Independent Women's Forum - Research Areas > Feminism

Feminism and the English Language

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:45:00 EDT

If you are the type of person who hates the use of 'he-or-she' instead of 'he,' this is the article for you:

Of course all languages change. A feminist might say that he-or-she is merely the latest twist in our ever-changing cowpath; that he-or-she was the will of the people. But this too is a lie, and in fairness to my opponents I have never heard them deploy it. They know that Americans of the late 1960s were not struck en masse by sudden unhappiness over the neutral he or the word "chairman." Such complaints never did rank high on the average American's list of worries. (Way back in the 1970s, "chairperson" was in fact a one-word joke: an object lesson in the ludicrous places you would reach if you took Feminist English seriously.) In fact the New English was deliberately created and pounded into children's heads by an intellectual elite asserting its control over American culture. The same conclusion follows independently from a language's well-established tendency to simplify and compress its existing structure (like a settling sea-bed) to make room for constantly arriving new coinages. Words like "authoress" would almost certainly have disappeared with no help from feminists. But "he" transforming itself into "he or she" is like a ball rolling uphill. It doesn't happen unless someone has volunteered to push.

More here.

Sex Differences and Misogyny

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:44:00 EST

IWF's friend, Charlotte Allen, wrote a piece in the Washington Post last week that has generated a heated response, to put it mildly.

The latest is from Katha Pollitt in today's Washington Post. Before I comment on the article and the ensuing fervor, I'll correct the record that Charlotte Allen doesn't currently work for IWF (as Katha Pollitt says in her article) although certainly Charlotte worked for IWF and is someone I've personally known for years.

When I read her article the first time, I felt like I knew what Charlotte was trying to do--and did through much of the article--in creating a tongue-in-cheek critique of our gender's excesses. She writes herself half way through the article, "We exaggerate, of course," and on Wednesday she did a Q&A with Washington Post readers, in which she explained that the article was supposed to be humorous.

Yet I agree with the critiques that she took it too far (and lost me on the humor), particularly with the ending: "Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim."

Women aren't dim, even when we indulge in girly things like fashion, romance novels, and friendly gossip. Equating our propensity to engage in this trivia with a lack of intelligence is a mistake, and, although I'm sure it was inadvertent, undermines attempts to shake the taboo from discussions of innate sex differences.

It would hardly matter if women and men had different innate strengths and weaknesses in matters of brain function if it weren't for the push by some to try to eliminate differences in how men and women choose to spend their time and focus their energies. This most frequently comes up today when we look at math and science disciplines. As is regularly discussed in the media, while women have made huge gains in academia, there are still fewer women than men in some science and engineering courses and careers. Some groups claim that this is entirely due to discrimination against women and that therefore the government needs to take action to make sure that there are as many women in men in these disciplines.

Others of us, who don't want government attempting to encourage (or, perhaps more accurately, discourage) people from studying one thing or another, have suggested that we should consider how factors other than discrimination play a role. This includes innate differences in aptitude and in interest. Christina Hoff Sommers has a great piece about this here, which Allison linked to on Friday. It's always important to emphasize anytime we discuss these differences that clearly there are plenty of women who excel in math and science and that these studies on averages don't speak at all to any individual woman's (or man's) abilities. They are, however, an important piece of the puzzle to understanding why there are so many more women in humanities courses and more men in engineering.

I agree with Katha Pollitt that the ability to "mentally rotate three-dimensional objects in space" should not be "the very definition of smarts." The studies that have been done that show that women use different parts of their brains when approaching problems than men do (which make us stronger when it comes to matters of language but less skilled at certain spatial relationship tasks) aren't meant to say which sex is smart and which is "dumb." It just sheds a light on different skill sets and propensities in each gender, which again should not be interpreted to in any way limit our expectations for what any individual man or woman can accomplish.

It's a shame that anyone who acknowledges innate differences between the sexes and speculates on their impact on how we choose to spend our times is almost instantaneously tarred as a sexist (just ask former Harvard President Larry Summers). It's also a shame that Charlotte's piece failed to appreciate the political charged nature of this topic and gave ammunition to those who like to marginalize discussions of sex differences as only the province of misogynists.

The Andy Caldwell Show: Economic Stimulus Package

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:51:00 EST

IWF's Carrie Lukas joined The Andy Caldwell Show to discuss Gloria Steinem and the economic stimulus package.

PBS' To the Contrary: Various Topics

info@iwf.org (Michelle D. Bernard) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:34:00 EST

IWF President and CEO Michelle D. Bernard on PBS' To the Contrary.

Topics include:

Americans leaving organized religion;
Did the media's gender bias doom the Clinton campaign?; and,
A new book by Dee Dee Myers, Why Women Should Rule the World.

Yet Another Difference Between Me and NOW

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:17:00 EST

This weekend I'll be watching the Super Bowl because I love football. The National Organization for Women, on the other hand, will be watching the Super Bowl to rate the commercials "based on issues of representation/diversity, sexual exploitation, violence, and social responsibility."

Somehow, I feel I'll have more fun.

UPDATE: The report is up here.

Breaking the Groundhog Glass Ceiling?

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:46:00 EST

The Boston Globe has the story:

For years, the world of early spring harbingers has been an old boys' network dominated by Punxsutawney Phils and Buckeye Chucks. Massachusetts legislators want that to change.

Ms. G (that's short for Groundhog), a 4-year-old woodchuck from the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Drumlin Farm, has been nominated to be the state's first official groundhog. If approved by the Legislature this year, she would be the first female groundhog in the country to hold such a title.

More here. I'm not sure what I'm more surprised at -- that multiple states have an "official" groundhog, that people care enough to petition for their favorite groundhog "candidate", or that the discussion about the process centers on the sex of the groundhog.

NOW Silence on the "Teddy Bear" Controversy

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:28:00 EST

Anne Applebaum has a great piece today on the ridiculous events surrounding the naming of a teddy bear in Sudan. She highlights the failure of Westerners--and the National Organization for Women in particular--to soundly condemn even this most outrageous situation:

NOW's refusal to tell Fox News that it supported Gillian Gibbons probably had less to do with politically correct anxieties about Islamic culture than it did with fear of being perceived -- in any manner, however distantly, however improbably -- to support George Bush's war on terrorism. In fact, there is no logical reason Fox News and the Sun newspaper should have been any louder in their condemnation of the Sudanese regime than NOW and the archbishop of Canterbury: Here was a situation so thoroughly ridiculous and so completely unacceptable that it clearly offended Western values, however you want to define them.

Is NOW so anti-Bush that they can't also be anti-throwing a woman in prison because she named a teddy bear Mohammad? It appears so. It would be laughable, but it is actually a real shame. The feminist movement has a real role to play in bringing awareness of the rlack of rights experienced by women around the world, particularly those in radical Muslim countries. They spend so much time here in the U.S. fixating on exactly how many women are playing soccer compared to how many men; too bad they can't turn their attention and resources to where they are really needed.

In case you missed it

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:12:00 EST

If you missed Wednesday's debate between IWF's Carrie Lukas and Notre Dame professor James Sterba over whether or not feminism discriminates against men, you're in luck -- a video and podcast of the event are available over at the Cato Institute website. Check it out here.

Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? Debate Tomorrow.

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:28:00 EST

Tomorrow, IWF's Carrie Lukas will be speaking at the CATO Institute....

Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:44:00 EST

Does feminism give a much-needed voice to women in a patriarchal world? Or is the world not really patriarchal? Does feminism support equality in education and the military, or does it discriminate against men by ignoring such issues as male-only draft registration and boys lagging behind in school? This book offers a sharp debate on the impact of feminism on men between bestselling author Warren Farrell and the acclaimed philosopher James P. Sterba. Join us for a wide-ranging exchange on issues from love, sex, dating, and rape to domestic violence, divorce, and child custody, as well as systemic issues, from the school system to the criminal justice system, the media to the military, and health care to the workplace.

