Althouse: "The Democratic Party has actively encouraged the GOP’s descent into antifeminism."

April 9, 2012

"The Democratic Party has actively encouraged the GOP’s descent into antifeminism."

"And though Democrats have reaped considerable gains from the fallout, their efforts have often ultimately been to the detriment of the country’s women."

Presented for discussion. Read the whole article before reacting to the quote I extracted to get your attention.

36 comments:

Matt Sablan said...: "In effect declared that feminism was no longer a bipartisan cause and that Republican women almost by definition could not be good feminists."

-- Some come right out and say it, not just 'in effect.' It is a really good bit of insight on fighting at the margins pushing people toward the extremes as moderates in both parties get cast out.; 4/9/12, 11:10 AM
Anonymous said...: You need to make a "female candidates must run unopposed" tag. It seems to be a recurring theme lately.; 4/9/12, 11:13 AM
edutcher said...: He confuses being against feminism with a War on Women. As several here have already notes, feminism has become the War on Women.

He also didn't get the same memo Ditzy Debbie and Manny Cleaver got to back off on it.

PS How many Republican women governors are there?; 4/9/12, 11:35 AM
Anonymous said...: The first comment in the article's comment thread pretty much sums it up:

"This article seems awfully thin on evidence for the headline; that is Democrat complicity in the actual state of affairs of the GOP."; 4/9/12, 11:39 AM
holdfast said...: It's really worse than that - the Dems and the media (but I repeat myself) usually imply, and sometimes state, that any strong, conservative woman isn't really a woman at all. It's along the same lines as what they do to black conservatives.

Sarah Palin, Nicki Haley, Michelle Bachman - they might not be everyone's cup of tea but all are influential, inspiring (to some at least) women with real accomplishments to their names, but the Dems/MFM are determined to destroy them - not just electorally defeat them - but utterly crush them and then scatter the remains to the cardinal points of the compass. This serves a number of purposes - it makes conservative women keep a low profile, lest they me the next Emanuelle Goldstein, it allows the Dems/MFM to point at the lack of strong women in the GOP as part of the "war on women", and it keeps their own potential dissenters in line.; 4/9/12, 11:43 AM
TosaGuy said...: I also play on a local internet forum. The two most vocal liberal women, while they like Obama, still hold a grudge against the Dem Party and society as how Hillary Clinton was treated in 2008....not that that will ever change how they vote.; 4/9/12, 11:47 AM
Lyssa said...: For once, I agree with Freder. Nothing in that article gave me any reason to beleive that there is a "war on women", that the GOP is launching said war, or that the Democrats have anything to do with it whatsoever.

Shame, seemed like an interesting idea.; 4/9/12, 11:48 AM
dbp said...: If you strip-away the dishonesty, like equating being anti-feminist as being anti-women, then there is little else than mundane observations in the article.

It is no mystery why moderates are challenged: They come from swing districts and are by definition winnable seats.; 4/9/12, 11:48 AM
damikesc said...: I love that the vicious assaults upon Coulter, Malkin, Bachmann, Palin, etc aren't evidence of a war on women.

Republicans have plenty of female candidates. Its just that the press so routinely slams them that they refuse to play nice.; 4/9/12, 11:50 AM
Balfegor said...: The whole article begs the question of a "sexist Republican party" -- I understand the man isn't trying to argue that point, just make the (totally trivial and banal) point that in an electoral system with two parties, centrist legislators from balanced districts are easier to pick off or redistrict away than legislators from strongly partisan districts.

But the article buys wholeheartedly into the identification of feminism with liberalism, and once you've calibrated your definitions to achieve that result, really, none of those other factors matters at all. Of course you're going to be calling the conservative party "anti-feminist."; 4/9/12, 11:57 AM
SGT Ted said...: Refusing to kiss the ass of every leftist woman who wants some free shit from other people because she has a vagina isn't being "anti-feminist" per se.; 4/9/12, 12:00 PM
Henry said...: The one substantive fact about this manufactured political tempest is that it was triggered when the Obama administration ordered Catholic hospitals to provide contraceptives.

IF you buy into the "war on woman" by the right you MUST also buy into the "war on religion" by the left.

Or you can just these two tropes die of their own idiocy.; 4/9/12, 12:05 PM
MadisonMan said...: I'm never upset when an incumbent loses, even a woman.

