Phyllis Schlafly awarded honorary degree; feminists flip out

Breaking news from Feministe (ok, fine, it’s a few days old, but I’ve been busy):

Washington University announced last week that they are giving Phyllis Schlafly, professional anti-feminist, an honorary doctorate degree. The release calls Schlafly “a national leader of the conservative movement.” What they fail to mention however, is that she is also an anti-feminist leader who believes married women can’t be raped (”By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.”), that there should be bans on women working in nontraditional fields (like construction work or firefighting), and - oh yeah - that the ERA is dangerous.

The comments section for this post is particularly lovely, and the basic gist seems to be this: if you disagree with us, you don’t deserve an honorary degree.  But it takes a feminist, I guess, to ignore the fact that Schlafly was (and still is) a hugely important figure in shaping the conservative movement.  She is incredibly intelligent, a prolific writer, and a important figure in the history of modern conservatism.  But because she isn’t a feminist, she shouldn’t be recognized for her accomplishments.

Also, tomorrow I graduate from the College of Charleston.  Go me!

 

Q: When is a woman not really a woman?

A: When she’s also a conservative.

We’ve already seen one local magazine equate conservatism with misogyny. And we’ve seen a video created by that same magazine which points out that feminists don’t hate men - they just hate conservatives, male and female alike.

While I was doing research on women in the media (specifically, diversity on op-ed pages), I came across a couple of real gems in The Women’s Review of Books. From my paper (emphasis mine):

Even those who advocate equal space in op-ed pages for women may have stringent requirements for those they consider deserving of the space. Writing in The Women’s Review of Books, Zimmerman bemoans the fact that “what you can find, of course, are right-wing commentators like Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter filling women’s allotted air time and print space” (2003, p. 6). Pozner made a similar point when writing about women’s exclusion from media, noting that “right-wing women like Ann Coulter, Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, Mona Charen, Amy Holmes, Laura Ingraham maintain a high profile in the mainstream media, while progressive feminist writers like media critic Laura Flanders or journalist Barbara Ehrenreich are most often heard in the Left press” (2002, p. 20).

Implicit in the first quote is that conservative women are not really representative of womanhood, and therefore ought not to be given any of women’s alloted spaces. Explicit in the second quote is that feminists aren’t so much concerned with making sure that women and men are given equal time and space - they’re concerned with whether liberal, feminist women are getting time and space. Conservative women’s voices don’t really count as women’s voices, because they are mere tools of the patriarchy/Corporate America/President Bush/insert-liberal-bogeyman-here.

 

Feminists say the darndest things

Especially when they talk about pro-lifers and religious people.  For your entertainment, I have a few examples.

For the pro-choice argument to really take hold, feminists have to paint their opposition as misogynists who simply want to punish women for having sex.  From Feministe, in a post offering ten reasons to support “reproductive justice“:

8. Anti-choicers care about controlling your sex life, not saving babies.
For all their talk about valuing babies and life, anti-choicers have demonstrated time and again that they could actually care less. They’re more interested in punishing women for sex and in maintaining a male-dominated family model. And they’re only “pro-life” up until the moment of birth — then you’re on your own. Anti-choice politicians opposed extending health care to low-income kids; they routinely vote against Head Start and early childhood education programs; they abhor welfare programs that give aid to single parents and low-income families; and they are at the forefront of opposition to state childcare aid. It’s no surprise that 100% of the worst legislators for children are “pro-life,” and many of the most “pro-life” states are the worst for children and for women. While children are hardly their first priority, anti-choicers are extremely concerned about what you do with your private parts. They are the architects of “abstinence-only” sex education that flat-out lies and misleads students in order to promote conservative values of female submission, homophobia and general ignorance. Many of them opposed a vaccine that could save thousands of women from cancer — because the vaccine prevented cervical cancer and had to be given before the onset of sexual activity, meaning that anti-sex nuts had one less tool in their slut-punishing arsenal.