Cato Institute is hosting a book forum Wednesday, November 28, 2007 featuring the coauthor, James P. Sterba, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, with comments by Carrie Lukas, Vice President, Independent Women's Forum. View details of the event here.

An IWF Book Review

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:53:00 EST

IWF's Carrie Lukas had a fabulous review of Mary Ann Mason and Eve Mason Ekman's Mothers on the Fast Track: How a New Generation Can Balance Family and Careers yesterday over at National Review Online. If you missed it, be sure to give it a read here.

American University: "Failures of Feminism"

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:48:00 EDT

Below is a speech prepared and delivered by Carrie Lukas at American University on October 16, 2007.

American University: "Failures of Feminism"

When we start a conversation about the modern feminist movement, I think it's important to begin with a reality check. So let's begin with this fact: in the United States, the fight for women's equality has been won.

Does that mean that women have everything we want? That every woman has a good job, a good education, and all the services that she could dream of? Of course not. Does that mean that violence and sexism have been eradicated? That women don't face unique challenges in trying to balance the desire for a career with the desire to care for children?

No. Women face all of these problems and will continue to. Each of us will have to work as individuals to confront these challenges.

But when we talk about feminism, I think it is important to begin with a hard look at where we are today in terms of women's rights. The women's movement used to be about women receiving equal treatment under the law. And that's a battle that has been won. Women have the legal right to compete and pursue happiness on their own. We have women's movement to thank for much of this.

We should also look at where we are today: American women are freer and better off than in any time in history. Women are thriving in our education system - we account for 56 percent of bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, and 40 percent of doctoral degrees. Women are entering the workforce in record numbers, many of them succeeding in fields that just a few decades ago were almost exclusively the domain of men.

Much of this progress we owe to the women's groups who fought the notion than women didn't need a "serious" education and were unsuited for work outside of the home. I look back at my education, my career on capitol hill and in Washington think tanks, and I owe much of the opportunities I have had to the pioneering work of not only the early suffragettes, but also to the women's rights movement of the 60s and 70s that truly helped change the way society views women.

But unfortunately, when I look at the modern women's movement, I see a movement that has lost its way. Instead of focusing on legal equality, today's women's groups fight for special treatment and a nanny government to care for women.

Tonight, I briefly want to touch on four issues that are central to the role of the modern feminist movement.

First, I want to talk about women and work. I am fortunate to have grown up in a time when I felt that all doors were open to me. I have been able to pursue an education and any career. I have the early feminist movement in part to thank for those opportunities. But today, the feminist movement seems unwilling to admit that they have been successful and continue to try to convince women that we are all victims of discrimination.

I'm sure you've all heard the rallying cry "equal work for equal pay" and the statistic that women make 75 cents for every man's dollar. They call this "the wage gap" - it's the difference in the amount of money made by the median working man and the median working woman.

There is no debate. The average median woman does indeed make about three-quarters of the average working man. But this is a misleading statistic. It ignores all of relevant factors that affect pay: such as the number of hours worked, education, career choice, and number of years of experience. In short, it ignores the different role that work often plays in men and women's lives.

In truth, I'm the cause of the wage gap. Me and tens of thousands of women like me. I've got a good education but throughout my career, I've made things other than money a priority. I went into public policy, instead of investment banking. A few years ago, when I knew I was going to want to start a family, I left the Hill, and took a pay cut, so I could work somewhere that would give me flexibility to balance work and family. When I had my daughter a little over a year ago now, I opted to work full-time from home. I'm not making as much money as I could, but I'm compensated by having the best work arrangement that I could hope for.

But through the feminists' lens, I should be really mad. The tax returns of the men I graduated college with are undoubtedly more impressive than mine. There are men who hold the same job title and work roughly the same hours but who earn more than I do. I've simply made different choices-choices that made sense for my life.

One thing I find interesting about the feminists' fixation on the wage gap is how much it assumes that men have the right priorities and that women have the wrong ones. Surveys have shown that when evaluating a job, men place a higher emphasis on their pay than do women. Men take on dirty, more dangerous, and more depressing jobs in order to make more money. They work longer hours and take less time off. Women care about pay, but they also care about flexibility, how personally fulfilling they find their job, and convenience.

In other words, women are not generally victims of discrimination. We simply make different choices. This is important information for women to have. Instead of feeling like victims, women can think about their decisions and make different choices to increase their pay.

The feminist misinformation campaign does more than just make individual women less happy, it also affects conversations about public policy. In fact, Senator Hillary Clinton has proposed legislation supposedly to "get rid of the wage gap" that would micromanage how wages are set. This could have serious consequences for our economy, but would have particularly bad affects on women.

Employers would have less incentive to offer flexible arrangements. If I'm an employer, why would open my self up to a lawsuit by allowing a female employee to trade a reduction in salary so she can leave early everyday to pick up her kids? I wouldn't want to have to explain while her male colleague made more. Instead, I would take away the very flexibility that women crave and that allows increasing numbers to contribute to the workforce.

The example I just used, with a mom wanting to cut back hours to care for kids, would yield instant protests from the feminists. Why, they would demand, should the woman be the one to cut back her hours? Shouldn't the dad be just as responsible for his children?

It frustrates feminists to no end that women continue to be the primary care givers to their children. But the data shows that this is reality: one of the most significant differences in the choices men and women make is in their reactions to children. When a couple has children, men's earnings tend to go up, while women's tend to go down. The man makes choices-working longer hours or taking a less desirable job that pays more-that increase his pay, in part because he wants to provide for his children.

Women, on the other hand, often cut back hours or quit their jobs completely so that they can spend time with their children. This is true regardless of the incentives that are put in place to try to encourage men to take on an equal share of the parenting responsibility.

Why in the 20^th century do women continue to take on this role? Feminists tend to argue that women are socialized to believe that it's their duty to do so. There is certainly some truth to that. I'm sure that the fact that my mom stayed home with me contributed to my lifelong assumption and desire to be the one to stay home with my children. But we shouldn't discount the role that nature plays in this. There is a reason why woman are more likely to take maternity leave than men are to take paternity leave. One reason is obvious: A woman gives birth and needs time to recover. Women often nurse their babies and in those first weeks literally can't be away from them for more than a few hours.

But the differences go beyond these most obvious physical differences. Women and men are built differently. Women's brains are structured to derive more pleasure from the process of caring for children than are men's. Most women and men in the room will instinctively know that this is the case from their own experiences, but there is also fascinating data on our hormones and our chemical make ups that prove these facts. Of course, that doesn't mean that all women love babies and certainly some men thrive as primary care givers. But we shouldn't pretend, as the feminists would have it, that woman take on this role just because of a patriarchal plot.

Children are the second issue I want to focus on. Children are tangled up in the workplace issue and are at the heart of debates about the feminist movement. Quite simply, children need to be taken care of. They require time and attention. They get in the way of other priorities. They don't pay well and the challenges and rewards of parenting are hidden-they take place in your kitchens and your family rooms, outside of the public sphere where the feminists want women to succeed.

You can see the feminists rocky relationship with children in a recent book which received lots of media attention - Linda Hirshman's "Get to Work". In this call for society to push all women toward paid employment, she instructed women that they can have one child, but just don't have two. Basically, she argues that one child can effectively be outsourced and not get in the way of much more important career goals, but two children is a big mistake.

The feminists' solution to the problem of children in women's lives is daycare. Further subsidizing daycare to make it easier for women to work outside the home is a top agenda item of most feminist organizations. Of course, we all recognize the need for high quality childcare. But before pushing government to pour money into daycare programs, essentially extending our public education system down to cover children from birth, we should think about the kind of care that most parents want and what's best for the kids.

