Free Republic

The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, attracted 9,000 delegates to its annual convention in Washington, D.C., over the July Fourth weekend.--snip--NEA resolutions cover the waterfront of all sorts of political issues that have nothing to do with improving education for schoolchildren, such as supporting statehood for the District of Columbia, a "single-payer health care plan" (i.e., government run), gun control, ratification of the International Criminal Court Treaty and taking steps "to change activities that contribute to global climate change."...

Hi everybody, I’m excited to be posting on BlogHer. Not only because blogging is something I’ve actually been able to beat my daughters to; but because it gives me the opportunity to tell you a little bit about them, my husband, myself, and our experiences traveling all over this great country. Over the course of this campaign, I’ve been hosting roundtable discussions with working women all across America. I’m there to talk about my husband, of course – but more importantly, I’m there to listen. We talk about what it’s like to play multiple roles at once and what it’s...

Are you a "kid-sick" parent? If so, have hope. You've been diagnosed. And all you need is a good "parent-ectomy" to cheer you up. The Associated Press reported July 12 that many American parents are afflicted with a malady some experts dub "kid-sickness." Contrary to what you might think, this "sickness" is not about parents who are sick of their kids. It's about parents who actually want to spend time with their kids. And it's considered an ailment needing a cure. This summer, more than 10 million children are attending recreational camps across America. And according to Boston-based family therapist...

How long ago it seems that supposedly rational Democrats were calling for Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race, arguing that the math simply couldn’t work out for her to win the nomination, and that she was standing in the way of party unity. The reply from Hillary’s supporters? “Sexist! It’s not over! Why should she have to quit? You wouldn’t tell a man to quit!” They scoffed at the notion that a prolonged primary campaign would work against party unity going into the general election campaign. And Hillary did not exit the race until days after Barack Obama had...

On Sunday, July 13, in Jonesboro, Georgia, an immigrant Muslim father strangled his daughter to death in a so-called "honor killing" because she protested being forced by her family to marry a man she did not know. No feminist uttered a word about the murder of twenty-five-year-old Sandeela Kanwal. On the following Wednesday officials in the city government of Atlanta, Georgia bowed to the pressure from one feminist nut to stop posting "men at work" signs in the city because they are "sexist." The contrast is stark as well as revealing, if not entirely disgusting. It reveals an American feminism...

Last Wednesday, the British House of Commons decided that a father is completely and totally irrelevant to a child's development. The legislation, which dealt with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, would have included a clause requiring a fertility doctor to "consider a child's need for a male role model before giving women IVF treatment," according to news site This Is London. Even though IVF already marginalizes fathers by effectively removing them from the procreative process, feminists would not allow even this bland and toothless reference to men to stand. The clause was voted down. This Is London went on to...

A NeW Kind of Choice by: Rachel Paulk, July 02, 2008 Radical feminists have been hard at work for decades stressing the importance of women choosing career paths over homemaking, corner offices instead of kitchens, and power suits to replace aprons. To a certain extent, their message has been accepted and assimilated into mainstream society. The U.S. Department of Labor reported in 2007 that “A record 68 million women were employed in the U.S.—75% of employed women worked on full-time jobs, while 25% worked on a part-time basis” and “Women accounted for 51% of all workers in the high-paying management,...

I know it is hard to believe but the enduringly disgruntled dames over over at Future Church are, well, disgruntled. Again. For the uninformed misogynists among you [read regular Catholics], Future Church is a group that openly agitates for the ordination of women. But since this issue is a dead letter, they occasionally need something else to agitate about. Today, these pant suit wearing damsels in perpetual distress are upset about the short shrift that women get in the Catholic lectionary. [ICN] "Unfortunately, for centuries, Mary of Magdala's leadership and that of many other biblical women, has been minimized or...

