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Without the Democratic or Republican parties realizing it, women on the right changed dramatically over the last thirty years.
Many feminists on the left must be asking themselves, "How did we get here? When did conservatives start embracing the word "feminism" with enthusiasm?
Unfortunately, when put to the test, feminists didn't open their arms to their conservative sisters or engage in a lively debate. Rather they borrowed a few phrases and attacks from their patriarchal foes, and the leading matriarchs completely dismissed the notion that conservative voices were needed in the sorority. The feminist spokeswomen -- Gloria Steinem, Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte and others -- were vocal in their frequent attacks of Mama Grizzlies.
These reactions radically differed from the platitudes that feminist writers and speakers had offered for decades. Given the quotes below, shouldn't conservative women fit in somewhere?
- My definition of feminism is simply that women are people, in the fullest sense of the word, who must be free to move in society with all the privileges and opportunities and responsibilities that are their human and American right." -Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement, 1976
- Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to 'choose' between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves -- instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their man."-Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, 1991
- Feminism is no longer a group of organizations or leaders...It's the way we talk about and treat one another. It's who makes the money and who makes the compromises and who makes the dinner. It's a state of mind. It's the way we live now."-Anna Quindlen, New York Times, 1994
- By feminists, we mean each and every politically and socially conscious woman or man who works for equality. In reality, there is no formal alliance of women we can call “the feminists.”-Jennifer Baumgardener and Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism and the Future, 2000
What a difference! Contrast those quotes with articles attacking women who identify as conservative feminists. This group is not speaking for all women. They merely women who are willing to side with the Democratic Party and progressive politics.
Somewhere, feminists took conservative women completely out of the equation and decided to marginalize them.
Academia and liberal women discounted the power of conservative women, and we have never been examined as a separate voting bloc. Despite the millions of dollars funneled into gender studies programs, PACS and advocacy groups, virtually no research has been done on conservative women. Since about 1985, only a handful of academic studies and about two dozen books were published that focused on the role and existence of conservative women. Contrast this to the thousands of books and articles published examining every facet of liberal feminism.
In her book, Righting Feminism, political science professor, Ronnee Schreiber explains:
Inattention to comparably sized and situated feminist organizations, such as the National Organization for Women, would be untenable; yet almost no scholarship exists on national conservative women’s organizations. An examination of these national political actors is long overdue.
We were relegated to Pink Elephants and told to stuff envelopes, phone bank and occasionally throw fundraisers. Both sides neglected to notice that conservative women—like the rest of society—were changing.
Few women and men would argue that 100% of feminism is wrong. Once abortion and marriage issues are separated, most women agree with the concepts of equality in the workplace, sexual harassment laws, Title IX, equal pay laws, and the changes in divorce and custody laws that the feminist movement worked to enact over the last few decades.
Regardless of political philosophy, we are products of the society in which we live. The role of women, even conservative, religious women, has dramatically changed in the last few decades.
Yet a movement was bubbling below the surface.
A few women such as Elizabeth Dole, Sandra Day O’Connor, Kay Bailey Hutcheson and even Phylis Schafly blazed a lonely trail. While we shared some political views,