Institutional daycare or organized daycare facilities are the least popular option with parents. One study showed that less than a third of the children under age five with working mothers were being cared for in institutional care. Another poll found that 70 percent of the parents of children under age 5 thought it was best for parents to be at home, while just 6 percent thought that a quality daycare center was best for kids. Working mothers tell pollsters that they wish they could work few hours, not more. So if feminists are really concerned about helping women live their lives the way they want, they should focus on policies that make it easier for families to work less and keep a parent at home.

The third issue I want to quickly touch on before we go to Q&A is how feminists have influenced women (particularly young women's) attitudes and expectations for relationships. The feminist movement has been tied into the sexual revolution - and one of the key messages that young women often hear - particularly during college is that sexual liberation is synonymous with women's liberation. Women's studies course preach that our culture, which has placed a higher value on women's chastity than men's, is really a trick of patriarchy - a way that men keep women from having fun.

But young women need to know that there are actual reasons that our cultural norms developed, and many of those traditions were designed to benefit women. Men and women, after all, are not the same. Women are much more vulnerable to the consequences of sex. Of course there is the obvious: women get pregnant; men don't. But few young adults realize that women are also much more vulnerable to contracting STDs and that many STDs have much more serious consequences for women than they do for men.

Women are also more emotionally vulnerable than men. Again, women's brains are built differently. Women release hormones during sex that promote bonding. These are the same hormones that women release during breastfeeding, which are designed to encourage moms to bond with their babies and partners. There is a reason why women have a tougher time keeping things casual. While radical feminists paint a gloomy portrait of marriage, the facts tell a different story. Married women tend to be happier, healthier, and better off financially.

It is clear how individual women can be affected by this information, or lack thereof, but it also has consequences for our society as a whole. Consider that when I was born, one out of ten babies was born out of wedlock. Today, more than one out of three babies is born to a single parent. Increasingly, research is demonstrating that this is truly the dividing line between the haves and the have-nots. Children growing up with a single parent have a tough road to climb. They are more likely to live in poverty, commit a crime, drink, smoke, abuse drugs, drop out of school, get pregnant out of wedlock and the list could go on. Marriage has been aptly called with most affective anti-poverty initiative.

I don't believe that government can or should attempt to encourage people and even parents to marry. I think that the solution rests entirely on individuals and communities. It starts by helping young women appreciate the role that healthy relationship can play in their lives.

The final issue I'd like to touch on is the relationship between women and government. The feminist movement has often focused on liberating women from voluntary relationships like husbands and families, but instead of believing that women that forgo these relationships need to stand on their on two feet, they want them to depend on Uncle Sam.

That's why I'm proud to work for a group like the Independent Women's Forum. We don't think women are victims and we know that women can and should be responsible for the choices that we make. We also believe that women need the best information about issues that affect their lives so they can make important decisions.

There is a need for a woman's movement, but it needs to have very different priorities than the priorities of NOW. One thing that is amazing about groups like NOW is that they focus on the absolute minutiae of what goes on here in the U.S. - issues like whether or not Commander in Chief is going to be taken off the air - but all but ignore the plight of women overseas.

That should be the real battleground of the modern feminist movement - helping women across the globe gain access to the rights that we take for granted. There are women who are truly repressed and disadvantaged. They need strong voices calling for equal rights and respect for women.

I hope this serves as a good jumping off point for question and answers. Again, I thank you for coming tonight.

Love Your Body Day

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:15:00 EDT

Former IWF junior fellow, Arrah Nielsen, has a great piece on our campus homepage about yet another feminist-created holiday: Love Your Body Day. How does one celebrate Love Your Body Day? Arrah explains:

To celebrate you can play body-image boosting computer games like "Feed the Model" on AdiosBarbie.com, rail about the virtues of being a "thick chick," and listen to testimonials from women who do not like their thighs.
The ostensible purpose of Love Your Body Day is laudable-to encourage acceptance of all body types, and raise awareness of anorexia and bulimia. But while no one is proposing a Loath Your Body Day, Love Your Body Day is problematic because while event sponsors fixate on eating disorders and thin models they overlook the far more common problem of obesity. And in a land of super-sized ambulances and toilets built to withstand up to 1,200 pounds, America's obesity problem is well, big.

Arrah continues to bust myths like that thin models make us feel bad about ourselves. Read the whole piece here.

Feminists' Hot Air

info@iwf.org (Carrie L. Lukas) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EDT

New York Post

August 20, 2007 -- To thunderous acclaim from the liberal intelligentsia, a team of feminist icons - including Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda - last year launched a women-run radio network. The mainstream media dutifully parroted press releases describing the launch as a "breakthrough" for women in the male-dominated world of talk radio.

The Boston Globe, for example, proclaimed that "GreenStone gives women an outlet." Business Week described the venture as "Talk Radio Minus The Testosterone."

Last Friday, GreenStone Media signed off for good. Why did this effort fail? After all, the programming carefully was designed by feminist experts to appeal to female tastes. According to Steinem, "women are more and more turned off by the hostility and argumentative nature of AM talk radio." Greenstone Media was supposed to capitalize on that by offering a different tenor, more "community" and greater respect for different points of views.

GreenStone offered the typical liberal fare - boasting of interviews with Ralph Nader and Alec Baldwin - but also included programming that was downright girly. Morning show segments included "Mean Mommy," with advice for mothers, and "What's up with Guys," providing insights into the elusive male brain.

Similar business plans certainly have succeeded elsewhere. Plenty of media outlets target women - from sappy dramas on Lifetime and Oxygen to family-centered morning shows and magazines - and draw large audiences and big advertising dollars. GreenStone Media sought to imitate those successes. Its Web site explained, "Talk That Women REALLY Want . . . Only Green- stone Media gives you a lineup of personality talk that best appeals to the demo advertisers want most - women 25-54." It seemed a good sales pitch; certainly advertisers welcome the chance to reach this coveted female audience on the radio.

GreenStone's problem was it couldn't attract an audience of either gender. The programming was picked up by only eight affiliates in small to mid-sized markets. Apparently, GreenStone's programming wasn't the talk that women really want.

GreenStone's president and CEO Susan Ness laments the end of its programming as a loss for women, opining that "women need a voice on commercial radio," and "radio needs women's voices." Perhaps Ness should use her time off to tune in to other stations. She'll find there are many prominent women on the airwaves; they're just not saying what she thinks they should.

Laura Ingraham, an outspoken conservative and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thomas, has been on the air since 2001 and is now heard on 340 stations. Ingraham draws an audience in excess of 5 million, and regularly ranks among the top-10 most influential radio hosts.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger draws an even larger audience with very different programming. It can be best described as an advice show, but is anything but touchy feely. "Dr. Laura" serves as a hard-hitting host, unabashedly lecturing her callers about their morals and values. Other women, such as Martha Zoeller, Janet Parshall and Tammy Bruce, join these two powerhouse hosts.

Of course, most significantly, women don't just listen to women radio hosts. Women tune in to men on a wide variety of topics. Rush Limbaugh's 20 million listeners include millions of women. Millions more tune in to hear Sean Hannity and the other conservative, male talk-show hosts around the country. Although Ness may not want to hear it, Limbaugh and conservative talk radio apparently is programming for women.

This doesn't mean that there isn't more room for female voices on the airwaves. Women's and men's preference for entertainment often do diverge, so a well-crafted program could catch fire with women and change the media landscape.

But it will take more than having "all-female" programming from an "all-female" network. Women want to be entertained and engaged. We don't listen to radio or (Hillary backers take note) vote out of solidarity.

GreenStone Media's brand of tepid liberalism didn't appeal to women. This isn't a tragedy for women; it's the market at work. Women will continue to listen to the radio and women talk-show hosts will continue to compete to earn their interest.

Carrie Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women's Forum and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism."

Politically Incorrect Feminism

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT

by: Mary Kapp, July 23, 2007

Even the most freewheeling women's studies programs will not acknowledge the innate differences between men and women. "Larry Summers once asked why there are fewer women in the upper echelons of science than men," Carrie Lukas, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Feminism, pointed out. "He is no longer the president of Harvard."