Waste Not, Want Not by: Deborah Lambert, June 30, 2008 There’s a new “academic endeavor” coming soon to a campus near you. It’s called “Waste Studies,” and according to Charlotte Allen in mindingthecampus.com, it’s not “the study of sewage systems or waste-processing plants.” Founded by Susan Signe Morrison, an English professor at Texas State University, San Marcos, the field of Waste Studies involves the way “societies are . . . structured around the control and regulation of excrement.” Not surprisingly, this new Marxist-inspired field of study was cooked up by the women’s studies movement. It seems that the dearth of...

Alice Walker, best known as the author of the novel The Color Purple, is one of the most renowned feminist authors and activists of her generation. She is also a mother, and that fact brought her public and private lives into direct conflict. --snip-- That is because Alice Walker’s brand of feminism was the kind that taught that “motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.” So says her daughter, Rebecca, who suffered the consequences of that thinking. In a recent London Daily Mail article, Rebecca Walker reflected on the neglect she experienced with her divorced...

One problem with one-issue activists, it seems, is that they often view matters from only one dimension. This has always been one of the characteristics of feminists. Men get blame for being history’s conquerors and killers, for instance, but no credit for being its innovators and healers. We will hear about how women “create life” while men only destroy it, but forgotten are the fruits of men’s labors. Were it not for male medical advances that virtually eliminated female death during childbirth, many feminists wouldn’t be around to crow about their fecundity. Given this misandrist atmosphere, it’s not surprising that...

It is widely reported that women suffer depression at twice the rate of men. Apparently, more women are clinically depressed than ever before. On the assumption that these assessments are true, the question anyone interested in the subject -- which means anyone who cares about any woman -- asks is, why? In a recent column I offered one explanation -- the impossibly high expectations for happiness that feminism created for many women. There are other possible explanations. One is the way in which many girls have been raised. As every wise person and wise culture in history has known, it...

A rendering of a statue honoring Revolutionary War veterans. Photo Credit: Courtesy Of Loudoun Revolutionary War Memorial Committee Photo What expression would an 18th-century woman have donned as her husband left for war? It depends on which government official you ask. snip... ... In an artist's rendering, the man gazes toward the horizon with a determined stare. The boy's head is upturned, as he looks with pride at his father. The wife? "She's looking pretty beat; she's looking like she's sad," Supervisor Kelly Burk (D-Leesburg) said. "If we could get the representation of her to be more looking forward...

Feminism has been a very disgraced brand for decades. The final nail was placed in the coffin when feminists tried so athletically to see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil with Bill Clinton's record of serial adultery, sexual harassment and even a credible accusation of rape. But now that Hillary Clinton has finally conceded to Barack Obama, the media elites have suddenly discovered the glorious and militant cause of women. Hillary Clinton's failure wasn't her fault. It was sexism that ruined her chances. Feminists have blamed everyone for this crushing burden of sexism. It's most fun watching...

I'm not sure I said enough about domestic violence last week, while attacking a vicious "public service" advertisement from the Canadian Women's Foundation, designed to focus hatred on "white males" -- though perhaps I did say enough to satisfy some of my feminist readers. I mentioned the ad as a token for what has in fact been a long-rolling social and political campaign, nay melodrama, dating back before the "take back the night" spectacles of the '90s, before the "recovered memory syndrome" hysteria of the '80s, before the "pantsuit revolution" of the '70s, to the pioneers of "second-wave" feminism in...

Power Mrs. du Toit Or… “The things your mother should have told you… if she’d known about them.” I want to settle an age old question: “Who Wears the Pants in the Family?”

“Is 40 really the New 20?” asks Fox News, reviewing the Sex And The City hoopla that seemed to overwhelm everyone this weekend. “Pop culture expert and Party Girl author Anna David joins us to weigh in on the phenomenon…” And the burning question is, what do you make of this revolutionary idea that a woman can be single in her 30s, 40s, even 50s, and it’s not shameful, it’s fantastic? Interesting. Let’s explore this revolutionary idea. How did Sex And The City make it okay to be single? After Anna David addresses how threatening this idea is to men—it...

