The New Face of Feminism

Ok, bear with me a moment. Over the last 90 years, the empowerment of women in America has changed many times. Women were the last major group in the United States to receive the right to vote (not until 1920…..black men had been voting a full 55 years by this time). During WW2, in a Molly Pitcher moment, women took the places of thier husbands on the assembly lines and under the welders masks.  In the 50’s, a movement was afoot to send Rosie the Riveter back to the kitchen, but by the 60s, that kettle had simmered to the boiling point. A powerful and organized liberal progressive movement began then, which blossomed into the ERA (though unratified, it quantified clearly what women should expect from America). Women’s rights became a kitchen table issue in the US.

At some point, liberals began to shape and aquire women’s rights as thier issue. They defined what a woman should think her rights were. Women should be out in the work place. Women should be Democrats. Women should champion abortion. If a woman did not seek out these positions, she was not accepted by the movement. Democrats were happy to welcome the voting power of women. Stay at home mothers were looked down upon. Public school was expanded to include kids at younger ages, child care was championed. Women were told to think for themselves…..as long as they followed the prescribed guidelines.

It seems that women learned a thing or two along the way, though. Over the last 20 years, a new breed of feminist has evolved. These are the women who decided to think for themselves….and set their own agenda. They did not need to be told what issues a woman should support. Some were pro-life. Some believed that raising their children was noble and that a woman did not have to be defined by a career. Some were socially conservative. They still believed in equal rights for women…..but they decided to think for themselves.

These “truly equal” women are now being derided by the very political party that has painted itself as the champion for women. Democrats (and even some feminists) have been noticing this emergence of free thinking women, and they have done their best to destroy them and discredit them with the label antifeminist. Conservative feminism is becoming what liberal feminism used to be. Conservative names like Margaret Thatcher, Elisabeth Dole, and Condaleeza Rice and now, Sarah Palin, are diminished in the interests of preserving a liberal strangle hold on women’s votes.

If Feminism is about equal rights for women, then why do it’s supporters turn thier backs on women who have chosen a different path to success? There are many successful female journalists and politicians whose crime is being conservative and whose punishment has been public attacks on thier fitness to lead, and on thier fitness as mothers. That criticism is not levied on the liberal thinker…..only on the conservative one. Those women have found themselves up against the new glass ceiling. I hope that they can make their own “18 million cracks”