Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Family, Culture and Community

Michelle Malkin on Kiddie Fashion

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:43:00 EDT

Michelle Malkin has a great piece lamenting new seductive clothes lines targeted to toddlers:

If you thought the soft-porn image of Disney teen queen Miley Cyrus - wearing nothing but ruby-stained lips and a bedsheet - in Vanity Fair magazine was disturbing, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Pop diva Beyonce Knowles, 27, and her fashion-designer mother have launched a girls clothing line that makes Miley's bare-backed glam session look like a Shirley Temple photo shoot.

Read the whole piece here. It's always tough with something like this because beyond boycotting stores that carry these type of stuff, there's not much one can do. Except I guess for raising awareness about it and the obvious: those of us with little girls should obviously not buy this kind of junk for our daughters.

Podcast Alert: Diana West

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:15:00 EST

In the latest IWF podcast, Charlotte Hays and I interview Diana West about her book, The Death of the Grown-up. Give it a listen here.

IWF Podcast Diana West's The Death of the Grown-up

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:37:00 EST

IWF's Charlotte Hays and Allison Kasic interview Diana West about her book, The Death of the Grown-up.

Podcast Alert: Dalrymple

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:07:00 EST

In the latest IWF podcast, Charlotte Hays interviews Theodore Dalrymple about his book Our Culture, What's Left of it: The Mandarins and the Masses. Give it a listen here.

IWF Podcast: Our Culture, What's Left of it: The Mandarins and the Masses

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:48:00 EST

IWF's Charlotte Hays interviews author Theodore Dalrymple about his book, Our Culture, What's Left of it: The Mandarins and the Masses.

IWF Mourns Elizabeth Lurie

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST

The Independent Women's Forum mourns the loss of Elizabeth Brady Lurie, an IWF founder and a stalwart supporter without whom IWF would not exist. Elizabeth Lurie, who died last Wednesday, November 21, at her home in Sedona, Arizona, believed in the power of ideas.

"Elizabeth Lurie was a truly independent thinker," said IWF Chairman Heather R. Higgins, "thoughtful, original, and fearless-all of which was tempered with a lively sense of humor. She was a bold grantmaker, a visionary agent of change, and consistently deployed limited resources so that they had a substantial effect. She played a critical role in IWF's early years. She also touched many lives, and will be missed."

Elizabeth worked tirelessly for the Brady Corporation of Milwaukee Wisconsin, the company founded by her grandfather, William H. Brady Sr., serving as a board member and later as an advisor. Through her work with the W. H. Brady Foundation, she contributed enormously to the vibrancy of many institutions that are key to the country's cultural and policy debates.

"Elizabeth gave generously of her time and support to matters of public policy, art, literature, and to the needs of her community," a family statement noted. "She loved all sorts of people, books, and art of every kind and at every opportunity a good healthy debate about the things that mattered to her. Perhaps most of all Elizabeth believed strongly that every person should have a passion for something worthy of service and sacrifice."

Mrs. Lurie often proudly recalled that her father, William H Brady Jr., loved to assign his children the task of writing essays on provocative topics. "It is not government, it is not dictators or presidents or generals or popes who rule the world. It's ideas," he famously declared. This had an enormous impact on Elizabeth, who retained her love of matters of the mind and philosophical discussion for the rest of her life. She was a woman of great intellect.

"She knew that only ideas can move society towards a place that reflects the best values of a free and flourishing society and was willing to work and contribute to promoting the best ideas," said Carol T. Crawford, an IWF board member.

Mrs. Lurie was preceded in death by her husband Shy Lurie. She is survived by her daughter Dr. Elizabeth Pungello, currently a director of the Brady Corporation, her son-in-law Robert Pungello, her grandchildren Daniel, Hope, and Mia. Other survivors include her stepson Scott Lurie, his wife Julie and their daughters Victoria and Jordon and her stepdaughter Cheryl Lurie. She is also survived by her brother William H Brady, III.

The family asks that remembrances be sent to the Elizabeth Brady Lurie Fund for Arts and Literature at the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina P.O. Box 1888, Asheville, NC 28802.

IWF Event Alert

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:20:00 EDT

We hope you will join us for this upcoming IWF event:

Speaker: Theodore Dalrymple, author of Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses
Date: Thursday, November 8, 2007
Time: 5:30 PM ET
Location: Ethics and Public Policy Center

A wine-and-cheese reception will follow discussion. Register for this event now.