There is a lot of bitterness out there. And it’s not coming from rural voters in Appalachia. There are legions of Hillary Clinton supporters -- from Emily List activists to NARAL members to middle aged female fans -- who do not like the impending outcome of the Democratic primary. They are downright angry about some of the language employed by the media to describe Clinton, and at what they see as the media’s undue haste in shoving her out of the race. And they don’t like some of the phrases tossed around by Barack Obama (“Sweetie;” “You’re likable enough, Hillary”)...

We have become a nation of women. It wasn’t always this way, of course. There was a time when men put their signatures to a document, knowing full well that this single act would result in their execution if captured, and in the forfeiture of their property to the State. Their wives and children would be turned out by the soldiers, and their farms and businesses most probably given to someone who didn’t sign the document. There was a time when men went to their certain death, with expressions like “You all can go to hell. I’m going to Texas.”...

Right now, Hillary is in Godzilla mode, refusing to accept Barack Obama's looming nomination and threatening to tie the Democratic party in legal knots until the August convention and beyond. Those who think she will withdraw gracefully in a few weeks are living in cloud cuckoo land. The Clintons are ruthless scrappers who will lock their bulldog teeth in any bloody towel. In her raw ambition and stubborn, grinding energy, Hillary will certainly cast a long shadow on young women aspiring to high office. She is both inspiring role model and cringe-making bad example - a feminist who never found...

The other day I was vacuuming when my son came bounding into the room. 'Mummy, Mummy, let me help,' he cried. His little hands were grabbing me around the knees and his huge brown eyes were looking up at me. I was overwhelmed by a huge surge of happiness. I love the way his head nestles in the crook of my neck. I love the way his face falls into a mask of eager concentration when I help him learn the alphabet. But most of all, I simply love hearing his little voice calling: 'Mummy, Mummy.' It reminds me of...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children. Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators. The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not...

This is one movie that I have enjoyed as much as the trailer! As the end credits started to roll, my six-year-old (girl) popped up her head and loudly asked if I would buy the DVD. . . THE GUYS...ARE GUYS! They are not "juiced up" thirty-somethings with sculpted muscles and steroids to match, nor are they psychologically tortured, identity-challenged, oversexed teenagers. They are young males who are not afraid to spill some blood when necessary for the greater good. . . THE GIRLS...ARE GIRLS! . . . [T]he usual "girl empowerment" pomposity that almost universally plagues today's child actresses...

"Former teacher Brian Presken, 32, was accused of using a mirror to look under a woman's skirt last summer at Barnes & Noble Booksellers on Airport Boulevard in Pensacola."Defense attorney Katheryne Snowden argued that the voyeurism charge should be dropped because Presken's accuser didn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place under Florida law. "The law under which Presken was charged states, 'It is illegal to secretly observe someone with lewd, lascivious and indecent intent in a dwelling, structure or conveyance, and when such locations provide a reasonable expectation of privacy.' "Snowden said the statute her client...

Feminism has been dying the death of a sick old woman. Shackled to the political party that opposed women's suffrage, just as blacks are manacled to the political party of the Ku Klux Klan, both captives levied en masse as foot soldiers to fight the political party of Susan B. Anthony and of Abraham Lincoln, the party of all the original feminists and all the original abolitionists, feminists, like civil rights straw bosses, long ago sold their political soul. So, when Hillary Clinton is pilloried by the radical Left, her protests of victimhood produce no feminist outrage, because feminists cannot...

Dartmouth English professor Priya Venkatesan is suing her students for “mental harassment” and the college’s administrators for “failure to safeguard my emotional health.” Venkatesan maintains that some of her students were so resistant to her exposition of “French narrative theory” that the classroom became a “hostile working environment.” “They argued with my ideas,” she charged. “They questioned my authority.” The professor’s suit mentions a specific incident wherein students assailed her contention that science is “a patriarchal construct that suppresses feminine ways of knowing.” One of the students took issue, citing empirical evidence in his argument. When he was applauded by...

