Why Feminists Don't Represent Me (Ashley Herzog On Why Feminists Exclude Conservative Women Alert)

Townhall.com ^ | 05/29/2007 | Ashley Herzog

[goldstategop]

During my three years as a columnist for my college newspaper, I’ve resisted frequent requests that I explain my opposition to feminism. Apparently, a lot of people are shocked to discover a female college student who does not spend her days singing the praises of the National Organization for Women. Feminists fight for my rights, my readers tell me – so why am I constantly criticizing them?

I usually decline to answer because I think my columns speak for themselves. However, since I’m currently working on a book about this subject, I’ve decided to answer the question I hear most often: “What do you have against feminists?”

Most people who ask me this question believe that feminists simply want to advance the interests of all women. No, they don’t. Contrary to popular perception, the modern feminist movement is not a movement to promote freedom and equality for all women. It is a rigid ideology dictating what women should think and how they should live. Women who don’t parrot the views of NARAL Pro-Choice America – especially conservative and religious women -- are shunned from the feminist clique.

I’ve known this since my freshman year of college, when I cheerfully referred to myself as a “conservative feminist.” After all, what kind of forward-thinking girl wouldn’t embrace a movement that encouraged women to be strong, independent, and outspoken? I certainly wanted to be all of those things.

I realized about five minutes into my first women’s studies class that wasn’t enough. To the contrary, the feminist clique had a litany of complaints against me and other non-liberal women. We didn’t brand ourselves “Vagina Warriors” or chant obscenities in a crowded auditorium (see the feminist play The Vagina Monologues for details). We weren’t offended by suggestions that men and women are innately different. And, perhaps most egregiously of all, we didn’t consider the “right” to butcher unborn children essential to our liberty. The message from feminists was clear: accept our dogma, or remain permanently on the outs.

I wouldn’t have been surprised by their behavior if I had known the history of the feminist movement since the 1960s. Except for their slightly greater enthusiasm for abortion, the policy agenda of feminist groups like the National Organization for Women is indistinguishable from that of the Democratic National Committee. The self-appointed “women’s advocates” are only interested in advocating for leftist women.

In fact, most feminists don’t even include conservatives in the “woman” category. The godmother of the women’s movement, Gloria Steinem, famously called Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson a “female impersonator” and said, “having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one at all.”

Bailey Hutchinson is just one of many accomplished, independent women whom feminists hate, such as Phyllis Schlafly, Condoleezza Rice, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Laura Schlessinger, Bay Buchanan and Marji Ross (if I missed a few, don’t worry: they’ll all be mentioned in my book!).

So if feminism is not an ideology that encourages women to be strong and independent – no matter what their political persuasion -- what is it? With few exceptions, most self-described “women’s rights activists” have no intention of encouraging women to think for themselves. Instead, they aim to mold all women into loyal, obedient liberals who demean dissidents as “female impersonators.”

I don’t particularly care if feminists hate me. I don’t even care if they want to promote only fellow liberals. Just don’t tell me they’re fighting for “my” rights.

[goldstategop]

Ashley Herzog often gets asked this question. After identifying herself as a "conservative feminist," she got shunned from the sisterhood. To be a feminist is to be a liberal. NOW simply excludes non-liberal and conservative women from its ranks.

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[nathanbedford]

Who Placed American Men in a Psychic 'Iron Cage?'

The Thread of 'Cultural Marxism'

by

Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson

http://www.newtotalitarians.com/PsychicIronCagePartII.html

The Frankfurt School theorized that the authoritarian personality is a product of the patriarchal family. This idea is in turn directly connected to Frederich Engels' 'The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State,' which promotes matriarchy. Furthermore, it was Karl Marx who wrote about the radical notion of a 'community of women' in the Communist manifesto. And it was Karl Marx who wrote disparagingly about the idea that the family was the basic unit of society in 'The German Ideology'of 1845.

The 'authoritarian personality' is not to be interpreted primarily as a handbook for the conduct of warfare against prejudice as such, but as a handbook for psychological warfare against the American male for the purpose of rendering him unwilling to defend traditional and formerly held beliefs and values. In other words, the purpose would be to emasculate him. Undoubtedly, this is what the Institute meant by 'psychological techniques for changing personality.'