I’ve gone to the March for Life more time than I can remember, and sat through speeches and youth rallies and college pro-life seminars, and I can tell you that most pro-lifers aren’t big on “slut-punishing.”  And while a lot of us don’t support bigger government, many support private charitable groups aimed at helping young mothers.  One of the main points that stuck out at me at one college conference was the emphasis on what could be done to help women financially and emotionally so that they wouldn’t feel like abortion was their only option.  Some of us oppose birth control on religious grounds, others on the fact that it gives women a false sense of security, and others support it wholeheartedly.  As for the cancer vaccine, the real issue was that trials didn’t show that women were protected past a 4 or 5 year period.  So if you give it to a girl at 13, and it stops protecting her at 18, when she goes off to college and is more likely to start having sex, what good have you done?  Also, a lot of conservatives objected when politicians wanted to make it mandatory.  Mandatory vaccinations are justified on the grounds that the diseases they protect against are communicable enough to endanger the health of students.  That argument is a lot harder to make about an STD.

Feminists also hate crisis pregnancy centers.  Feministing covered Huckabee’s visit to the Carolina Pregnancy Center, and found some things about the CPC’s website objectionable:

Telling young and low-income women that they shouldn’t worry about the financial burdens of caring for a child: “It can be very scary to have financial difficulties, but there are a lot of possible solutions…Today’s schools often give aid to single mothers or a job could always come through…A lot can change financially in nine months!”

Lying to rape survivors: “You are in a very unusual circumstance (conception from rape is extremely rare) and it is understandable that you would be frantic. But don’t allow the rapist to further impact your situation by causing you to end the live of an innocent child.”

Downplaying the reality of pregnancy: “A normal pregnancy lasts only 40 weeks, a relatively short amount of time in your whole life.”

Shaming women considering abortion: “If you get the abortion, you will always remind him of something he isn’t proud of.”

Crisis Pregnancy Centers lie to women. They intimidate women. They manipulate women. No candidate should support their work–no matter what they believe about choice.

That’s right, encouraging women to seek options other than abortion is manipulative and intimidating.  But when Planned Parenthood tells women that abortion is their best or only option, that’s just fine.   The best part of this post, though, was a comment after it:

After reading that huge list of bullshit from the CPC’s website, I quite genuinely feel like crying. It fucking sucks knowing that people that cruel, hateful and emotionally manipulative exist in this world.

Once again, the people at the CPC don’t just have the worst of ideas, they also have the worst of intentions.  I know when I see people volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, my first thought is “wow, they must really hate women.”

Now, from Pandagon, we have a little bit of commentary on religion:

The patriarchy really needs religion to exist, which is why the term “people of faith” has become synonymous with “fans of an old-fashioned patriarchy” in the media. The motivator of the Bible-thumpers is not so much love of some 2,000-year-old Jewish carpenter living under Roman rule, but the need to have the bitches at home under the thumb, and religion, because of the inarguable irrationality aspect, is the perfect disguise.

Wow.  Just wow.  This is so senselessly provocative I can’t even formulate a response.  Normally, I’d assume that the blogger is just trying to get a rise out of people, but she spends a lot of time criticizing religion (Christianity, specifically), so I think she actually means this.

Anyway, for those conservatives who still  think bipartisanship is a peachy idea, just keep in mind that feminists hate you.  They don’t just disagree with your ideas - they actually think you are evil people for being pro-life or religious.

 

Don’t worry, feminists only hate conservatives

Attempting to showcase the fact that feminists are people just like you and me (well, not like me, but we’ll get to that later), Skirt! magazine has a “Feminism 101″ video that lists a couple of men and women that feminists hate:

Notably, this list includes Henry Hyde, Jim DeMint, Clarence Thomas, Pat Sajak, Ann Coulter, Kathleen Parker, Phylis Schlafly, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Michelle Malkin.  In fact, with few exceptions, everyone on the list is a conservative political figure.

Not only does this uphold my previous hypothesis regarding things with exclamation points in their names, it also illustrates something I’ve known for a while; that feminists don’t hate men - they hate conservatives. The idea that feminism is for everyone is complete bullshit.  Feminism is for people who toe the liberal party line.

I see this a lot when I read feminist blogs - conservatives are shown not just as the bearers of opposing ideas, but as creatures of unspeakable evil, whose intentions are always to screw the poor/women/minorities.