Introduced by family values heroine Phyllis Schlafly, Lukas spoke at the Eagle Forum annual Washington, D.C. meeting about her literary creation to an audience of conservative collegians. "Why is it that we are glad to hear that women are better at something than men, but if statistics show that men are better at something, it is considered discrimination?" Lukas asked. "Are there any differences between men and women?"

Lukas posed the question to the audience. Increasingly, those who answer that question in the affirmative are seen as sexist. "Marriage is the most effective anti-poverty program," the author stated. She also noted that women who are preoccupied with the appearance of financial independence and power "would rather rely on Uncle Sam than any other man."

"Married women on average are happier and wealthier than those who are not," argued Lucas. Statistics simply don't show that the "majority of divorcees wish they had worked harder on their marriage."

The speaker covered the consensus on child rearing among married women. "Only 6% of parents think that daycare is their best option. If Hillary, with her "It Takes a Village" program, wanted the best for mothers, she would find a way for moms to stay home more, not work more. The obvious truth is that "there are infinite problems in child development in daycare, especially through the government."

Lukas commented on what has been a hot-button issue among working women for years: salary imbalances between the sexes. "As shown by the 'Equal Pay Equal Work' studies, women generally make of a man's wage. While this is true, the polls ignore all of the relevant factors, such as the role that work plays in a man or woman's life," the author pointed out.

"Why do we assume that men have the right priorities and women have the wrong priorities in the workplace?" It follows that the primary goal of men in the workforce is to make money, while women tend to balance work with many other priorities, and desire total workplace satisfaction rather than merely a competitive salary.

A question presented to the author confronted her views on women in the military. Lukas appealed to the larger consensus that "We understand that we can't put our troops in any more danger."

To answer her previously posed question, Lukas concluded, "Simply put, No, men and women are not the same, and don't have to be the same to be equal."

Mary Kapp is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a program run jointly by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.

Full Frontal Feminism

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

National Review

"You're a feminist. I swear." That is the premise of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters, the new book from feminist blogger Jessica Valenti, of Feministing.com fame. According to Valenti, we younger women are feminists at heart but refuse to wear the label:

Most young women are feminists, but we're too afraid to say it or even to recognize it. And why not? Feminists are supposed to be ugly. And fat. And hairy! Is it f***ed up that people are so concerned about dumb, superficial stuff like that? Of course. Is there anything wrong with being ugly, fat, or hairy? Of course not. But let's be honest: No one wants to be associated with something that is seen as uncool and unattractive. But the thing is, feminists are pretty cool (and attractive!) women.

So what is feminism and why is everyone afraid of it? In the first chapter Valenti reveals her preference for the dictionary definition: Feminism is "belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes." With that definition, I'd be delighted to count myself a feminist in the Valenti mold. I'd like to think that we can all agree of the equality of the sexes. But Valenti's feminism is quite an other thing.

Instead, like many feminist authors before her, Valenti quickly expands feminism to include a wide array of liberal pet causes. If you don't agree with them, guess what? You're not really a feminist -- you're an anti-feminist. According to Valenti, feminists demand government-funded preschools and universal childcare, think American culture "breeds a society where rape is expected and practically okayed," and proudly wear shirts that say "I don't f*** Republicans."

Valenti vents that she's "so f***ing sick and tired of people telling [her] how to be an appropriate feminist." Maybe so, but Valenti is happy to dish out a feminist litmus test herself. Every subject from dating to dieting is covered. Take marriage, for example:

You may not like me for saying this, but engagement rings piss me the hell off. It's a frigging dowry! The only purpose of an engagement ring is to show that you "belong" to someone, and that your man makes bank.

Okay, so engagement rings are clearly out of the question in the feminist world. But what to do about your last name?

For the life of me, I will never understand why a woman today would change her last name. It makes no sense whatsoever. You want future kids to have the same last name as you and your hubby? Hyphenate, bitch! Or do something, anything, but change your last name. It's the ultimate buy-in of sexist bulls***. It epitomizes the idea that you are not your own person.

It's hard to believe that most young women secretly harbor these radical ideas (and even Valenti admits that 81 percent of women get married intending to change their last name).

While Valenti's brand of radical feminism is nothing new, her presentation is. Valenti takes a casual, albeit angry, tone and employs a slew of profanity (she is "slightly potty-mouthed," as she puts it) to make her points, similar to the style of Feministing.com and much of the liberal blogosphere. For all her attempts to shatter myths about feminism (Feminists are ugly! Feminism is for old white ladies! Feminism is so last week!) she will do little to dissuade anyone of the notion that feminism often takes an angry and bitter tone. The book reads as one long rant; the pent up anger radiates from the pages.

One thing that Valenti gets right is the inability of the feminist establishment to recruit young women into their ranks. One organization that Valenti targets is the National Organization for Women (NOW). I witnessed the divide between the young and old members of NOW firsthand at their 40th anniversary conference in New York last summer. The young women I met there were put off by their senior comrades in arms; they said they felt as if they were being preached at by them.

Valenti has similar concerns and favors local activism over lobbying in Washington, D.C. In her book she aims to succeed where groups like NOW have failed to get young women excited about feminism. But I would suggest that if young women aren't afraid of the word "feminism" before they read this book, they certainly will be after they read it.

Allison Kasic is director of campus programs at the Independent Women's Forum.

The Subjection of Islamic Women

info@iwf.org (Christina Hoff Sommers) — Tue, 15 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

The Weekly Standard

The subjection of women in Muslim societies--especially in Arab nations and in Iran--is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.

If you go to the websites of major women's groups, such as the National Organization for Women, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the National Council for Research on Women, or to women's centers at our major colleges and universities, you'll find them caught up with entirely other issues, seldom mentioning women in Islam. During the 1980s, there were massive demonstrations on American campuses against racial apartheid in South Africa. There is no remotely comparable movement on today's campuses against the gender apartheid prevalent in large parts of the world.

It is not that American feminists are indifferent to the predicament of Muslim women. Nor do they completely ignore it. For a brief period before September 11, 2001, many women's groups protested the brutalities of the Taliban. But they have never organized a full-scale mobilization against gender oppression in the Muslim world. The condition of Muslim women may be the most pressing women's issue of our age, but for many contemporary American feminists it is not a high priority. Why not?

The reasons are rooted in the worldview of the women who shape the concerns and activities of contemporary American feminism. That worldview is--by tendency and sometimes emphatically--antagonistic toward the United States, agnostic about marriage and family, hostile to traditional religion, and wary of femininity. The contrast with Islamic feminism could hardly be greater.

Writing in the New Republic in 1999, philosopher Martha Nussbaum noted with disapproval that "feminist theory pays relatively little attention to the struggles of women outside the United States." Too many fashionable gender theorists, she said, have lost their dedication to the public good. Their "hip quietism . . . collaborates with evil."

This was a frontal assault, and prominent academic feminists chastised Nussbaum in the letters column. Joan Scott of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton pointed out the dangers of Nussbaum's "good versus evil scheme." Wrote Scott, "When Robespierre or the Ayatollahs or Ken Starr seek to impose their vision of the 'good' on the rest of society, reigns of terror follow and democratic politics are undermined." Gayatri Spivak, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia, accused Nussbaum of "flag waving" and of being on a "civilizing mission." None of the letter writers addressed her core complaint: Too few feminist theorists are showing concern for the millions of women trapped in blatantly misogynist cultures outside the United States.

One reason is that many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the "underrepresentation" of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores. The occasional feminist scholar who takes the women's movement to task for neglecting the plight of foreigners is ignored or ruled out of order.