Throughout history, the United States has drawn on the rich cultural resources of England to build and sustain our own heritage. In an event co-sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Independent Women's Forum, British writer Theodore Dalrymple - author of Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses - will plumb the depths of the social pathologies that plague England. Is English civilization on its deathbed? How can it be restored to vigor? And what would its death portend for the United States?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of Anthony Daniels, a retired psychiatrist who has written widely about culture, art, politics, education, and medicine. A former prison doctor, he has witnessed the effects of drug use and other social pathologies at the lower rungs of society. His latest book is In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas.

Women Who Make the World Better: Karin Agness

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT

At 23, Karin Agness has already made the world better. While still an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, Karin founded the Network of enlightened Women (NeW), an intellectual home for college women who don't blindly follow the herd. Described by TIME Magazine Online as "a small but fast-growing campus alternative to the Feminist Majority and the National Organization for Women, with a foothold in seven states," NeW started as a book club. Karin is a rising second-year law student at the University of Virginia. Karin is a native of Indianapolis and is considering a career in law or politics. She spoke to IWF's Charlotte Hays and Allison Kasic while interning at a law firm.

IWF: What inspired you to found the Network of enlightened Women?

AGNESS: I had the opportunity to intern in Washington, D.C. during the summer of 2004 for Senator Lugar and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was a fabulous opportunity. I was surrounded by other conservative women and I loved it. Rather than just debating liberal versus conservative big picture ideas, we got into the nuances of some of the conservative arguments, which I really enjoyed.

When I returned to the University of Virginia that fall for my junior year, I sought out an environment like I had in D.C., where you had conservative women getting together and really talking about issues. I couldn't find anything. On college campuses, there are hundreds of clubs archery and belly dancing clubs, NOW chapters, and debating societies, anything and everything so I thought there would be something for conservative women. Nothing. Then I looked at colleges around the country and couldn't find anything.

Finally, I went to the U.Va. women's center to ask if they had an organization for conservative women. I set up an appointment with the woman who is now the director of diversity at the women's center. She gave me a nice tour and calendar, which showed me everything they did. At the end, I asked her if they'd be interested in co-sponsoring an organization for conservative women. We just wanted to meet in their spaces and use them as a resource. She looked at me as if I were crazy, chuckled, and replied, "Not here."

That's when I decided I was going to start something. I got together with a group of friends and we sat down and discussed what we wanted. I often had been frustrated with clubs that held meetings and didn't accomplish anything. That is not what I wanted. I wanted something with real substance. So we decided to set it up as a book club. That way we'd really be educating ourselves and it would give us a solid structure. The first book we read was Danielle Crittenden's What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman. And that's how NeW began.

IWF: NeW has grown by leaps and bounds. Tell us a little about this.

AGNESS: We had our first meeting at U.Va. on September 29, 2004, and the following spring I received an email from a student at the College of William & Mary. She had heard about NeW through friends at U.Va. and was wondering if it would be okay with me for her to start a chapter. Of course, I was thrilled. I emailed her back and started to correspond with her on how to start a chapter. I went down to her first meeting and gave a presentation. I recommended they start as a book club, and I became their mentor.

When the club did well at William & Mary, I realized that NeW had national potential, I began keeping track of documents to share with others and looking out for other women who might be good leaders of a chapter. I also made the decision that, rather than being an organization that focuses solely on growth, I was going to find women who had a lot of motivation and make sure we had strong chapters.

We've had a lot of growth, but it's been a manageable amount of growth.

IWF:Has there been much negative reaction on campus? I understand that there was a cartoon about you?

AGNESS: First to the cartoon, because I think that's a great story. We had our first meeting on September 29, and that was an interest meeting. For our next meeting, we had Professor Steven Rhoads, author of Taking Sex Differences Seriously, speak to us. The premise of his book is that men and women are different. For some reason, this idea shocks many on the left; they just don't understand it. After that meeting, the liberal newsmagazine on campus put a drawing of a woman on the cover who was connected to a machine that was popping out babies. She was also stirring batter and looking at her recipe book. The headline was "Manifest Domesticity." It was trying to mock our group and what we stood for, and that's the general reaction we had. What was funny about it was that a lot of people picked it up. And then they'd flip through, and our name was right there, so it helped generate some buzz about what we were doing, which actually ended up helping out the group.

IWF: Now you all had a conference recently, tell me about it.