 

Brought to you from the other side of crazy…

Now that I’ve mocked the absurd rantings of a bitter, woman-hating man, it’s only fair that I also mock the absurd rantings of a bitter man-hating woman. And thanks to the Internet, there are entire communities of assorted dissatisfied crazies ripe and ready for the mocking.

In honor of the fact that I just watched finished watching Joss Whedon’s Firefly, I bring you a radical feminist’s critique of said show. Rather than being content to debunk the idea that Firefly is a feminist show, the blogger, Allecto, goes straight into “Joss Whedon is evil” territory.

For myself, I’m not sure that I will recover from the shock of watching the malicious way in which Joss stripped his female characters of their integrity, the pleasure he seemed to take from showing potentially powerful women bashed, the way he gleefully demonized female power and selfhood and smashed women into little bits, male fists in women’s faces, male voices drowning out our words.

Malicious? Gleefully demonized? The little lady must be suffering from some kind of radical feminism-induced hysteria. I’m not going to argue that Joss Whedon’s work is “feminist” (after all, it’s funny), but smashing women into little bits isn’t often on the agenda in this show.

Zoe says, “This ship’s been derelict for months. Why would they –”

Mal replies, (in Chinese) “Shut up.”

So in the very second scene of the very first episode, an episode written and directed by the great feminist Joss, a white man tells a black woman to ‘shut up’ for no apparent reason. And she does shut up. And she continues to call him sir. And takes his orders, even when they are dumb orders, for the rest of the series.

I don’t think she quite gets the “chain of command” idea. But she’s very good at reading anti-woman subtext into everything.

The next scene we meet Kaylee, the ship’s mechanic. <- Lookee, lookee, feminist empowerment. In this scene Mal and Jayne are stowing away the cargo they just stole. Kaylee is chatting to them, happily. Jayne asks Mal to get Kaylee to stop being so cheerful. Mal replies, “Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.” Yes, that is an exact quote, “Sometimes you just wanna DUCT TAPE HER MOUTH and DUMP HER IN THE HOLD FOR A MONTH.” Kaylee responds by grinning and giving Mal a kiss on the cheek and saying, “I love my Captain.”

What the fuck is this feminist man trying to say about women here? A black woman calling a white man ‘sir’. A white male captain who abuses and silences his female crew, with no consequences. The women are HAPPY to be abused. They enjoy it. What does this say about women, Joss? What does this say about you? Do you tell your wife to shut up? Do you threaten to duct tape her mouth? Lock her in the bedroom? Is this funny to you, Joss? Because it sure as fuck ain’t funny to me.

So a couple of lines taken entirely out of context and suddenly Joss Whedon abuses his wife?

It is clear from the outset that a large part of Inara’s service involves addressing issues of male inadequacy and fulfilling many other emotional needs of her clients. The ability to do this IS a resource and it is therefore a service that Inara must perform. BUT Inara services all of the male passengers and the Captain in this way. She also services Kaylee but the relationship between them is a little more reciprocal. In any case, Mal makes it pretty obvious that he expects his emotional needs to be serviced by Inara and she willingly obliges. Mal also allows the male passengers to demand her emotional services and does not tell them to stop, despite the terms of his agreement with Inara. Inara is not paid by any of these men for her time, energy and emotional support.

Well burn my bra and call me a feminist, those goddamn men expect a woman to be their friend! The outrage!

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Joss uses his own wife in this way. Expects her to clean up his emotional messes. Expects her to be there, eternally supportive, eternally subservient and grateful to him in all his manly glory. I hope the money is worth it, Mrs. Whedon. But somehow I doubt that it is. No amount of money can buy back wasted emotional resources.

Again, not only is Joss Whedon not a feminist, he undoubtedly mistreats his wife. Let me go out on a pop psychology limb here and say that the author of this blog is not a woman with too many good relationships with men in her past.

Zoe, of course, is meant to be our empowered, ass-kicking sidechick. Like all sidechicks she is objectified from the get go. Her husband, Wash, talking about how he likes to watch her bathe. Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour. I have known a black woman whose white husband would strangle and bash her while her young children watched. My white grandfather liked black women because they were ‘exotic’, and he did not, could not treat women, especially women of colour, like human beings. I grew up watching my great aunts, my aunty and my mother all treated like shit by their white husbands, the men they loved. So you will forgive me for believing that the character, Wash, is a rapist and an abuser, particularly considering that he treats Zoe like an object and possession.