Take psychology professor Phyllis Chesler. She has been a tireless and eloquent champion of the rights of women for more than four decades. Unlike her tongue-tied colleagues in the academy, she does not hesitate to speak out against Muslim mistreatment of women. In a recent book, The Death of Feminism, she attributes the feminist establishment's unwillingness to take on Islamic sexism to its support of "an isolationist and America-blaming position." She faults it for "embracing an anti-Americanism that is toxic, heartless, mindless and suicidal." The sisterhood has rewarded her with excommunication. A 2006 profile in the Village Voice reports that, among academic feminists, "Chesler arouses the vitriol reserved for traitors."

But Chesler is right. In the literature of women's studies, the United States is routinely portrayed as if it were just as oppressive as any country in the developing world. Here is a typical example of what one finds in popular women's studies textbooks (from Women: A Feminist Perspective, now in its fifth edition):

The word "terrorism" invokes images of furtive organizations. . . . But there is a different kind of terrorism, one that so pervades our culture that we have learned to live with it as though it were the natural order of things. Its target is females--of all ages, races, and classes. It is the common characteristic of rape, wife battery, incest, pornography, harassment. . . . I call it "sexual terrorism."
The primary focus is on the "terror" at home. Katha Pollitt, a columnist at the Nation, talks of "the common thread of misogyny" connecting Christian Evangelicals to the Taliban:

It is important to remember just how barbarous and cruel the Taliban were. Yet it is also important not to use their example to obscure or deny the common thread of misogyny that connects them with Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. . . .
In a similar vein, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich characterizes Christian evangelical movements as "Christian Wahhabism," using the name of the sect that is the state religion of Saudi Arabia and the inspiration for Osama bin Laden. Eve Ensler, lionized author of The Vagina Monologues, makes the same point somewhat differently in her popular lecture "Afghanistan is Everywhere":

We all have different forms of enforced burqas. Every culture has it. Whether it's an idea or a fascist tyranny of what women are supposed to look like--so that women go to the extremes of liposuction, anorexia and bulimia to achieve it--or whether it's being covered in a burqa, we all have deep, profound, ongoing daily forms of oppression.

On most American campuses there are small coteries of self-described "vagina warriors" looking for ways to expose and make much of the ravages of patriarchy. Feminists like Pollitt, Ehrenreich, and Ensler can cite several decades of women's studies research supporting the charge that our culture is ruinous for women. Many scholars--including Camille Paglia, Daphne Patai, Noretta Koertge, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Christine Rosen, and myself--have questioned the quality of the findings and warned that the studies are twisted and unreliable. But academic feminists rarely engage with such criticism. They dismiss it as "backlash."

Soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Katha Pollitt wrote the introduction to a book called Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror. It aimed to show that reactionary religious movements everywhere are targeting women. Says Pollitt:

In Bangladesh, Muslim fanatics throw acid in the faces of unveiled women; in Nigeria, newly established shariah courts condemn women to death by stoning for having sex outside of wedlock. . . . In the United States, Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists have forged a powerful right-wing political movement focused on banning abortion, stigmatizing homosexuality and limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex.

Pollitt casually places "limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex" and opposing abortion on the same plane as throwing acid in women's faces and stoning them to death. Her hostility to the United States renders her incapable of distinguishing between private American groups that stigmatize gays and foreign governments that hang them. She has embraced a feminist philosophy that collapses moral categories in ways that defy logic, common sense, and basic decency.

Eve Ensler takes this line of reasoning to equally ludicrous lengths. In 2003 she gave a lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University in which, like Pollitt, she claimed that women everywhere are oppressed and subordinate:

I think that the oppression of women is universal. I think we are bonded in every single place of the world. I think the conditions are exactly the same [her emphasis]. I think the nature of the oppression--whether it's acid burning in one country, or female genital mutilation in another, or gang rapes in the parking lots in high schools of the suburbs--it's the same idea. . . . The systematic global oppression of women is completely across the globe.

Though Ensler's perspective is warped, her courage and desire to help are commendable. She went to Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban and smuggled out now-famous footage of a terrified woman in a burqa being executed at close range by a man with an AK-47. Ensler has firsthand knowledge of the unique horrors of Islamic gender fascism. But her "feminist theory" obliterates distinctions between what goes on in Afghanistan and what goes on in Beverly Hills:

I went from Beverly Hills where women were getting vaginal laser rejuvenation surgery--paying four thousand dollars to get their labias trimmed to make them symmetrical because they didn't like the imbalance. And I flew to Kenya where [women were working to stop] the practice of female genital mutilation. And I said to myself, "What is wrong with this picture?"

A better question is: What is wrong with Eve Ensler? These two surgical phenomena are completely different in both scale and purpose. The number of American women who undergo "vaginal labial rejuvenation" is minuscule: There were 793 such procedures in 2005, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. By contrast, a World Health Organization 2000 fact sheet reports: "Today, the number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation is estimated at between 100 and 140 million. It is estimated that each year, a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM."

The women who elect laser surgery, moreover, are voluntarily seeking relief from physical irregularities that cause them embarrassment or inhibit their sexual enjoyment. The practitioners of genital mutilation, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, believe that removing sensitive parts of the anatomy is the best way to control young women's sexual urges and assure chastity. Genital cutting causes great pain and suffering and often permanently impairs a female's capacity for sexual pleasure. Thus, the intentions of the handful of American adults who choose labial surgery for themselves are exactly the opposite of those of the African parents and elders who insist on cutting the genitals of millions of girls.

Given her capacity for conceptual confusion, it is perhaps not surprising that Ensler cites "gang rape in a suburban high school parking lot" to show how women in America are menaced. Yes, that is an atrocity. But it happens rarely, and America's allegedly "misogynist" culture reacts to it with revulsion and severe punishments.

Happily, not all women's groups follow the lead of the Enslers, the Pollitts, and the women's studies theorists. The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) has been intelligently fighting the mistreatment of women in the Muslim world for several years. In 1997, in a heroic effort to expose the crimes of the Taliban, Eleanor Smeal, the president of FMF, with the help of Mavis and Jay Leno, created a vital national campaign complete with rallies, petitions, and fundraisers. It was a good example of what can be achieved when a women's group seriously seeks to address the mistreatment of women outside the United States. The FMF, working with human rights groups, helped to persuade the United States and the United Nations to deny formal recognition to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It helped convince the oil company UNOCAL not to build a pipeline across Afghanistan, and it brought the oppression of women living under radical Islamic law into clear relief for all the world to see.

But Smeal and her organization soon found themselves attacked by the same monitors of rectitude who disparaged Martha Nussbaum. Ann Russo, director of women's and gender studies at Chicago's DePaul University (writing in the International Feminist Journal of Politics), accused the FMF of practicing a kind of "imperial feminism." Said Russo:

The FMF's campaign narrative is one of colonialist protection rather than of solidarity. . . . [It] capitalizes on the images of prominent white Western women, like Mavis Leno, Eleanor Smeal and other women politicians and celebrity figures, who construct themselves as "free" and "liberated" and thus in the best position to "save" Afghan women.

Today, the Feminist Majority Foundation continues to support Muslim women around the world, but the effort has lost much of its momentum. Most of the foundation's current work is directed against what it perceives as injustices suffered by women in America.

On February 20, 2007, a Pakistani women's rights activist and provincial minister for social welfare, Zilla Huma Usman, was shot to death by a Muslim fanatic for not wearing a veil. And he had a second reason for killing her: She had encouraged girls in her community to take part in outdoor sports. The plight of women like Usman does not figure in NOW's "Six Priority Items," although Global Feminism is one of the 19 subjects it designates as "Other Important Issues." NOW hardly mentions Muslim women, except in the context of the demand that the U.S. military withdraw from Iraq. So what sort of issue does the flagship feminist organization consider important?

NOW has just launched a 2007 "Love Your Body" calendar as part of its ongoing initiative of the same name. The body calendar warns of an increase in eating disorders and includes a photograph celebrating the shape of pears. There is also an image of the Statue of Liberty with the caption, "Give me your curves, your wrinkles, your natural beauty yearning to breathe free." The calendar bears these inspiring words: "None of us is free until we are all free."