Is that anti-feminist of me?; 4/9/12, 12:06 PM
questioningann said...: Wait a minute: the rhetoric using the phrase war on women is a recent term yet said congresswoman who lost her election occurred ten years ago. Are the evil democrats prescient when redrawing district maps? Politics is a dirty game with each side practicing less then honorable tactics such as creating district maps to support their own party when their group is in power and punish the other. The republicans just did the same think in Ohio with Kucinich - it is the game.; 4/9/12, 12:34 PM
Icepick said...: Old story: party is more important than policy, even for groups like NOW that are allegedly all about policy.; 4/9/12, 12:35 PM
damikesc said...: Amazingly, I can't name a woman I know personally who is pro-Feminist. My wife, sisters-in-law, good friends, etc ALL loathe feminism.

I'm never upset when an incumbent loses, even a woman.

Is that anti-feminist of me?

Depends. If it's Barbara Boxer, yup.

If it's Michelle Bachmann --- well, she's not REALLY a female, now is she?; 4/9/12, 12:36 PM
Caroline said...: Regarding the "war on women" trope and relating it to your earlier analogy, some of us just ain't buying the tainted meat being sold. So to us, the basis of this article is bogus.; 4/9/12, 12:56 PM
David said...: The article makes sense if you assume that NOW is an arm of the Democratic party.

I so assume.; 4/9/12, 1:14 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: No. Not interested. I'm busy, and quit bossing me around. <--- comment without reading.; 4/9/12, 1:49 PM
Fen said...: Radical Left Feminists != Women.

For example, most women I know prefer they pay for their own birth control.

Remember who the players are: groups of women like NOW and MoveOn who prostituted their principles about sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination (Jones, Wiley, Lewinksy) in the workplace in exchange for a veto (Clinton) of the partial-birth abortion ban.

That was the day I came up with Fen's Law: The Left doesn't really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about.; 4/9/12, 2:32 PM
Fen said...: Of course, the RNC is declaring a War On Peguins next week, if any of you are interested.

We're going baby seal clubbing afterwards.; 4/9/12, 2:34 PM
Amartel said...: It's like a National Geographic Special on Republicans, dateline Backwardland in Upsidedownistan.
A lot of things misunderstood or misrepresented.

Presumption that there's a "Republican War Against Women"

Presumption of (and fake horror over) opportunistic Democrat complicity in made-up War on Women.

Presumption that "[t]he Republican Party’s alleged “war” against women is fast emerging as a major trope of the 2012 elections." [Well the press does keep bringing it up.]

Presumption that anti-feminism is something that you "descend" into.

Presumption that hostility to feminism is on a par with insensitivity to womens' issues.

Presumption that increasing conservatism leads to hostility and insensitivity to women.

Presumption that Democrats have "reaped considerable gains" from the fallout of the fake "War on Women"

Presumption that abortion is a party-line issue.

Presumption that the GOP rallied around Connie Morella because they were concerned about diversity.

Presumption that NOW is anything other than an agent of the Democratic party.

Bonus: "Strange new respect" for long-dead Republicans (ie., Lincoln era) and Republicans who do things that Democrats like (not supporting Iraq War).

Presumption that anyone at TNR gives two shits about the Republican Party.; 4/9/12, 3:02 PM
Blue@9 said...: What a terrible article--it's just a soggy piece of nothing for both sides. Aside from presuming that Republicans are waging a war on women, his only example of Democratic culpability is that they ran a candidate against a moderate woman 10 years ago? Whoza-what-what?; 4/9/12, 3:33 PM
paul a'barge said...: descent into anti-feminism

Like that's a bad thing.

Feminism == Sociopathology.; 4/9/12, 4:30 PM
Synova said...: "The bitter struggles by Republican women to combat their party’s rightward tilt and accompanying opposition to women’s rights have been amply chronicled by the historians Tanya Melich and Catherine Rymph, among others."

That doesn't even make sense. I don't see any reason to think that Republican women are more likely to be less-right-tilting than Republican men. There may well be a few left-tilting women upset about the right-tilting party, but the implicit assumption that "left" is self-obviously "female" in this is just odd.

"The latest example was Senator Olympia Snowe, who, in choosing not to seek reelection, pointed out that the GOP’s rigid and intolerant image turns off moderate, pro-business women who believe in limited but effective government."

Which is a good example. Olympia Snow was considered a reliable Democrat voter.; 4/9/12, 4:44 PM
Synova said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 4/9/12, 4:58 PM
Synova said...: My bad. I should read to the end before going on about something.; 4/9/12, 5:02 PM
Synova said...: Hm... seems to me that the article has it's weird anti-Republican arguments because it's not anti-Republican at all, but the author knows his audience and he simply could not have gotten a single person to listen if he didn't hit all those required notes.