And look! I was right! Let me get this straight: you and members of your family had terrible experiences with white men, ergo a white male character on a show is a rapist and an abuser. Got it.

I recommend reading the whole thing if you truly want to understand why radical feminists are such unhappy people.

 

You just can’t make this stuff up

It’s so awful it must be real. My new misogynist punching bag actually wrote a note for the ladies on how best to display your breasts in order to attract just the right kind of male attention - the kind that will trick him into the bonds of marriage and thrill his conquest-loving spirit. We girls have three choices when it comes to showing off our “assets,” and we’d best choose wisely.

The first option causes women to minimize their influence over each man they encounter. Maximum cleavage or near-nipple exposure focuses men on sex instead of the female and her other qualities. Her obvious immodesty relieves and sometimes is taken as condemnation of masculine self-restraint. It signals that she welcomes masculine-style sexual freedom—whether she does or not is moot, because he perceives it—and this shifts her into a player in the man’s game and seller instead of buyer after he conquers her.

Why is it always about the conquering with this guy? And the selling and the buying? I’m forced to wonder if he thinks that women are people. Actually, I’m not sure he thinks men are people either.

The second option causes women to discourage men or ignore messages she’s trying to send. Boobs well covered and shapeless regardless of size shift manly focus to other women. Sweatshirt-covered and other bosom-shaped displays indicate age. Other women just look better. Big, shapeless, and comfortable for her won’t reduce his eagerness for conquest, but it reduces his enthusiasm for her as keeper. Wives often resort to comfort—even to sloppiness—without realizing the impact on husband. It’s not modesty, but her shapeless boobs or breasts without ‘character’ that push men toward other women, and husbands are men.

Cover up too much, and it’s your own damn fault if your husband strays. Seriously, this guy spends a lot of time making excuses for other mens’ infidelity.

The third option empowers women to maximize their feminine impact on men, and women need to display this way for all men in order to find the right man. Very modest cover with two, albeit small, distinct boobs pointed uncomfortably high and perky forces decent men to focus on her eyes and other qualities in order to maximize his persuasiveness. She appears not only hard-to-get, but is implying ♫na, ♫na, ♫na, ♫na, ♫na, ♫na to this face—look but don’t even think about touching. Her appearance and attitude force the hunter-conqueror to plan for a long campaign. This empowers her to keep his attention focused on her and not on sex and for her to dominate their relationship before his conquest. Highly stressed modesty and two high and perky boobs blended into a non-sexual ‘in your face’ attitude can easily overpower male dominance. Men wilt under this kind of feminine determination, unless they are only after sex in the first place, which should empower her to put him back in the parade.

“Two, albeit small, distinct boobs pointed uncomfortably high and perky?!” So women with big boobs are automatically disqualified for being too slutty, as in option A. And uncomfortable for whom?! And why is that the magic combination to make men look at her eyes? Methinks this fellow reads a little too much into women’s choice of shirts. And maybe takes himself a tad too seriously.

Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely. Next time I feel the need to be conquered in a manly way (but by being a buyer and not a seller…or maybe it’s the other way around) by a man who hates women, I’ll be sure to follow some of this advice.

 

Nothing like a little misogyny with dinner

When I stumbled on a blog called “What Women Never Hear,” I just knew it was going to be good. And I was so right.

First, how the author describes himself:

A. Guy Maligned respects and honors the female gender more than his own, as do most men of his generation.

Curiously enough, his idea of respecting and honoring women sounds a lot like garden-variety bitterness about how much feminists have screwed up women, by making them less likely to behave the way he wants, rife with stereotypes about how men and women ought to be. Some choice excerpts:

Some women marry but retain their maiden name to show independence. Men read it as weak attachment to husband. Other women take their husband’s name as token of thankfulness for giving up his freedom. Other men respect them for that.

That’s right, ladies. If you keep your name for professional or sentimental reasons, you’re an ungrateful hussy. After all, your husband gave up his freedom to marry you. I like how he makes it sound like marriage is only beneficial to women, and something that men just put up with.