AGNESS: There was an article about NeW on TIME Magazine Online last summer. Because of it, I was getting dozens of emails, so I decided to plan a national conference. With a conference, I could give information about the organization and it would fulfill our mission of being a network connecting women across the country.

We had our first conference last year, which was a huge success. I wanted to do it again this year. At last year's conference, I had everybody fill out surveys about what they liked and didn't like. One thing they all wanted was a keynote speaker. So I asked Carrie Lukas of IWF to be our keynote speaker. She had just written a book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism. Our University of Virginia chapter read it in the fall semester and thought it provided a great background on the failures of feminism.

I am a big proponent of NeW helping women to become better educated on conservative principles and also more aware of conservative women who have taken leadership roles on a lot of issues. I also think it's important to try to develop in our members an attitude of activism. You can make a difference, and, if you tackle an issue, you can effect change. I encourage members to write letters to the editor and develop public speaking skills. At both our conferences, I asked some of the successful presidents to give 10 minute speeches about what their organizations are doing. We had three of our chapter presidents (from Arizona State University, University of Virginia and Mary Washington University) talk about their clubs, what had been their successes, and what had been their challenges. This gave these three presidents a chance to speak publicly and push themselves in a new direction. They all did a tremendous job.

We ended with a brainstorming session. One of the things that I notice most about running this organization is that the women are facing a lot of the same challenges on different campuses. For instance, to start a club, oftentimes you have to have a faculty sponsor. That's more difficult when you want to create a conservative women's club because there's not that many conservative women faculty in colleges around the country. So then you face a choice: Do you try to find a liberal female professor who's open-minded and would be willing to put her name on this club, or do you try to find a male professor who would be willing to sponsor a female club? You would never think that finding a faculty sponsor would be a challenge, but it turns out to be a huge challenge in starting a NeW club.

IWF: What's the prevailing political attitude on campus among students?

AGNESS: A majority of the students and a huge majority of the professors are liberal in their political attitudes. There are also many apathetic folks. At the University of Virginia, probably because we're a southern school, there are a good number of conservatives, but they don't speak out on issues or challenge the liberal orthodoxy they hear in the classroom. That's why it's important to have organizations like NeW to bring people together so that students will be more likely to have the courage to speak out.

IWF: What do you think about women's studies as a major?

AGNESS: Women's studies should not be a major. One of the biggest problems I have with the department is there's not much academic accountability in it. These departments were created by leftwing women and all their academic work is judged by other leftwing women.

I've seen no need for women's studies departments. If you want to cover women's history, there is no reason why this can't be covered in regular history courses. And if you want to study trends and gender, these are studied in sociology. If you really want full equality in the academic world, why not discuss these issues in regular academic courses? When men have taken a leading role in society, we'll focus mostly on men, and that's okay. But when women take leading roles, we'll focus on women. I don't think you need to separate women's studies into its own world.

IWF: Why do you think that most people on campus support a liberal philosophy and political system? Is it because of the faculty, or is it simply path of least resistance?

AGNESS: I think it is partly because the faculty are teaching students with a bias. For example, a study came out last year that a huge majority of college faculty gave money to democrat as compared to republican candidates.

It's so much easier as a college student to be a liberal than it is to be a conservative because as a liberal you are "for" a lot more at least in terms of big government programs. For example, you're for raising the minimum wage and you're for socialized healthcare, without looking at broader consequences. As conservatives, we want to look at the bigger picture.

Also, college students often are looking for a way to justify their appetite for instant gratification and liberal policies readily provide that justification. Conservatives inject morality into politics.

IWF: Many campuses celebrate Valentine's Day with The Vagina Monologues. What about U.Va.?

AGNESS: The Vagina Monologues is a huge production at the University of Virginia, and as you said, it's on over 500 college campuses nationally. It was performed for two years while I was at U.Va., my freshman and sophomore years, and no one questioned it. In my junior year, after I had started NeW, the signs for The Vagina Monologues started going up in February, and we decided we wanted to challenge it. So we brought in Christina Hoff Sommers to give a speech entitled "Sex, Lies, and The Vagina Monologues." She exposed the play for what it is. It objectifies women, makes men look pitiful, and even glorifies rape. It's a ridiculous play.

This shows how an organization such as NeW can be valuable in making people think. Before we came along, this play was performed without any questions being raised. We had more than 200 people show up for Christina Hoff Sommers' talk. One of the things I'm most proud of is that this event sparked a two-week debate in the school newspaper. There were columns for us and columns against us. This led some of the women in NeW to write letters to the editor for the first time. We got people to think about The Vagina Monologues for the first time.