'The Authoritarian personality,' studied by the Frankfurt School in the 1940s and 1950s in America, prepared the way for the subsequent warfare against the masculine gender promoted by Herbert Marcuse and his band of social revolutionaries under the guise of 'women's liberation' and the New Left movement in the 1960s. The evidence that psychological techniques for changing personality is intended to mean emasculation of the American male is provided by Abraham Maslow, founder of Third Force Humanist Psychology and promoter of the psychotherapeutic classroom, who wrote that, '...the next step in personal evolution is a transcendence of both masculinity and femininity to general humanness.' The Marxist revolutionaries knew exactly what they wanted to do and how to do it. They have succeeded in accomplishing much of their agenda.

[jazusamo]

She’s got that exactly right. How many feminists and feminist groups stepped forward for Monica Lewinski’s supposed rights?

[TBP]

Smart young lady.

[CometBaby]

NOW is stuck in a rut .. still trying to push their stale old lesbian, leftist agenda. They support Leftist causes .. not women’s issues. Whenever women’s advancement conflicts with liberalism .. they op for the latter.

I consider myself a feminist .. a true feminist. I can love, respect and submit to a good, worthy, man. I consider myself my husband's true equal .. not his victim! True feminism means having the ability to make choices .. a big career .. or stay at home .. or go for both! Real feminists support reforms that reward work, marriage and personal responsibility.

We need to respect the individual choices that women make .. there is no SINGLE right path for every woman. That kind of thinking is collectivist and elitist.

The feminist of today owes everything to capitalism. That is what has given us the opportunity to be all that we can be. We are more concerned with economic issues than we are with social agendas.

The feminists of today are racing ahead .. and NOW is choking on our dust .. hehe

[tang-soo]

Ashley can be found here.

[TheThinker]

Through the slandering of men of the past, feminists have set women back not advanced them forward. Men and women, for the most part, are meant to complement each other and through this, progress is made.

[TheThinker]

Through the slandering of men of the past, feminists have set women back not advanced them forward. Men and women, for the most part, are meant to complement each other and through this, progress is made.

[PGalt]

Hooray to you and Ashley Herzog!

[Choose Ye This Day]

Why don't feminists represent you, Ashley?

Well, for starters, you're not butt ugly...

[omnivore]

This is interesting. I’m constantly astonished, not by the retro BS that the femeroids spew, but by how supposedly intelligent women in colleges buy into it. There’s something almost religious-like that feminism must have tapped into, to get so many women to sign up. Weird.

[TAdams8591]

"Women who don’t parrot the views of NARAL Pro-Choice America – especially conservative and religious women -- are shunned from the feminist clique."

This was as true 25 years ago when I was in college, as it is today. And I could are less. It was never a clique I wanted to belong to, and furthermore, it has always nauseated me when feminists claim to speak for ALL women. They don't. I speak for myself, and almost always hold the opposite opinion.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[sageb1]

I’d like to talk to her.

[Marie]

btt

[driftless2]

"set women back"

What you said. The dirty little secret is that women would be where they are today without all the anti-male,radical feminist baloney. Because the demands of a free-market society dictated that women were needed in the marketplace. In fact most arch-feminists are distinctly anti-capitalism as well as anti-male. Feminism has been a social cancer in this country and elsewhere as well as being a drag on the financial progess of women.

[elcid1970]

Wow! Thanks for the photo of Professor Herzog!

No wonder the feminists hate her!

[SauronOfMordor]

“having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one at all.”

This also sums up the attitude of many blacks towards blac Republicans

[grellis]

ping for later

[Mr. Jeeves]

There’s something almost religious-like that feminism must have tapped into, to get so many women to sign up. Weird.

The human ego loves to feel that it has been wronged; that it is misunderstood; that it is part of a special group that has a deeper understanding than anyone else. Most political and religious groups are adept at tapping into these fear- and ego-based emotions and exploiting them for their own purposes, so yes, feminism and most other Leftist collective egoic movements do fulfill much the same needs as religions, for those who choose to adopt them.