Suppose you ran a physical education program and discovered that girls were much more likely to suffer serious injuries than boys are. Before recruiting any more girls, would you want to alert them to this fact? Doesn’t seem like a hard question, does it? But the answer is controversial question in some circles, as Michael Sokolove reports in his Times Magazine cover story on girls’ soccer injuries. He notes that female soccer players are 50 percent more likely to be injured than male soccer players, and up to five times more likely to suffer serious knee injuries. (My Science Times...

(IsraelNN.com) A new study carried out at Brandeis University finds that as the liberal Jewish community empowers its women, its men appear to be losing interest in their Jewishness. According to a report in JTA, which publishes parts of the study, "outside the Orthodox world, men are becoming less and less engaged in every aspect of Jewish life, from the home to the synagogue to communal organizations. Numerous studies show that fewer boys than girls go to non-Orthodox youth groups, religious schools or summer camps, fewer go into the rabbinate and cantorate, and fewer serve on synagogue or federation committees....

In the mid-1980s, The New York Times ran a profile of the American writer and activist Alice Walker. Her novel, The Color Purple, had won the Pulitzer prize and was being turned into a film by Steven Spielberg. The article was illustrated by a photograph of Walker sitting on her teenaged daughter’s knee. It was meant to be a “fun” picture; but, in retrospect, according to Rebecca Walker, the photographer unwittingly portrayed the true nature of her relationship with her mother. Alice Walker was, and remains, an icon of the American civil rights movement. “People adore her. I can’t tell...

IRON MAN, Batman, Big Angry Green Man — to judge from the new popcorn season it seems as if Hollywood has realized that the best way to deal with its female troubles is to not have any, women, that is. Not that it hasn’t tried to make nice with the leading ladies, in films like “The Invasion” (with Nicole Kidman) and “The Brave One” (Jodie Foster). Yet, after those Warner Brothers titles fizzled, the online chatter was that the studio’s president for production, Jeff Robinov, had vowed it would no longer make movies with female leads. A studio representative denied...

... There are lots of questions to be asked about Postmodernism, and one of the most important is about politics involved -- or more simply, is this movement toward fragmentation, provisionality, performance and instability something good or bad? ... the postmodern avowal of fragmentation and multiplicity tends to attract liberals and radicals. This is why, in part, feminist theorists have found postmodernism so attractive as Sarup, Flax and Butler all point out. ... postmodernist politics offers a way to theorize local situations as fluid and unpredictible, though influenced by global trends. Hence the motto for postmodern politics might well be...

Feminism on Red Alert by: Deborah Lambert, April 25, 2008 Question: What would inspire a conference on feminism at Harvard to feature conservative viewpoints? Answer: When it’s organized by Professor Harvey Mansfield’s Program on Constitutional Government. The flyer told the tale, saying: “a genuine debate with DIVERSITY of views on THE LEGACY AND FUTRE [sic] OF FEMINISM” adding that “Ladies Receive an Additional 50% off" (at the free conference)…” According to Anthony Paletta, some of the guests at this unusual forum were taken aback at the sights and sounds of conservative speakers like Jennifer Roback Morse, Wendy Shalit and Christina...

It’s long been known that family break-up inflicts massive social costs on communities and children. But what about the burden it imposes on the American taxpayer? It’s a proven fact that family dissolution places children at greater risk of poverty, mental and physical illness, juvenile delinquency, abuse, substance abuse, and educational failure. A few years ago Wade Horn, former director of the federal Administration for Children and Families, revealed, “My agency spends $46 billion per year operating 65 different social programs. If one goes down the list of these programs… the need for each is either created or exacerbated...

IntroductionIn some places in the English-speaking world, under the influence of a false feminism, a new and unauthorized practice has been introduced into the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism. The practice consists in substituting for the names of the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, in the formula for Baptism, the names of three functions. In one formula, the three functions named are: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. In another formula, they are: Creator, Liberator, and Sustainer.Recently, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office of our Holy Father with responsibility “to promote and safeguard the doctrine...