To breathe free, college women are encouraged to organize "Love Your Body" evenings. NOW suggests they host "Indulgence" parties: "Invite friends over and encourage them to wear whatever makes them feel good--sweat suits, flip flops, pajamas--and serve delicious, decadent foods or silly snacks without the guilt. Urge everyone to come prepared to talk about their feelings and experiences."

This is pathetic. To be sure, serious eating disorders afflict a small percentage of women. But much larger numbers suffer because poor eating habits and inactivity render them overweight, even obese. NOW should not be encouraging college girls to indulge themselves in ways detrimental to their well-being. Nor should it be using the language of human rights in discussing the weight problems of American women.

The inability to make simple distinctions shows up everywhere in contemporary feminist thinking. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, edited by geographer Joni Seager, is a staple in women's studies classes in universities. It was named "Reference Book of the Year" by the American Library Association and has received other awards. Seager, formerly a professor of women's studies and chair of geography at the University of Vermont, is now dean of environmental studies at York University in Toronto. Her atlas, a series of color-coded maps and charts, documents the status of women, highlighting the countries where women are most at risk for poverty, illiteracy, and oppression.

One map shows how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Uganda: Both countries are shaded dark yellow, to signify extremely high levels of restriction. Seager explains that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman for his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same rating because, Seager says, "state legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001." Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, while the activism surrounding abortion in the United States is a sign of a contentious and free democracy working out its disagreements. Besides which, Seager's categories obscure the fact that in Uganda, abortion is illegal and "unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal mortality" (so states a 2005 report by the Gutt macher Institute), while American abortion law, even after the recent adoption of state regulations, is generally considered among the most liberal of any nation.

On another map the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Pakistan. Seager reports that in the United States, "22 percent-35 percent of women who seek emergency medical assistance at hospital are there for reasons of domestic violence." Wrong. She apparently misread a Justice Department study showing that 22 percent-35 percent of women who go to hospitals because of violent attacks are there for reasons of domestic violence. When this correction is made, the figure for domestic-violence victims in emergency rooms drops to a fraction of 1 percent. Why would Seager so uncritically seize on a dubious statistic? Like many academic feminists, she is eager to show that American women live under an intimidating system of "patriarchal authority" that is comparable to those found in many less developed countries. Never mind that this is wildly false.

Hard-line feminists such as Seager, Pollitt, Ensler, the university gender theorists, and the NOW activists represent the views of only a tiny fraction of American women. Even among women who identify themselves as feminists (about 25 percent), they are at the radical extreme. But in the academy and in most of the major women's organizations, the extreme is the mean. The hard-liners set the tone and shape the discussion. This is a sad state of affairs. Muslim women could use moral, intellectual, and material support from the West to improve their situation. But only a rational, reality-based women's movement would be capable of actually helping. Women who think that looking like a pear is an essential human right are not valuable allies.

The good news is that Muslim women are not waiting around for Western feminists to rescue them. "Feminists in the West may fiddle while Muslim women are burning," wrote Manhattan Institute scholar Kay Hymowitz in a prescient 2003 essay, "but in the Muslim world itself there is a burgeoning movement to address the miserable predicament of the second sex." The number of valiant and resourceful Muslim women who are devoting themselves to the cause of greater freedom grows each and every day.

They have a heritage to build on. There have been organized women's movements in countries such as Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt for more than a century. And many women in Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia already enjoy almost Western levels of freedom. But as radical Islam tightens its grip in places like Iran and rural Pakistan, and as it increasingly threatens Muslim women everywhere, even some devoutly religious women are quietly organizing to resist. Mehrangiz Kar, an Iranian human rights lawyer, now a researcher at Harvard Law School, predicts that "a feminist explosion is well on its way."

Islamic feminists believe that women's rights are compatible with Islam rightly understood. One of their central projects is progressive religious reform. Through careful translation and interpretation of the Koran and other sacred texts, scholars challenge interpretations that have been used to justify sexist customs. They point out that forced veiling, arranged marriages, and genital cutting are rooted in tribal paganism and are nowhere enjoined by the Koran. Where the Koran explicitly permits a practice such as the physical chastisement of wives by husbands, the feminist exegetes try to show that, like slavery, the practice is anachronistic and incompatible with the true spirit of the faith. This kind of interpretation of scripture has been practiced by Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars for centuries. Now Islamic women want to play a part in it, and nothing in Islamic law, they believe, prohibits their doing so.

This past November more than 100 Muslim lawyers, scholars, and activists from 25 countries gathered in New York City for the express purpose of supporting the modernization of Islamic jurisprudence and reviving the spirit of ijtihad, a once vibrant Islamic tradition of independent thinking and reasoning about sacred texts. The organizing group, the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity (WISE), plans to launch an international shura, a consultative council of Muslim women leaders who will advise religious and political leaders on women's issues. They are also establishing a scholarship fund for the training of gifted female students to become Koranic scholars, or muftia. These women would be licensed to render fatwas, religious judgments that, while nonbinding, drive custom and practice in Islamic societies.

The WISE participants were a who's who of Muslim women lawyers, writers, and rights advocates. Perhaps the most affecting speaker was Mukhtar Mai. She is the Pakistani woman who, in 2002, was gang-raped by four men because of crimes allegedly committed by her brother. After the rape, which was sanctioned by an all-male village council, Mukhtar Mai was expected to preserve the "honor" of her family by killing herself. Instead, she and her family went to the police, even at the risk of being charged for the "crime" of being raped. A local imam, outraged by her treatment, denounced the attack in his Friday sermon. Reporters soon appeared, and Mukhtar's case became a cause c�l�bre.

The conference participants varied widely in their politics and their relation to Islam. Unlike the present American feminist movement, which has no place for traditionally religious women, Islamic feminism is inclusive. Some of its proponents wear the veil, others oppose it. Some want egalitarian mosques, others don't mind traditional arrangements where men and women are separated. Even a few non-Muslims were present. What unites them in feminism is their commitment to the universal dignity of women. They are all vehemently opposed to such practices as forced marriages, honor killings, genital cutting, child marriage, and wife-beating. They are passionately dedicated to the educational, economic, legal, and political advancement of women.

The feminism that is quietly surging in the Muslim world is quite different from its contemporary counterpart in the United States. Islamic feminism is faith-based, family-centered, and well-disposed towards men. This is feminism in its classic and most effective form, as students of women's emancipation know. American women won the vote in the early 20th century through the combined forces of progressivism and conservatism. Radical thinkers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Victoria Woodhull, and Alice Paul played an indispensable role, but it was traditionalists like Frances Willard (president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union) and Carrie Chapman Catt (founder of the League of Women Voters) who brought the cause of women's suffrage into the mainstream.

In particular, Frances Willard--today an almost forgotten figure--was beloved and immensely famous at the time of her death in 1898. She had a gift for reaching out to devoutly religious women and showing them how political equality was consistent with piety. This moved men too. She was critical in turning the once elite suffrage movement into a groundswell.

Today's feminists have anathematized Willard because she held two conventional views they find intolerable: She regarded "womanliness" as a virtue and a source of strength, power, and beauty, not as a socially constructed domestic prison; and she advanced women's rights within, not in opposition to, the framework of traditional religion. These two traits are precisely the ones that gave Willard mass appeal in her own day and that make her philosophy relevant to women struggling for their rights inside highly traditional Islamic societies.

In Search of Islamic Feminism, a 1998 book by University of Texas Middle Eastern studies professor Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, offers a rare glimpse of Muslim women activists. In Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, and Iraq, Fernea kept encountering what she calls "family feminism." Several of the women she interviewed reject what they see as divisiveness in today's American feminism. As one Iraqi women's advocate, Haifa Abdul Rahman, told her, "We see feminism in America as dividing women from men, separating women from the family. This is bad for everyone." Fernea was not only struck by the family orientation of the women she encountered, she was also awed by their feminine graciousness. The Italian novelist and essayist Italo Calvino once made a list of requirements for a successful liberation movement. Almost as an afterthought, he added, "There must also be beauty." There is beauty in Islamic feminism.