Some women dress erotically to capture a man and follow up with sloppiness that turns his head toward other neat and erotically attired females. The end is in sight. Other women know that their sloppy appearance and inattentive personal grooming at home and in public spawns potential trophies in their man’s eyes.

If your man strays, it’s because you didn’t put enough effort into being sexy. Stop complaining about what an asshole he is for being unfaithful and put on some lipstick.  The same sentiment comes again in a later post:

Some women convince themselves that the right combination of passion, love, religious beliefs, common interests, and kids will keep their relationship together. Other women know there’s no such insurance and that special stroking of her man as king to her queen is essential.

Your marriage is destined for failure if you insufficiently stroke his ego.  Got it.

Some women demean the male ego with cheap sex. They deny men the thrill of conquest and earn little respect for themselves. Other women exploit the male conquering drive to earn his greater respect—the precursor of a man’s love. They delay conquest for lengthy periods in order to earn his devotion and extract firm obligations.

And on a related note:

Some women discourage manly devotion by providing cheap, uncommitted sex. Other women inspire manly devotion by delaying a man’s conquest until he wants her for much more than sex.

Here’s where things get tricky. I agree that women are doing themselves a disservice by acting promiscuously. But his justification is entirely wrong. You don’t abstain from sex in order to play to a man’s desire for conquest, or because having sex will make him less likely to be all manly and devoted - you do it for yourself. More importantly, I really, really hate the idea that it’s the woman’s job to play sexual gatekeeper for both. Over and over in my Catholic school education, we heard that it was the woman’s job to keep men’s sexual appetites in line. This assumes two equally harmful things: that women have no sex drive and men have uncontrollable sex drives.

Some women base their love for a man on how well he lives by female rules and expectations. For example, insisting that he check in frequently and involve her in all decisions. Other women base their love around masculine rules and expectations, trust more than suspicion, friendship warmth instead of co-dependency, and loving appreciation more than direct involvement in each decision.

Women shouldn’t ask to be involved in decision-making. They should be grateful they have a man to do it for them.

Reward men appropriately for husbanding and fathering, and women can have what they want out of life with a man. ‘Appropriate’ means as defined by that man and no one else. So, a woman’s lifelong major task is to uncover what her man expects from her, and make sure she will not be victimized in whatever follows. (Of course she can claim that she’s due the same thing. But, he lacks the skills and interest to do it.)

Translation: women have to do all of the work, and if they do it to a man’s satisfaction, maybe they’ll get rewarded. Or at least not victimized. Implicit in everything this man has written, but made explicit here, is that he believes that men are individuals, who get to decide what their reward should be, while women are pretty much interchangeable servants.

And this is coming from a man who claims to hold women in high esteem. That esteem is clearly a double-edged sword. Because women are so much better, they are held to impossible standards as the perfectly submissive wives and mothers. Because they are so much more virtuous than men, they are expected to beguile men into good behavior. If a man acts poorly, it’s the woman’s fault for not dressing well enough, or not being moral enough. And while woman are expected to discover her man’s idea of appropriate rewards for marriage and fatherhood, men lack the “skills and interest” to reward her similarly for her role as a wife and mother.

In my family, we have a term for this: intentional incompetence.  For example, when asked to do the dishes, a younger brother will first ask a million questions - what temperature should the water be?  Where are the sponges?  Should I use soap? - then do a terrible job so that next time, I’ll think it’s easier to do it myself than ask them.  A. Guy Maligned is practicing intentional incompetence on the behalf of the entire male population.  Men just can’t be trusted to do anything right or make any sacrifices, so you little ladies will have to pick up the slack.

 

I didn’t know Net Neutrality was a feminist issue

You’d think an organization with a name like “National Organization for Women” would be concerned with, you know, women’s issues.  But in another move that lends credence to the idea that feminism isn’t about women, it’s about the whole liberal agenda, NOW put out an action alert asking its cronies to demand Net Neutrality.  I especially love the rhetoric of the alert:

Non-profits like NOW are able to reach out to a vast audience through the web and, in turn, individuals can access a range of information and services previously unthinkable. But all this could come to an end if “network neutrality” is not preserved.