On Monday 14 April, I was having dinner at an Irish pub in Washington, DC with two Catholic priests, a Catholic high school teacher, a community leader in DC, and a Catholic blogger/author known as the "bane of feminist feminist bloggers," when one of them noticed a message written on the side of a truck. I rushed over to the window with my camera, and took a picture of the truck and its message. This is how it turned out: Groups such as the so-called "Women's Ordination Conference" have sympathizers in the mainstream media. The Voice of America recently featured...

He was one of the most brilliant minds. She was his lifelong companion who pioneered feminism. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were perhaps the most influential couple of the 20th century. Their legendary love pact - they never married but swore mutual devotion to each other with the freedom to have affairs - was an attempt to overthrow the stifling hypocrisy that, for so long, had dictated most people's lives. Always pushing new boundaries, they explored their thoughts in novels, plays and philosophical works. It earned Sartre the world's greatest literary accolade, the Nobel Prize. Yet he refused to...

Back to Story - Help Why Beautiful Women Marry Less Attractive Men Jeanna Bryner LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Thu Apr 10, 11:25 AM ET Women seeking a lifelong mate might do well to choose the guy a notch below them in the looks category. New research reveals couples in which the wife is better looking than her husband are more positive and supportive than other match-ups. The reason, researchers suspect, is that men place great value on beauty, whereas women are more interested in having a supportive husband. Researchers admit that looks are subjective, but studies show there are some...

Faithful Catholics Reject V-Monologues at Notre Dame Controlling free speech, university official expels TFP volunteer for sharing bishop’s statement on campus Once again, controversy is dividing the University of Notre Dame. Catholics everywhere applauded Bishop John D’Arcy’s recent condemnation of the crude “V-Monologues” at Notre Dame, hoping it would convince university officials to ban the feminist play. After all, the production betrays Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, tramples upon the Sixth Commandment, exalts sin, promotes lesbianism, and gives scandal. However, ignoring the bishop’s call to cancel the play, university president Fr. John I. Jenkins has again allowed it to disgrace the...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A small group of Indonesians in their late 40s who attended the same elementary school in central Jakarta recently gathered for a reunion and to pledge their support for an absent former classmate -- Barack Obama. Obama's late mother came to Indonesia with her young son in the late 1960s to join her second husband knowing next to nothing about the huge, developing Southeast Asian nation. While her son left after four years to study in Hawaii, for the Kansas-born mother of the Democratic Party presidential hopeful the relationship with Indonesia was to grow into a lifetime...

Title IX Conquers Science by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 13, 2008 When feminists attempted to open up college sports opportunities for women via federal Title IX regulations, national enforcement of these rules had the perhaps unintended consequence of hastening the demise of men’s teams at the collegiate level. Now they are attempting something much more ambitious—the feminization of science. In the latest issue of The American, Christina Hoff Sommers reports on legislation making its way through the U. S. Congress designed to lessen the male dominance of the hard sciences. Additionally, the Bush Administration has already funneled millions of dollars...

Greetings from ground zero -- the Philadelphia suburbs where the epic battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton may be decided in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary on April 22. Current scuttlebutt -- a frail reed in this mercurial race -- is that the multiracial metropolises of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia will go for Obama, while the vast rural and small-town heartland will endorse Clinton, whose family roots are in coal-country Scranton. The cloud of feminist cant about Hillary's struggling candidacy has been noxious. "Media misogyny has reached an all-time high," screeched the National Organization for Women in a press release titled "Ignorance...

It is widely reported that women suffer depression at twice the rate of men. Apparently, more women are clinically depressed than ever before. On the assumption that these assessments are true, the question anyone interested in the subject -- which means anyone who cares about any woman -- is, why? As one who regularly talks to women, and about men and women, on my radio show and who has informally counseled women of all ages, I would like to offer some explanations that may run counter to currently acceptable ones, but which should shed light on the subject. Assuming that...

