to work. And while they complain that the clock is being turned backwards, President Bush is giving a black woman the prestigious title of secretary of state.

But feminists show all their for love President Clinton, the man who famously stained an intern's dress and has been accused of harassing scores of women during his tenure. So who's the real chauvinist here?