The next year, when it was time for The Vagina Monologues, we decided to host a debate. We wanted to have NeW versus the directors of The Vagina Monologues. We offered to do all the work, set it up, do all the publicity and make it easy for them to just show up and talk about it. Because they love this play, I was sure they would want to talk about it. So I emailed the directors of The Vagina Monologues and asked them if they would be willing to debate us. They said they were too busy to debate us even though we were going to do all the work. Then I approached the student-run local NOW chapter to see if they would debate us. They also declined, claiming they were not comfortable debating us about the play.

We still wanted to do a debate. The chair of the University Democrats that year was a woman, so I approached her and we decided to do a two-on-two debate, two women from NeW, and two women from the University Democrats. It was standing room only. This debate revealed a contradiction. These feminists who were too busy or uncomfortable to debate us all found time and were comfortable enough to come to the debate wearing "I Love The Vagina Monologues" t-shirts and platform for their cause under the guise of asking questions.

IWF: What advice do you have for conservative women on campus?

AGNESS: One of my favorite quotes is from Alexander Hamilton when he said, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything." I think that's the advice I like to give conservative women. If you don't stand up for what you believe, if you're not fighting for your principles, then no one else is going to. It's your role, if you really believe in these principles, to stand up and make a difference. Otherwise, you can't complain about what's going on. That's what I tell even non-conservative friends, if you're going to complain about something, then do something about it.

I think it's really important to get politically engaged young. If you start writing letters to your school newspaper when you're young, you'll continue doing that for the rest of your life because you learn how to do it. You see a lot of people get involved in campaigns in college and then continue on with that for a long time. It's important to get engaged now, when you're young and have a lot of energy.

IWF: What are some of the influences that shaped your views? Was it reading? Your family?

AGNESS: I think it was really a combination of my upbringing and then reading. As someone who has always wanted to go to law school, I've always been very analytical about things. Through reading and seeing the kind of life I want to live, conservative ideas just made more sense to me.

IWF: Karin, what is your future, you're in law school now, you're interning here in the summer, what are you planning to do?

AGNESS: I just finished my first year of law school at the University of Virginia, and I'm working at a firm. I'm giving the law firm path a shot this summer to see if that's something I like, which I've enjoyed thus far. But I've been bitten by the political bug. I'd love to stay involved and I think I always will.

IWF Podcast: Muslims living in the United States

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) info@iwf.org (Halima Karzai) — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:50:00 EDT

IWF's Allison Kasic and Halima Karzai discuss a new study from the Pew Research Center about the views and status of Muslims living in the United States.

American Originals

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Fri, 18 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

The Wall Street Journal

"We are approaching Jamestown the same way our ancestors did," says a member of the Jamestowne Society at the front of our bus. We have been following along Virginia's scenic James River. It is at this precise moment that our foray into history is halted by a reminder that, for good or ill, we are denizens of the 21st century: a random check for dangerous materials by explosives-sniffing dogs. "We must be one of the safest groups in America," says a bemused member of the society, savoring the irony of Jamestown descendants being inspected for explosives as they prepare to set foot on the hallowed isle. It is May 12--400 years since a group of Englishmen first laid eyes on what would become the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

The Jamestowne Society officially commemorated the anniversary of the settlement's founding on May 13, the day that the original settlers went ashore. We shared the occasion with the Order of the First Families of Virginia, a group that requires, for membership claims, a rather strict early arrival on these shores. The Jamestowne Society is slightly more liberal: Our list of about 1,500 "qualifying ancestors" opens membership to descendants of those who arrived in Jamestown before 1699.

Because the Jamestowne Society is a lineage society, it might appear to be at odds with America's democratic spirit. But I've never had a more authentically American experience than I had on Jamestown's anniversary weekend. The settlement's "family tree" has ramified fantastically over 400 years: There are millions of settler-descendants--though the society itself currently numbers about 4,000 active members, about a fourth of whom came to Jamestown last Saturday. I can think of nothing more intrinsically American than hoping that some smidgen of the courage and fortitude and downright orneriness of the original settlers has made its way down to the 21st century.

