I’m not sure if Politico was trying to promote Carly Fiorina or just make for some click-bait news, but either way, they failed epically. Their discussion of Fiorina and Feminism shows that they (a) are being partisan, (b) don’t understand feminism, and (c) didn’t pay attention in history class. As a proud feminist, I wanted to set a number of their inaccurate assertions straight.
1. Stop Trying To Divide Feminists
First of all, can we stop with this continued attempt to divide feminism into a variety of subcategories? Their article claims that to be feminist is to be liberal, which is patently untrue. I know many a proud feminist that also identify with being conservative.
2. Claiming That Current Feminism Is Meghan Daum’s Definition And Worse
In case you don’t know what that definition is, it is that feminists are “liberal, abortion-rights supporting . . . reusable-eco-bag toting, dangling-earring-wearing” set. Additionally, the authors claim that feminists have been “whining and pandering” for a long time.
I hate to break it to both Daum and the Politico authors, but you can be from a wide variety of different societal areas and still identify with feminism.
In fact, I wrote a piece for The Huffington Post earlier this year that discussed being a proud sorority sister AND a feminist. Further, I had a number of women from all over the country contribute to the story and include their support for being in a sorority and being a feminist.
As much as one might try to put feminism in a neat little box, it just isn’t going to happen. Feminism is equality between the sexes in politics, economics, and society. Period. How someone might express that is their own viewpoint. But it is ludicrous to claim that there is a different brand of feminism emerging thanks to Fiorina.
3. WTF Is Up With Equity Feminism?
And yet, of course, the Politico writers claim exactly that. They try and say that, thanks to Fiorina, we are looking at “equity feminism.” Which, apparently, stands for the “moral, social and legal equality of the sexes-and the freedom of women (and men) to employ their equal status to pursue happiness as they define it.” (emphasis theirs)
. . .
Not sure if they have opened a dictionary lately (which I do for them in my next point) but that IS basically the definition of feminism.
News Flash! You can be ANYTHING you want and ANY type of woman you want and still support the belief that women are entitled to equality. If you want to be a femme sorority sister, or a stay-at-home mom, or a CEO of a Fortune 500, you can do that! That’s the entire point of equality with men. Men can choose for themselves what it is they want to be without someone else telling them they cannot do it. Women get to have that same choice thanks to feminism. So long as you are the one making the choice, and the decision is not being forced upon you, then you are fulfilling feminism.
4. Traditional Feminism IS Equity Feminism
Let me just quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, who, I think we can all agree, is a completely unbiased source. They define feminism as, “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.”
This proves we don’t need some silly division of feminism to stand for equality. The traditional definition of feminism does that just fine already.
5. Postfeminism Isn’t A Real Thing
This part actually made laugh out loud when I read it. The authors try and claim that Fiorina’s campaign is ushering in a “postfeminist era in politics.” (emphasis theirs) They say that postfeminists are superior to traditional feminists, because they are not trying to “view men and women as opposing tribes.”
I have actually never viewed men and women as opposing tribes (except when my husband leaves his wet towel crumpled in a ball after his shower . . . I will never understand that). Politico’s writers are perpetuating the notion that you have to hate men to be a proud feminist. That is patently untrue. As I have mentioned numerous times above, you can be as “feminine” as you want and still be a feminist. One thing does not exclude the other.
6. If You Want To Play The Title IX Card, Let’s Look At Its History
This is where I really began to just shake my head over this article. What I love is that they cite all of these supposed Republican-supported advances for women from the 1960’s and 1970’s to show that the “liberals” are trying to co-opt the feminist movement. Again, do we have to divide feminists? Can’t we just showcase supporting each other, no matter our political beliefs? But if they insist on trying to play Republicans off of Democrats, the least they could do is get the facts right.
They state that the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, but they conveniently leave out who was President at that time. In case you aren’t up on your American History, that would be John F. Kennedy, who was a Democrat.
Then, they showcase Title VII and Title IX being signed under President Richard Nixon, who was (according to them) a “socially conservative Republican.” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the inclusion of sex discrimination in Title VII was actually done as a way to defeat the bill. It wasn’t done as some sort of rallying cry supporting women’s rights. If you read the scholarship on these pieces of legislation, it actually calls the inclusion of sex discrimination a “congressional joke” done as a way to halt the bill’s passage.
7. In Fact, If You Want To Play The President Nixon Card, Let’s Bring Up Title X
What I love even more is when they try to portray Nixon as a social conservative. Maybe for his time, he was – but definitely is not compared to the social conservatives today. In fact, Nixon was the one who introduced and passed Title X. This portion of the Department of Health and Human Services budget is specifically for Family Planning services.
According to their website, “Title X is the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services.”
If Nixon was such a social conservative, how did this get passed and signed under his term? We all know that such a thing would absolutely never happen today amongst the current social conservatives.
8. Stop Saying That Discussing Being A Woman Is “Playing The Gender Card”
Lastly, this ridiculous article tries to say that Fiorina is staying above the fray and not playing the “gender card” while Hillary Clinton does so on a regular basis. The examples they use show that Clinton is merely talking about her experiences as a woman. I fail to see how discussing your experiences from your point of view is playing any such card. Is Marco Rubio playing the immigrant or Hispanic card when he talks about where he came from? Or is he just trying to discuss how he grew up and how it shaped him? We are all products of our environment, and that includes being a man or a woman in certain instances. It’s the same reason I had to explain to my husband why I would never accept help from a stranger if my car broke down on the side of the road late at night. He couldn’t understand because he doesn’t fully understand what it means to be a female and to be alone in a situation like that. Is that me playing some gender card? Or is it just showing how we both experience society based on the fact that we are of different genders?
The entire point of this list is to say – feminism is feminism. It doesn’t need a qualifier and it doesn’t need someone dividing it into different sects. Feminists can come from every background and political leaning. That isn’t to say I agree with the conservative stance on many issues related to women, but I would never say that a conservative cannot be a feminist. And Politico needs to do better in their writing than to suggest otherwise.
Oh, and they also might want to do some historical research before spouting “facts” about legislation as well.
Featured image by Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