Islamic feminism has some celebrated adherents, among them the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi, the Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and the Canadian journalist and human rights activist Irshad Manji. In her 2004 feminist manifesto, The Trouble with Islam Today, Manji writes, "We Muslims . . . are in crisis and we are dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now."

Manji is right: In particular, a feminist reformation could be as dangerous to the dreams of the jihadists as any military assault by the West. After all, the oppression of women is not an incidental feature of the societies that foster terrorism. It is a linchpin of the system of social control that the jihadists are fighting to impose worldwide. Women's equality is as incompatible with radical Islam's plan for domination and submission as it is with polygamy. Women freely moving about, expressing their opinions, and negotiating their relationships with men from a position of equal dignity rather than servitude are a moderating, civilizing force in any society. Female scholars voicing their opinions without inhibition would certainly puncture some cherished jihadist fantasies.

Is an Islamic feminist reformation a realistic hope? In the last speech of her life, in 1906, American feminist pioneer Susan B. Anthony famously told her audience, "Failure is impossible." Anthony, however, was formed by and worked within a liberal democracy founded on the proposition that all men are created equal. Even when the American women's movement was at its most controversial in the 19th and early 20th centuries, its exponents, with few exceptions, risked only ridicule or shunning. Today's Muslim feminists face imprisonment, lashing, disfigurement, and murder. The leader of the radical wing of the 19th-century American women's movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was a religious skeptic and harshly critical of sexism in the Bible. Her views were met by social antagonism and stern disapproval from more conservative feminists--all of it civil and peaceable. Stanton's present-day counterpart, Somali-born Dutch author Ayaan Hirsi Ali (now my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute), is a religious skeptic who is harshly critical of sexism in the Koran. Her views are met by violence and death threats from Muslim fanatics. She has to be escorted by bodyguards.

Success, then, is not certain. Yet there are many hopeful signs. Experience in Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey is encouraging. Groups like WISE are holding up a new image of female piety that does not require silence, powerlessness, and second-class citizenship. And individual women such as Pakistan's Mukhtar Mai, Morocco's Fatima Mernissi, Iran's Shirin Ebadi, Canada's Irshad Manji, and Holland's Ayaan Hirsi Ali are offering the world profiles in astonishing courage and grace. Their example may prove as infectious as it is inspiring. Radical Islam does indeed pose an extreme challenge to the cause of women's rights--but these wise and brave women pose a devastating and unexpected challenge to radical Islam.

I asked Daisy Kahn, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement and organizer of the WISE conference, how Americans can help. Her answer was simple: "Support us. Embrace our struggle." That is already happening, though mostly outside feminist circles. There are scores of independent organizations--groups like Freedom House, Global Giving, the Independent Women's Forum, Project Ijtihad, Equality Now, and the Initiative for Inclusive Security--that have begun to work in effective ways to support Muslim women. Such groups, both liberal and conservative, may not identify themselves as feminist, but they embody the ideals and principles of the classical, humane feminism of Stanton, Anthony, and Willard.

Those "First Wave" reformers made history. Their classical "equity" feminism was predominant in the United States long before the current band of activists and theorists transformed and debased it beyond recognition. Their understanding of equality was never at war with femininity, never at war with men, or with family, or with logic or common sense. It is alive again in Islamic feminism.

The women who constitute the American feminist establishment today are destined to play little role in the battle for Muslim women's rights. Preoccupied with their own imagined oppression, they can be of little help to others--especially family-centered Islamic feminists. The Katha Pollitts and Eve Enslers, the vagina warriors and university gender theorists--these are women who cannot distinguish between free and unfree societies, between the Taliban and the Promise Keepers, between being forced to wear a veil and being socially pressured to be slender and fit. Their moral obtuseness leads many of them to regard helping Muslim women as "colonialist" or as part of a "hegemonic" "civilizing mission." It disqualifies them as participants in this moral fight.

In reality, of course, it is the Islamic feminists themselves who are on a civilizing mission--one that is vital to their own welfare and to the welfare of an anxious world. A reviewer of Irshad Manji's manifesto celebrating Islamic feminism aptly remarked, "This could be Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare." Ipso facto, it should be our fondest dream. And if, along the way, Islamic feminism were to have a wholesome influence on American feminism, so much the better.

Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of The War Against Boys and coauthor of One Nation Under Therapy.

This article was first published in The Weekly Standard.

Violence Against Women: When Feminists Look the Other Way

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Sun, 13 May 2007 15:36:00 EDT

Christina Hoff Sommers has an important article in the Weekly Standard on the curious refusal of U.S. feminists to make the plight of women in Islamic societies a priority:

"[M]any feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the 'underrepresentation' of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores. The occasional feminist scholar who takes the women's movement to task for neglecting the plight of foreigners is ignored or ruled out of order."

Mother's Day

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:19:00 EDT

Over at National Review Online today, IWF's Carrie Lukas rallies against the politicization of Mother's Day. Teresa Heinz Kerry is using Mother's Day to push for unsound changes to Social Security benefits, Code Pink is hosting an anti-war rally, and the National Organization for Women is using the holiday to push for more government regulation of the workplace and mandated benefits. Carrie is no fan of this approach:

"Perhaps it's inevitable that groups will use any media hook to push their cause. There seems something vaguely sexist, however, in this use of Mother's Day, which consistently puts women in the position of clamoring for more benefits from Uncle Sam. Father's Day doesn't occasion such an unseemly push for favors for men."

Check out her article here.

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.

Can't find a token female? What a drag!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Thu, 10 May 2007 09:53:00 EDT

The proposed panel was on postcolonial identity and diaspora communities in Pakistan, Germany, and Japan. Tres chic! However...

"The program committee for the next annual meeting for the American Historical Association liked the idea, too. There was just one little problem: The scholars involved are all men. 'Since the AHA has a standing commitment to gender diversity on panels, the Program Committee has decided to require you to find a female participant, perhaps to serve as chair or a second commentator for your session,' said the notification the panel organizer received. Unless an acceptable additional participant is added, 'we will be forced to reject your panel.'

"The response stunned Manan Ahmed, the organizer, who is preparing for his dissertation defense at the University of Chicago. After venting via e-mail with colleagues and joking about proposing that the panelists all appear in drag..."

An Interview with Carrie Lukas

Thu, 10 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

For Our Grandchildren

MEET CARRIE LUKAS:

Carrie L. Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics for the Independent Women's Forum. Lukas is the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism, which was published by Regnery Publishing in May 2006. She is also a contributor to National Review Online.

Since joining the Independent Women's Forum in 2003, Lukas has authored the IWF special reports, Dependency Divas: How the Feminist Big Government Agenda Betrays Women and Recess from Reality: The Feminist Failure to Embrace School Choice. Additionally, she has written IWF position papers on social security and tax policy. Lukas is a regular fixture on opinion pages around the nation, and has appeared on numerous radio, cable and network television programs. She holds a bachelor of arts from Princeton University and a master's in public policy from Harvard University.

Interview

Abdnor: With Mother's Day approaching, you're the perfect person to help us answer a few questions.

You're an expert on Social Security, the Mother of a toddler and you'll soon deliver your second child.

You've been working on Social Security for many years. During that time, has your thinking about the future of Social Security changed?

Carrie Lukas: When I began working on Social Security, I don't think I realized just how difficult it would be for policymakers to make improvements to the system. There is near universal agreement that Social Security will face a real financial crisis, yet few policymakers are willing to seriously discuss how to solve those problems. That can be discouraging. But the challenges the system faces today are the same that they faced ten years ago when I first started working on the issue-the need for action has just become more urgent.

Abdnor: You're a "working" Mom--earning outside income. How does the system treat working Moms, married, divorced or single? Does it treat everyone equally?