MELBOURNE (AFP) - Outspoken feminist Germaine Greer has rounded on US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, branding her as "cold," "bossy" and "manipulative" while questioning her credentials for the top job. Australian-born Greer, here to promote her new book, launched into the candidate, saying she was unappealing to feminists as her political reputation was largely due to her marriage to former US president Bill Clinton. "I don't like Hillary because she's so bossy and cold and manipulative and stuff, and I don't think having her in power is going to make any difference, basically, because she will have the same set...

"Hillary Clinton's run-up to the Texas and Ohio primaries was the political equivalent of Hell Week for a Navy SEAL. At least it felt that way for the reporters who'd been participating in this killing Democratic marathon since the Iowa caucuses in January and now, dosed up on Airborne and bad coffee, were covering what was being billed as Hillary's last stand. As a campaign virgin who joined the press bus on Saturday morning in Ft. Worth, Texas, I was staggered by how isolated accompanying reporters actually are most of the time. It's like being trapped in a moving bathysphere...."

Women earn most of America’s Ph.D.’s but lag in the physical sciences. Beware of plans to fix the ‘problem.’ Math 55 is advertised in the Harvard catalog as “prob­ably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country.” It is leg­endary among high school math prodigies, who hear terrifying stories about it in their computer camps and at the Math Olympiads. Some go to Harvard just to have the opportunity to enroll in it. Its formal title is “Honors Advanced Calculus and Linear Algebra,” but it is also known as “math boot camp” and “a cult.” The two-semester fresh­man course...

LifeNews.com Note: Maria Vitale is Education Director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and a LifeNews.com Opinion Columnist. Vitale has written and reported for various broadcast and print media outlets, including National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and AP Radio.When I was a little girl, I was determined to read every good fiction book in the children's section of the Bexley Public Library in Bexley, Ohio. After I had whizzed through my teacher's list of selections, I'd ask the librarian what she would recommend I read.Ironically, I don't remember many of those tomes--but I do recall reading a biography of early feminist...

How can I teach my students to write decently when the English language has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Academic-Industrial Complex? Our language used to belong to all its speakers and readers and writers. But in the 1970s and '80s, arrogant ideologues began recasting English into heavy artillery to defend the borders of the New Feminist state. In consequence we have all got used to sentences where puffed-up words like "chairperson" and "humankind" strut and preen, where he-or-she's keep bashing into surrounding phrases like bumper cars and related deformities blossom like blisters; they are all markers of an epoch-making...

Robert A. Fink, MD March, 2008 Editors Note:Right Side News welcomes Dr. Robert A. Fink and his writing on critical issues of our day, in the culture wars we are engaged in. Please review his bio at the end of his article today. Boys - Casualties of the Gender Wars addresses the rise of gender feminism, and the wide use of prescription medicines in our children, especially boys. Robert A. Fink, M. D. -- Recently, educational researchers have begun to review the changes within our educational system brought about by such diverse factors as standardized testing in the schools, the...

The Pope rules out feminist theology By Malcolm Moore in Rome Last Updated: 2:17am GMT 01/03/2008 The Vatican has cracked down on feminist interpretations of the liturgy, ruling that God must always be recognised as Our Father. In a move designed to counter the spread of gender-neutral phrases, the Holy See said that anyone baptised using alternative terms, such as "Creator", "Redeemer" and "Sanctifier" would have to be re-baptised using the traditional ceremony. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said yesterday: "These variations arise from so-called feminist theology and are an attempt to avoid using the words Father...

Fighting to survive, Hillary Rodham Clinton is counting on female power to energize her faltering presidential bid...A woman in the White House, Clinton said, would present "a real challenge to the way things have been done, and who gets to do them and what the rules are."...particularly in Ohio. Polls in the past week have shown her with a wide advantage -- 17 percentage points in one poll, 18 in another -- among Ohio women. She also leads among Texas women, but the margin is slimmer.