As the weekend approached, I had wondered how ye olde colonial gene pool was holding up. The answer, as it turned out: pretty well. There were the to-be-expected genealogy buffs, a contingent of whom planned to drive to Washington, D.C., for that most delicious of pursuits--further research in the National Archives! A patrician-looking older lady, a member of the First Families of Virginia gang, went everywhere with her well-behaved little Lhasa Apso. But most of the group--far from being the effete relics--were robust citizens, many of them young professionals. For obvious reasons, we have a lot more men than the Daughters of the American Revolution. Though I met Jamestowners from San Diego and Denver, I sensed that the majority of us were Southerners. "If you've got one Jamestown ancestor, you've got a dozen," says Brenda Schilling, a vivacious, auburn-haloed real-estate lady from outside Atlanta. Brenda and I delightedly discover a shared ancestor.

The weekend drew some people who were not nearly so charmed by the anniversary as we were. Protesters nearby, including Malik Shabazz of a group called Black Lawyers for Justice, dubbed their own "celebration": "Jamestown, VA 400th Anniversary of Genocide." "Make no mistake about it," the Associated Press quoted Mr. Shabazz as saying, "our ... demonstration" is "designed to crash this illegitimate party and pursue the overdue case for reparations and justice for the victims of slavery, mass murder and genocide... The ill effects of what happened at Jamestown still fester in the community today."

Truth to tell, I was finding our "illegitimate party" quite moving, especially when the replicas of the three ships that originally came to Jamestown--the Godspeed, the Susan Constant and the Discovery--could be seen gliding on the James River. Later I spoke to an archaeologist, working on a settlement site, who stopped shifting dirt long enough to explain that he and his colleagues were trying to unearth the scant remains of those who had died in 1610, known as "the starving time."

Survival at Jamestown was not easy. In that one year, 440 of the 500 settlers perished. Other years were, if not equally devastating, arduous and dire. Yet despite the tremendous suffering of the Jamestown pioneers, they do not occupy the same hallowed place in the American memory as other settlers. On anniversary weekend, historian James P. Hunt--the author of "A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America" --evoked spontaneous applause and knowing giggles over lunch when he referred to "the Plymouth mythology." His remark was an allusion to the greater fame enjoyed by the Pilgrims, who actually arrived 13 years after "our" men put ashore at Jamestown.

What explains the short shrift given to Jamestown? Though the Puritans came for religious reasons, they were in fact dissenters who opposed the established church. By contrast, the settlers at Jamestown were stalwarts of the Church of England, hardly the mavericks that the modern mind prefers.

There was another important difference between the two settling groups. The Pilgrims came primarily for an idea--that is, the freedom to worship as they preferred. Those who came to Jamestown did so primarily for entrepreneurial reasons, sponsored by the Virginia Co. in London. Over anniversary weekend, the importance of private property in saving the colony was repeatedly stressed. "It was here on this sacred ground that the principles of representative government, private ownership of land and civilian control of the military were firmly rooted in the New World," said Harrison Schroeder, the society's esteemed governor. It should be noted that slavery also came to Jamestown, but, having been abolished more than a century and a half ago, it "festers" today mostly for professional provocateurs.

I couldn't help wondering how the talk of property rights and military might was going over with my fellow reunion-goers. I overheard one woman talking about President Bush. She hadn't known he was coming the next day and now wanted to change her travel plans. Had Bush derangement reached to Jamestown? I struck up a conversation with her. It turned out that she did want to change her ticket--to be with the president. She admired him and had joined the Jamestowne Society because she felt that its patriotic values are needed today.

An automobile sticker, if you will, said it all: "Jamestown. Survival is not a game."

Ms. Hays is senior editor at the Independent Women's Forum.

From the You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept.

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Thu, 17 May 2007 10:30:00 EDT

"Hmmm, what could possibly be the worst form of terrorism?" asks the American Thinker. "Slamming hijacked planes into buildings, killing thousands? Spreading hatred of unbelievers; capturing and beheading them? Declaring holy war on all unbelievers? Nope.

"According, to the foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference decided Islamophobia the worst form of terrorism and called for practical steps to counter it. All agreed, 'It is something that has assumed xenophobic proportions,' they said in unison.

"'This campaign of calumny against Muslims resulted in the publication of the blasphemous cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in a Danish newspaper and the issuance of the inflammatory statement by Pope Benedict XVI," they said. During a speech in Germany last year, the Pope quoted a 14th Century Christian emperor who said the Prophet had brought the world only 'evil and inhuman' things. The Pope's remarks aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world."