Cue suspenseful music.  But wait, there’s more! [Emphasis mine]:

Media giants — like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner - want to control the flow of information on the Internet, cell phones, and wherever they can serve as gatekeepers and toll collectors.

On the web, they want to tax content providers in exchange for a guarantee of fast delivery of their information. So those who pay more will have their information appear more quickly - and for nonprofits and small businesses who can’t afford the going rate, well, too bad.

Interesting use of the word “tax,” is it not?  When I think tax, I think of something I am forced to pay to the government.  There is an element of coercion involved: if I don’t pay, I could get thrown in jail.  It’s especially funny considering that the nation faced a very real threat of actual internet taxes being imposed.  As in, the throw you in jail kind, not the greedy corporation kind.  What NOW is describing sounds more like an extra charge for a better service.  Let’s imagine a different scenario:

 At UPS, they want to tax people mailing stuff in exchange for a guarantee of fast delivery of their packages.  So those who pay more will have their packages delivered more quickly - and for nonprofits and small businesses who can’t afford the going rate, well, too bad.

As far as I can make out, no one is seriously talking about a downgrading of service; they’re just concerned that big customers will be able to pay extra to get faster delivery of information.  And this is worth setting a precedent of government interference in the internet for?  I’m just not buying it.  Neither does Phil Kerpen, apparently.  And I trust him a lot more than I trust NOW.

 

Because being conservative is a form of misogyny

Today’s feminist madness brought to you by skirt! magazine, a local publication with pretensions at being empowering.  It is also, judging by the ads in the print version, supported entirely with ad revenue from local plastic surgeons and designer clothing stores.  Talk about your conflicts of interest - how exactly do you claim to empower women while your advertisers make their living selling insecurity?  Skirt! to women: “You’re great just the way you are!  But here’s the number of a surgeon who can work wonders with those varicose veins and a store that will sell you self-esteem in the form of a $500 handbag!”

In their latest print edition, they published a cutesy page with “Ten Bumper Stickers We’d Like to Banish.”  I couldn’t find it online, but I’ll list them below and let you figure out which two stuck out to me:

1.Work Harder: Millions on Welfare Depend on You 

2. They Call it PMS because “Mad Cow Disease” was already taken

3. I (Heart) Tits and Ass

4. My Other Ride is Your Girlfriend

5. Vaginatarian

6. No Fat Chicks 

7. Wife and Dog Missing: Reward for Dog 

8. Your Boyfriend Wants Me

9. Where would you be today if your mother hadn’t chosen life?

10. Bigamy is one wife too many.  Monogamy is the same.

If you guessed numbers one and nine, you get a gold star.

In other words, opposing (or even joking about) welfare and being pro-life are as offensive as misogynistic humor.  This confirms two of my theses about life:

1 . Anything with an exclamation point in its name will be unbearably stupid.

2. Feminists (of the NOW variety) don’t think you can be a feminist unless you buy into their entire liberal agenda.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say that bullshit like the above is why my fellow Conservative Amazons don’t call themselves feminists.

 

Shorter Dana Goldstein: “Why don’t these stupid Republican women agree with me?”

Probably because we think you’re wrong, Dana. No, we haven’t been taken in by saber-rattling male politicians. No, we aren’t self-loathing or confused. We just don’t like your ideas. Is that simple enough for you? Apparently not, because you’ve written two columns now for the American Prospect in which you just don’t get it.

Liberals, especially liberal women, tend to get very confused when confronted with a conservative woman. If you’ve ever wanted to watch someone’s head explode, try walking into your local NOW meeting and saying “I voted for George W. Bush.” I promise you won’t be disappointed.

My first column for the George Street Observer, which unfortunately is not available online, described my experience attending a NOW meeting at C of C undercover and listed just a few of the ways I thought they were wrong. Next week, the NOW president wrote a lengthy Letter to the Editor in which she tried to clear up the misunderstanding. She explained that I probably agreed with her and her cohorts on all of the important things: pay equality, affirmative action, health care access, Euro-style family leave policies, increased minimum wage, “marriage equality” and better part-time jobs.