Carrie Lukas: That's one of the real problems with the way that Social Security is set up. It doesn't treat everyone equally. Some choices and lifestyles are rewarded and some are penalized by the system. I don't think that's the proper role of government.

Consider, for example, that many married women who work won't earn an extra penny of Social Security benefits for years of contributions to the system. That's a real disincentive for married women to enter the workforce. Women who get divorced can also suffer under the current Social Security system. Imagine a woman who left the workforce to care for children but gets divorced after nine years of marriage. She has no right to any of the retirement benefits her husband accrued during their marriage. She may be starting from square one in saving for retirement.

Abdnor: What should be the goal(s) of modernizing Social Security?

Carrie Lukas: We need a Social Security system that treats individuals fairly and provides individuals with a real opportunity to save. Right now, the money individuals pay into Social Security is a big lost opportunity. For many Americans, particularly those with lower incomes, the money they pay into Social Security is the only money they are putting away for retirement. Unfortunately, Social Security is going to provide them with a really low rate of return. They deserve better than that. That's why I believe we need to give individuals the chance to use a portion of their money to fund a personal savings account. A system of personal accounts that allows individuals to save and invest their payroll taxes will give everyone the opportunity to build a real nest egg and be better off at retirement.

Another goal should be to make Social Security financially solvent. I find it appalling to think that my daughters-one not yet two and another expected any day now-are going to be saddled with a tremendous debt from programs that were put in place decades ago. We need to act now to make sure that Social Security is sustainable and doesn't cripple the economy for the next generation.

Abdnor: If Social Security isn't fixed soon, what do you think will be the impact on your generation and your children's generation?

Carrie Lukas: I simply cannot imagine that policymakers are going to let the system continue on its current course. It would just be too irresponsible and potentially devastating for the next generation.

Consider that when my girls enter the workforce, they are going to be paying 17 percent of their income just to support Social Security. Medicare costs are also going to be on the rise. Is that really the legacy that we want to leave them? Not only will this make the next generation poorer, but it will leave them less able to deal with whatever challenges they face. We don't know what lies ahead-the next generation deserves the flexibility to be able to allocate their resources as we see fit. We shouldn't lock them in to spending such an enormous percentage of their income on transfer programs to the elderly.

Abdnor: On a personal note, what are a few of the best things about being a Mother?

Carrie Lukas: It sounds like a cliché but it is really impossible to describe how rewarding it is watching a child grow and develop her own personality. It is such fun watching my daughter discover the world around her and get such joy from simple things.

Do you want to get rich or maintain the patriarchy?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:31:00 EDT

Commentator Ashley Herzog planned to sit out Equal Pay Day this year. But so many dumb things have been said that Herzog could not hold her tongue. I'm glad because she really nails it:

"First, the belief that employers get away with paying women 77 percent of what men make can only be explained by a lack of understanding of basic economic principles. If it were true, money-grubbing employers would hire only women, since it would lower costs and increase profits. We know that doesn"t happen, so feminists have invented a preposterous explanation: male businessmen care so much about keeping women 'in their place' that they're willing to lose money by hiring men. Is it just me, or do people like Donald Trump seem slightly more concerned with getting rich than maintaining patriarchy? Already, the pay gap theory has serious flaws...

"What women's studies majors who lament about the pay gap don't realize is that they're contributing to it. According to economist June O'Neill, a major reason women make less than men is that they often choose college majors in lower-paying 'humanities' fields, such as education, journalism, English and social work, while men are more attracted to high-paying fields like business and engineering. If women's studies majors are so outraged by the pay gap, maybe they should all drop out and enroll in the College of Engineering. That act alone would do much more to close the pay gap than blaming sexism.'"

IWF Book Review

info@iwf.org (Allison Kasic) — Tue, 01 May 2007 14:17:00 EDT

Charlotte Hays reviews Leslie Bennetts’ The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? over on the IWF homepage.

Check it out here.

IWF BOOK REVIEW: "The Feminine Mistake, Are We Giving Up Too Much?"

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Hays) — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

The Feminine Mistake, Are We Giving Up Too Much? by Leslie Bennetts Hypoerion, $24.95

Author Leslie Bennetts was among those alarmed by a New York Times report that an increasing number of women with degrees from top colleges are choosing to become stay-at-home mothers. Rather than celebrating this as a choice now acceptable for brainy Ivy League graduates, Bennetts sees the phenomenon as fostering a dependency that ultimately puts these women in economic peril.

Starting with Bennetts' grandmother, many of the women in this book lead what the author sees as a 1950's style life that is interrupted when the husband comes home one night and, without warning, says he's leaving, usually for another woman. As a child of divorced parents, I know a bit about what this does to the economics of a family. (I sometimes think that the harsher forms of feminism were born of men who acted like rats.)

Bennetts deserves credit for raising issues worthy of public discussion. But I think her "solution" is narrow, and that the women interviewed for the book, mostly members of the same elite milieu inhabited by Vanity Fair correspondent Bennetts, will be a turnoff to readers who live outside Manhattan and who don't attend certain kinds of parties and share certain values. Make that will appall readers.

Along with feminist rhetoric ("a patriarchal society encourages women to subordinate their individual needs to those of the family"), there is a pervasive disdain for women who have chosen to stay at home. One woman, called Wendy Greenberg in the book (names are changed), appeared to be the ideal stay-at-home mother, but "if you dig deeper than Greenberg's effervescent public persona and talent got hostessing, her story becomes far more complicated. It seems that the poster girl for stay-at-home motherhood is not a happy camper after all."

As it turns out, Wendy had wanted to go to Yale School of Drama but had gone instead to law school, seemingly safer but she didn't really like it and didn't want to be a lawyer. Marriage, it appears, with the bargain to stay at home, was Wendy's way out of practicing law. (Other women in the book run into trouble in the workplace because of "lack of female role models.") When she first met Bennetts, Wendy maintained that she enjoyed her life and "shepherding" her daughter to ballet lessons. Because of her husband's "refusal" to discuss finances with her, she was unprepared when the one-time whiz kid got into financial difficulties. "I tortured him: 'You've disappointed me! We had this deal; you were going to be successful, and I was going to take care of the children, and everything was going to be fabulous. But this is not what I bought in for. What good are you now to me?'"

Bennetts comments that Wendy's "comfortable" lifestyle might seem enviable to most Americans, but it pales in comparison when those of friends whose husbands earn a million dollars a year. Greenberg expected to own a palatial apartment by now, but instead, "It's been seventeen years and we still rent," she says. Rather than having her own country house, she visits her parents in the suburbs when she wants to escape the city. She and her husband are now debating whether to remove their kids from the private school whose steep tuition has become an enormous burden. Like I said, I don't think the reader is going to care for a lot of the women in this book.

It is also probably possible to make the point that work can bring joy and meaning to our lives without sounding quite as soulless as Heidi Hartmann, founder of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. After professing that she would be willing to die for her children, she adds,"As I once said at a conference, unless you are the mother of an Einstein or a Madame Curie, which most of us are not, your own work, if it is significant, is probably more important to society than raising your kids." So only a really brainy kid is valuable to society?

Bennetts' answer to questions about women and work is: keep working. Hang onto the full-time professional job. The mother of two, she proposes "the fifteen year paradigm"--that is how long the "acute phase of mothering" lasts. "In exchange for staying the course, I've been able to enjoy an immensely rewarding career--not to mention an income that has sustained my family during some really difficult times when my husband's employment was interrupted." Of course, not all women are capable of working from home for one of the best-paying magazines in journalism.

Still, as I said, Bennetts (whom I tangled with in another life when I was a gossip columnist and know to be a formidable woman) does raise real issues. At the Independent Women's Forum, we've urged flex time and other options to improve the life of the working mother. We might also consider reforming no-fault divorce and making divorces harder to get. I'll bet as a member of New York's chic journalistic set Bennetts probably won't go for this one.

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