Indulgences? Carbon Offsets? Let's go sin some more!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:55:00 EDT

In today's must-read piece, Victor Davis Hanson compares the buying of carbon offsets to the purchase of indulgences by Medieval sinners:

"Take the idea of 'carbon offsets' made popular by Al Gore. If well-meaning environmentalist activists and celebrities either cannot or will not give up their private jets or huge energy-hungry houses, they can still find a way to excuse their illiberal consumption.

"Instead of the local parish priest, green companies exist to take confession and tabulate environmental sins. Then they offer the offenders a way out of feeling bad while continuing their conspicuous consumption.

"You can give money to an exchange service that does environmental good in equal measure to your bad. Or, in do-it-yourself fashion, you can calibrate how much energy you hog -- and then do penance by planting trees or setting up a wind generator.

"Either way, your own high life stays uninterrupted."

More on Imus

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:20:00 EDT

IWF visiting fellow Princella Smith provides further commentary on the Imus scandal and the influence of hip hop music here. Here’s a teaser:

"Long before Don Imus called the Rutgers Women’s basketball team ’nappy-headed hoes’ African-Americans have faced degradation. But it is the degradation that we place upon ourselves that is the most damaging.
"African-American history is rich with slaves who taught themselves how to read, learned to till and navigate the land, achieved status as small business and landowners, and were even elected to office post-Reconstruction. They instilled in their children a sense of pride and hard work. All the while, they were viewed as having no more brains than an ox. No greater use than manual labor and reproducing. Still they soldiered on. Their literal blood, sweat, and tears stain the trail upon which African-Americans now tread. But it’s as if many in my generation don’t even know it."

Read the whole article here.

Yolanda King

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:19:00 EDT

IWF remembers her here.

IWF mourns the passing of Yolanda King

Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

The Independent Women's Forum wishes to express our deep sadness on learning of the death of Yolanda King, the oldest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Ms. King, who died late Tuesday in Santa Monica, was only 51 at the time of her death. A babe in arms when the King family residence in Montgomery, Ala. was bombed by segregationists, Mrs. King grew into an admired and much-loved woman who followed her own dream and whose legacy would no doubt have made her famous father proud.

An author, peace activist who never wavered from her father's belief in social change through non-violence and actress, who played Rosa Parks in a 1978 mini-series on Martin Luther King, Ms. King was twelve when her father was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis. A piece distributed by WSBTV notes that she loved a particular sermon by her father because it emphasized "the three-dimensions of a complete life," which were self-love, love of others, and love of God. "It is a blending of those three that develops the complete life, as my father did," she told interviewer Mitch Horowitz.

An indomitable woman not cowed by her family's travails, she will be sorely missed. "She was a princess and she walked and carried herself like a princess," the Rev. Joseph Lowery, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a close friend of the King family, told the Atlanta Journal & Constitution. "She was a reserved and quiet person who loved acting."

No cause of death has been given yet. Ms. King, who was preceded in death by her mother, Coretta Scott King, leaves behind a sister, the Rev. Bernice A. King, and two brothers, Martin Luther King III and Dexter Scott King. Our deepest sympathy goes to the King family.

Why the lacrosse players HAD to be guilty...

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:27:00 EDT

We try to keep our eyes peeled for interesting insights into the Duke lacrosse scandal. So I was glad to see this excellent piece in the New Criterion. Many aspects of the scandal deserve obloquy:

"One is the role of the media, which with few exceptions descended on the story like Lord Byron's fabled Assyrian and his cohorts pursuing the destruction of Sennacherib. Oh, how The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and countless other bastions of liberal self-satisfaction loved it! Race. Class. Sex. Victimhood. It was the perfect morality tale. Those white jocks at 'the Harvard of the South' just had to be guilty. And what a good time we were all going to have lacerating the malefactors while at the same time preening ourselves on our own superior virtue!
"The editorials, the op-eds, the comments, the analyses poured forth non-stop, demonstrating that one of the deepest human passions is the urge to self-righteous pontification. The novelist Allan Gurganis epitomized the tone in an op-ed last April: 'The children of privilege,' he thundered, 'feel vividly alive only while victimizing, even torturing.' You don't say? Even sports writers got into the act. Selena Roberts located Duke University 'at the intersection of entitlement and enablement,... virtuous on the outside, debauched on the inside.'"

The New Criterion's indictment of the Duke faculty is also worth reading. I encourage you to read the whole piece.