Nice try. I actually don’t agree with you on any of the above. But this is the typical liberal woman’s response to a conservative woman: “she’s just misguided or confused. I’ll help her understand.” Maybe the reason we disagree is because we understand all too well where the path of bigger government leads.

Back to Dana Goldstein, the catalyst for all of this. In her November 7 column for The American Prospect, she attends National Review’s “The Right Guy” panel at the National Press Club. This panel brought together top women staffers from the various Republican campaigns to discuss why their candidates would be better choices than Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Goldstein falls pretty quickly into being snide about Republican women:

Fred Thompson’s deputy communications director, Karen Hanretty, intoned, “I have yet to meet a woman who wants the federal government to step in and say here’s how you’re going to get your health care.” (Except when it comes to reproductive health care, of course. Then women should be extra grateful for government interference!)

In Goldstein’s mind, this is a contradiction. It’s really not that hard to grasp; I’ll even use short sentences so that no one gets confused. Annual physicals are health care. Cancer treatment is health care. Abortion is not health care. Abortion is the deliberate taking of a human life. At any other stage of development, we call that murder. We don’t want the government rationing our health care. But we do want laws that protect human life.

Hanretty promised that Thompson would “explain” to female voters that America is facing “an enemy who would take rights away from women, who would take rights away from homosexuals.” Never mind that the GOP has done far more than “the terrorists” to deny Americans reproductive freedom and marriage equality.

Dana, when we talk about rights, we aren’t talking about a right to abortion as conjured from Constitutional thin air by activist judges. We’re talking about the right to report a rape in criminal court and not be stoned to death if our story isn’t corroborated by a male witness, the right to go to school, the right to drive a car, the right to hold public office, the right to go unveiled in public places, the right to not endure genital mutilation. That’s a difference not just in magnitude but in kind.

The condescension gets even worse in Goldstein’s July article on GOP Moms: Between a Rock and the Hard Right. Here, she covers an event co-hosted by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute (full disclosure: I interned for CBLPI. It was the best summer job ever), which brought Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) to speak at the Conservative Women’s Network luncheon. Goldstein describes a scene in the elevator:

[A] young Heritage staffer tells McMorris Rodgers how happy she is that Republican members of Congress are beginning to doubt the utility of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The Congresswoman nods and smiles. “That’s what’s important,” she agrees. “Don’t get caught up in, ‘Oh, health insurance for children.’ Step back and see the larger picture.”

It’s moments like these when I want to look at conservatives and say, “Really? I mean really?”

Yes, Dana, really. We don’t think it is the appropriate role of government to hand out middle class entitlements. We don’t want to endanger the quality of health care by creeping slowly towards socialized medicine. We understand the economics behind it. Really.

It’s mind-boggling, of course, how McMorris Rodgers can advocate for women’s economic mobility even as she opposes programs, like S-CHIP, that help mothers pay for their kids’ medical needs.

Yours must be a fairly easy mind to boggle, Dana. S-CHIP has nothing to do with women’s economic mobility and everything to do with increasing the size and scope of government.

There is a pernicious tendency in Democratic circles to equate women’s needs with bigger government. Women need more of this handout and that program. How will they function/advance/survive/flourish if Democrats don’t sweep in with ever-greater generosity? I’ll let Susan B. Anthony answer that one for me:

There is not the woman born who desires to eat the bread if dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for any one who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it.

The same principle applies to government - the least feminist act I can think of is to deny that women are capable of acting for themselves and standing tall on their own merit. I doubt early feminists fought against dependence on family members so that the modern Democratic party could entice women into dependency on Uncle Sam.

Goldstein even manages to end on an even dumber note than she started:

As we file out of the auditorium for lunch, I look around me at my conservative peers, just starting their own ambitious political careers. For a second, I feel for them. All women are subject to societal schizophrenia when it comes to balancing work with domesticity, but these girls have it especially tough. The ideological cause to which they’ve dedicated themselves can’t decide what it values most in them, their office hours or their ovaries.

You mean there might be conflicting viewpoints and values inside of a larger movement? Of which movement has this not been true? In any case, our ideological cause doesn’t have to decide, because we can decide for ourselves. Which, if I’m not mistaken, was the entire point of feminism. Save your sympathy, Dana, we don’t need you feeling for us.