It's a twisty sort of thing common to these articles we see in left-tilting magazines.

And the comments are predictably "how absurd!" despite the examples given where the Democratic party and women's organizations clearly were bringing women down for partisan gain.

This comment is clarifying: "If feminism is defined as electing women over men, whatever their political views and impact, then I guess Kabaservice would say that all feminists should have backed Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Marine Le Pen."

For all I know Marine Le Pen is a horrible person, but the statement is essentially that feminism is not about the promotion of women, whatever their varied ideologies may be, it's about a particular set of political views.

Since that particular set of political views is the leftist set, there is NO winning if you don't hold those views. Your views are by definition anti-woman.

So honestly why bother trying?

Conservative women got kicked out of the sisterhood over abortion anyway, so why let someone else scold you for what they did?; 4/9/12, 5:18 PM
Nora said...: Well, I read the article to the end, and it's still a kind of "they made me do it" excuse.

I do not think that abortion is purely feminist issue. I believe there there are no rights without obligations. I think that men should have a say. And I think that the unborn should have rights, at least at the later period, when they have high chance of survival, if born naturally.

I also think that forcing a woman to undergo transvaginal exam for reason other than her health amounts to rape.; 4/9/12, 6:14 PM
Methadras said...: Which makes it all the more apparent that Ms. Fluke was a tool plant set up to perform this very act and create this controversy. What's even more apparent than that is that the Democrat Party doesn't give two shits about women, or anyone else except for their death cult ideology, gender be damned. Hope it was worth it, leftards.; 4/9/12, 7:29 PM
wyo sis said...: Again feminists identify as lovers of abortion. When we all come to our senses, (alternatively, in the future after the decline and fall of Constitutional America) our posterity will likely look back on this time and wonder why women found it, not only desirable but politically essential, to be defined as practitioners of infanticide.; 4/9/12, 8:05 PM
Ken said...: so too has it become increasingly hostile to feminism

Because feminism has become firmly collectivist and anti-male.

and insensitive to women’s issues.

Wrong. Isolating issues as "women's issues" is the problem the left has across the board as it embraces identity politics. The idea that some issues are exclusively women's and that men should have no say is offensive and absurd. The same is true for all identity politics groups.

You either work for everyone promoting the general welfare for all or you've corrupted the system.; 4/9/12, 8:33 PM
Ken said...: As the GOP has become increasingly conservative

What a crock of shit. The dems have been moving consistently further to the left putting forward Obama in 2008, the most radically left wing senator at the time. And shocker of all shockers, he's pushed a radical left-wing agenda. To dismiss any legitimate criticisms, the label of "right-wing nut job" is applied to perfectly center arguments.

The dems are so far left these days, many actually consider Obama a centrist, which is a laughable assertion to anyone that knows anything about the political views of this country, where conservatives outnumber liberals two to one.

Geoffrey Kabaservice is an excellent example of liberal living in an echo chamber.; 4/9/12, 8:38 PM
RichardS said...: The degree of hatred that many of the urban professional I know direct at Sarah Palin often astounds me. Obama and his operatives seems to be trying to stir that same passion.; 4/9/12, 9:09 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Yeah, if you want real change you have to support people who believe the same thing in both parties. By making an enemy of one party you guarantee that you lose half the time.

Contrast this with the NRA. The NRA is bipartisan- if you don't push gun control they'll endorse you. Often they'll endorse all candidates in a race. And they've won- the 2nd Amendment is a nationally recognized individual right. That didn't happen by becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party. They went all-out on the Democratic party only when it became the party of gun control. When they stopped, the NRA backed off.

Feminism has a bigger problem- increasingly it alienates men, who are half of the population. There's a gender gap there, too. Feminism has lost its progressive aura and many of its critics have been born since the 1960s.

There's also the interest of children, who aren't represented in the political process at all. Feminism doesn't represent them, either. While issues like maternity leave are good for children, abortion on demand and no-fault divorce are not. Women don't necessarily care more about children than men do, either, which is an assumption that irritates me.

The article is more narrowly targeted than that, but I think it would be good to acknowledge that the interest of adult women is just that- it's not necessarily the interest of everyone else. It's just another interest group in our pluralistic society. There's nothing immoral about pointing that out. Sometimes they're right, sometimes not.; 4/10/12, 12:20 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Also, the idea that the GOP is becoming more conservative is wrong. George W. Bush was a moderate, McCain was a moderate, and Mitt Romney is a moderate. The Republican primary process consistently votes against the most conservative candidate.

Not that you'd know from the news coverage.; 4/10/12, 12:24 AM