Do we know that we are free?

info@iwf.org (Princella Smith) — Tue, 15 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Long before Don Imus called the Rutgers Women's basketball team "nappy-headed hoes" African-Americans have faced degradation. But it is the degradation that we place upon ourselves that is the most damaging.

African-American history is rich with slaves who taught themselves how to read, learned to till and navigate the land, achieved status as small business and landowners, and were even elected to office post-Reconstruction. They instilled in their children a sense of pride and hard work. All the while, they were viewed as having no more brains than an ox. No greater use than manual labor and reproducing. Still they soldiered on. Their literal blood, sweat, and tears stain the trail upon which African-Americans now tread. But it's as if many in my generation don't even know it.

We have created a hip-hop culture where violence and misogyny have become popular pastimes. Moments after watching America's black female Secretary of State on C-SPAN, the viewer clicks the channels to see young black women in a disgusting sexual display on BET. The black male has always presented a sense of respect to their "mamas," but now displays hatred for the "baby-mamas". This problem goes beyond simple disrespect. Black women have now become the enemy. While I enjoy some hip-hop and would never advocate for censorship, I refuse to play or purchase songs that portray my sisters as "bitches and whores."

The late rapper, Tupac Shakur wrote, "since we all came from a woman, got our name from a woman, and our game from a woman. I wonder why we take from women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think its time we killed for our women, be real to our women, try to heal our women, 'cus if we don't we'll have a race of babies that will hate the ladies, who make the babies. And since a man can't make one he has no right to tell a women when and where to create one." Yet his songs, "I Get Around" and "How Do You Want It" provide lyrics about women too explicit to include in this article.

People like Don Imus feel that they have the license to label us because this is the portion of our society that they choose to see. Few know of the growing number of black women as CEO's of major corporations, doctors, lawyers and educators and that the fastest growing population of small business owners is African-American women.

Forty-three years ago, Congress passed the July 2, 1964 Civil Rights Act. We are not so removed from the days of segregation that we should forget the horrific agony and fatalities suffered by our ancestors. How would our ancestors think of us if they were alive now? Instead of the white man's oppression, it is the black man's, or, even worse, it is sometimes the black woman herself.

Barack Obama was one of many African-American leaders who called for Imus's firing. But Obama recently invited rapper Ludacris to his Chicago office to discuss the singer's new AIDS awareness campaign. What good is Ludacris's campaign when he boasts: "I've got hos in different area codes"? Why have some people attacked Imus so adamantly and then softened their tone towards those who have infiltrated our airwaves with filth? Are we too afraid of being typecast as traitors to our own race?

African-Americans can attack every bigot in the country, but until we cease from producing and promoting disgusting images and sounds, our culture will continue to deteriorate. Freed from the chains of slavery, we have now created our own set of invisible chains. Do we know that we are free?

Marriage, Deployment & Abuse

info@iwf.org (Carol Liebau) — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:54:00 EDT

A couple of days ago, I posted this item on my own blog in response to a study attempting to link troop deployments to child abuse. In point of fact, it seems likely that the relevant issue in examining the likelihood of child abuse has less to do with the fact that one of the parents has been deployed, and more to do with the fact that such deployments mean that there are more single-parent homes. And abuse is more likely in these than in homes where the parents are married and living together.

Today, J. Bradford Wilcox has a brilliant defense of marriage at National Review Online. There, he notes:

Typically, two parents bring more social and economic resources to the parenting enterprise than does one parent. Two parents offer one another mutual support, encouragement, and relief when a child is difficult, disobedient, or depressed. For instance, a husband can step in and relieve a wife who has grown angry or exhausted with her children. This, by the way, is one reason married moms are more likely to have children who report good relationships with them; because of the financial, practical, and emotional support they receive from their husbands, married moms are more likely to be affectionate and authoritative-- and less likely to be abusive-- than are single mothers.

Of course, the same liberals who routinely extol the virtue sof single parenthood are quite willing to condemn the pathologies that may accompany it -- but only when they can be misattributed to the exigencies of military service.

Fem. Fatale

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Fri, 11 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Salvo Magazine

Carrie Lukas is not your typical feminist. For one thing, she believes that the original goals of feminism- equal rights and equal pay- have already been realized. And now, as evidenced by her most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, Lukas is departing even further from feminist orthodoxy, arguing that feminism itself is often a woman's worst enemy when it comes to achieving autonomy. Here we talk briefly with the author and Vice President of Policy at the Independent Women's Forum about what true female empowerment really entails.

To view this Interview in its entirety, please click here.

ACTA Names Shakespeare's Guardians and Betrayers

Thu, 10 May 2007 11:45:00 EDT

UC Berkeley and Stanford maintain higher standards on the subject, as do Harvard, Wellesley, Smith and UCLA. Among other campuses that rate low in teaching the Bard are Amherst, Cornell, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Purdue, Vassar and Bryn Mawr.

In a report on the subject ACTA (the American Council of Trustees and Alumni) concludes: "A degree in English without Shakespeare is like an M.D. without a course in anatomy. ... It is tantamount to fraud."

Here are some clips on the report.

Get Caught in Charlotte's Web

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Wed, 09 May 2007 14:46:00 EDT

Over on the IWF homepage you'll notice a new feature-- Charlotte's Web-- a weekly column from IWF senior editor Charlotte Hays. This week, Charlotte writes about the controversial ethics report from the Pentagon that questions the morals of American soldiers and Marines.

Check out her column here.

Violence Against (Muslim) Women

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Tue, 08 May 2007 10:26:00 EDT

The Washington Post had a piece on domestic abuse Muslim-style in today's paper. It stated in part:

"Domestic abuse is hardly unique to Muslim immigrant communities; it is a sad fact of life in families of all backgrounds and origins. Yet, according to social workers, Islamic clerics and women's advocates, women from Muslim-majority cultures face extra pressure to submit to violent husbands and intense social ostracism if they muster the courage to file charges or flee.

"A major obstacle to recognizing and fighting abuse, experts said, can be Islam itself. The religion prizes female modesty and fidelity while allowing men to divorce at will and have several wives at once. Many Muslims also believe that men have the right to beat their wives. An often-quoted verse in the Koran says a husband may chastise a disobedient wife, but the phrasing in Arabic is open to several interpretations."

Quoting the verse in question, Andrew McCarthy (it must be Andrew McCarthy Day on Inkwell!) says that the Post has chosen to gloss over the real implications:

"Many verses in the Koran are very troubling. But we do ourselves and moderate Muslim reformers no favors by pretending those verses are not there, or that they say something different from what they say. Doing that effectively cedes authority to the fundamentalists since only they are willing to abide by what the scriptures actually say. Better to confront the truth and deal with it, not whitewash it. There will be no reformation absent a realistic acknowledgment that reform is needed."

Is George Bush more literate than the editor of the New York Review of Books?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Mon, 07 May 2007 08:14:00 EDT

An interview with Tom Wolfe from the Financial Times quotes the author giving President Bush higher marks from literacy than the editor of the super-chic New York Review of Books:

"Bush is portrayed as a moron. I've only conversed with him a couple of times - not for very long- but I found he was more literate on literature than the editor of the New York Review of Books, Bob Silvers. I've talked to both of them, and he makes Bob Silvers look like a slug." He laughs, possibly at the idea of New York's literary-set frothing into their cappuccinos over the latest blow in a long but low-intensity conflict. (In the 1960s Wolfe mocked the Review as the "chief theoretical organ of Radical Chic", after it published a cover picture showing how to make a Molotov cocktail. Three decades later Silvers published Norman Mailer's review of A Man in Full, in which the veteran pugilist remarked that reading Wolfe's 742-page novel of power and racial politics in Atlanta was like "making love to a 300lb woman. Once she gets on top, it's over. Fall in love or be asphyxiated.") "Unfortunately," continues Wolfe, possibly sensing that making someone look like a slug is neither very presidential nor very promising, "We don't win wars with literature."

Mailbag: Kenny Rodgers

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:42:00 EDT

In response to my Kenny Rodgers comment this morning a reader sends in this website.

Well played.

Equal Opportunity Fashion-Crackdown in Iran

Thu, 03 May 2007 10:05:00 EDT

As I noted in an earlier post, the Persian fashion-brigade recently launched an assault against women daring to don skimpier, shorter, brightly-colored garments as summer sets in.

But now, as Reuters reports, the police are forbidding barbers to provide haircuts "in the style of Hollywood" or pluck the eyebrows of their male customers. Particular offensive to Islamic values, it would appear, is the spiking of "hair in the Khorusi (rooster) style" and the use of makeup by men.

"Metrosexuality" is out, and violators may be fined, lashed and imprisoned.

It would appear men (and roosters) are not exempt from the mullahs' monomania.