Free Republic

I once made a bet that Canada and the United States would see a woman or a black in the top political job from the political right (the Conservative party and the Republicans respectively) before the centre-left succeeded in that feat. My reasoning was simple though counter-intuitive: Despite the popular view that right-of-centre parties are anti-women or anti-minority, they are nothing of the sort. They are pro-individual and pro-merit. So they oppose race and gender quotas because they see such policies as harmful to individuals (i.e.: if you don't belong to the "proper" group); such policies also interfere with normal...

At Dennis Prager's blog, here on the Townhall website, under the entry, "Steinem: Palin Not A Real Woman" is a thread that, for me, perfectly illustrates how many people on the left conduct themselves when called to debate a given issue. Emotion takes the place of reason, feelings substitue for wisdom. Responding to an article by Gloria Steinem on his Thursday broadcast, Dennis Prager argued that the reason Steinem-bred feminists do not support Governor Sarah Palin is because she is a conservative. By any measure of accomplishment, Prager reasoned, Sarah Palin should be the aspiration of young feminists everywhere, but...

Less than 24 hours after the historic selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, a quick perusal of the National Organization of Women (NOW) website provides a telling window into the world of feminist politics. NOW is the largest feminist organization in the United States, claiming over 500,000 contributing members in over 500 local and campus affiliates. Its self-stated purpose is to "take action to bring women into full participation in society--sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free from discrimination". You might think that a woman being nominated to become vice president of the...

Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest. Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain. The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak...

Is it possible to fall out of love with your own country? For two years, I, like many Americans, have been focused intently on documenting, exposing, and alerting the nation to the Bush administration’s criminality and its assault on the Constitution and the rule of law — a story often marginalized at home. I was certain that when Americans knew what was being done in their name, they would react with horror and outrage.

Four years at Yale costs $180,000. Here is how senior Aliza Shvarts planned to conclude hers: The art major would repeatedly artificially inseminate herself, then induce miscarriages, which she would record on video. She would build a four-foot-wide plastic cube and wrap it in layers of plastic. Between the layers would be Vaseline mixed with blood from the miscarriages. She would hang the cube at an exhibition and project video of the miscarriages onto four of its sides. "This piece," Shvarts wrote in the Yale Daily News, "is meant to call into question the relationship between form and function as...

New restaurant's logo described by some as demeaning When the owners of Quickie Burger and Dogs chose their logo, they thought it would make patrons crave an order of chili cheese fries. But the logo, a busty woman in a tight shirt straddling a hamburger, has drawn criticism from campus groups. The newest addition to the South State Street landscape has caused a stir on campus with its brightly colored logo, which some believe is offensive. The restaurant, which opened two weeks ago, sits south of campus at the intersection of State and Hill streets. Adorning the blue awning above...

Naomi Wolf, the woman who once advised Vice President Al Gore to act more like an alpha male and wear earth-toned clothing, is going after Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Wolf, who is backing Sen. Barack Obama for president, went on MSNBC today and complained that the media is not asking McCain the tough questions. “They are not even saying to McCain, you were tortured, you were held prisoner, you gave information under duress in enemy hands,” said Wolf, a well-known feminist writer. “And you allowed them to create loopholes in the Military Commissions Act that...

Jane Fonda’s reputation as a reprehensible traitor and left wing thug has been well chronicled for nearly 40 years. The behavior of this wretched vermin during the Vietnam War should have led to her arrest and deportation to North Vietnam for permanent enslavement by the communist murderers with whom she conspired against brave American men and women in harm’s way. Unfortunately, Hanoi Jane survived her war on America and is still a poster child for the communist party in America. Albeit, she now comes with multiple lays of wrinkles and sans the beauty marks of 40 years ago, but to...

PRESS RELEASES Psychological Gang Bang of Hillary is Proof We Need a Woman President January 11, 2008 by Marcia Pappas, President NOW - New York State We've all witnessed scenarios where, on the playground little girls are being taunted by little boys while both girls and boys stand idle, afraid to speak up or even cheering. Or, in the workplace males tease young and older female co-workers; make obscene gestures, inappropriate comments, laughing and expecting (often correctly) that everyone will join in. Then there was that movie where Jodie Foster portrayed the true story of woman who was ganged raped...

Who's Tired of Pink? Posted January 11, 2008 | 11:45 AM (EST) I am so tired of pink men bombing brown children and rationalizing it as fighting terrorism. I am so tired of pink men telling women (of all colors) what to do with their wombs--which connect with their brains--in case you forgot. I am so tired of pink men telling us we should stay in Iraq for generations. I am so tired of pink men buying bombs and cheating schools. I am so tired of pink men having wives who stand behind them and nod sagely on television. I...

Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup's coat of arms. The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Göteborgs-Posten reports. But although the army was eventually happy to make the changes in the interests of gender equality, the artist who designed the insignia was less than pleased. "A heraldic lion is a powerful and stately figure with its genitalia intact and I cannot approve an edited...

Boy can she ramble about conspiracies.

Lorraine Rothman, a leader of the feminist health movement in the 1970s who suggested that women could undergo or perform gynecological procedures without medical supervision, most controversially ending very early pregnancies with menstrual extraction, died Sept. 25 at her home in Fullerton, Calif. She was 75. The cause was bladder cancer, her family said. As the national women's movement coalesced in the 1960s and early '70s, Rothman joined a group that advocated self-help medical procedures, in part because of their concerns about the availability of legal abortions in hospitals. Rothman, who was a schoolteacher, developed a device she called a...

WHEN Title IX was passed 35 years ago, high school athletics were an overwhelmingly male pastime. The boys played sports and the girls cheered them on from the sidelines. In the years since, Title IX has radically changed the local high school sports landscape. Once the law banned schools from engaging in gender discrimination in sports, girls flocked by the millions to the fields, courts and swimming pools to join their school teams. Today, a high school without opportunities for girls to play sports is almost unimaginable. Yet as much as things have changed, much has remained the same. Though...

NOW Challenges Fatherhood Programs The National Organization for Women (NOW) has filed a federal complaint against three Responsible Fatherhood programs funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – for alleged sex discrimination against women. The three grantee organizations are Love in the Name of Christ (Love, INC), Fairbanks, Alaska; Catholic Charities of Idaho; and South Coast Business Employment Corp., Coos Bay, Ore. NOW complains that women are excluded from these programs “solely because they are women.” Love, INC was given a five-year grant of $205,834 a year for a Fatherhood Initiative Project aimed at helping low- and...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 08/24/2007 Pelosi Statement on Women’s Equality Day Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today commemorating Women’s Equality Day, the 87th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote. Women’s Equality Day will be celebrated on Sunday, August 26: “On this Women’s Equality Day, we honor the suffragettes and pioneers who blazed the trail for all American women. It was their tenacity and sacrifice that paved the way for me to proudly take the gavel as the first woman Speaker of...

There have been numerous reports since late Friday afternoon (Aug. 3) suggesting that female-targeted talk syndicator GreenStone Media could be closing its doors as early as Aug. 17. High-profile feminist activists, author Gloria Steinem and actress Jane Fonda, were among a group that financially backed the network, which launched less than a year ago and has been struggling to gain a solid foothold in the affiliates arena. R&R reported last week that GreenStone executive VP/COO Nancy Vaeth-DuBroff left the company several weeks ago to attend to some family matters that needed her full attention. She had only joined network in...

If Hillary Clinton becomes US president it will be a historic victory for women. So why do a lot of women not support her? Lakshmi Chaudhry reports. 'I LOVE (Hillary Clinton) so completely that, honestly, she would have to burn down the White House before I would say anything bad about her!" exclaimed writer Nora Ephron in a 1993 Newsday interview. Three years later, she told the Wellesley class of 1996: "Understand: every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you." Come late 2006, however, Ephron was the one on the attack as one...

HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — When they called her name, she could not move. Sgt. Leana Nishimura intended to walk up proudly, shake the dignitaries' hands and accept their honors for her service in Iraq — a special coin, a lapel pin, a glass-encased U.S. flag. But her son clung to her leg. He cried and held tight...T.J. was 9, her oldest child, and although eight months had passed since she had returned from the war zone, he was still upset by anything that reminded him of her deployment... The faraway move to live with his grandmother. The months that...

Tories threat to women's groups: NDP Toronto red Star Sep. 20, 2006. 03:42 PM OTTAWA (CP) — The federal Conservative government is threatening the survival of women’s organizations by delaying funding, the NDP charged today. “By not responding to funding applications, the Conservatives are allowing programs to shut down, one by one,” New Democrat MP Irene Mathyssen said. “What’s next? . . . It looks like Bev Oda is spoiling to dismantle the Status of Women Department.” The National Association of Women and the Law closed its doors Sept. 12 due to a lack of federal funding, the NDP...

EARLIER THIS month, amid relatively little media fanfare, the National Organization for Women celebrated its 40th anniversary. [...] NOW's 1966 statement of purpose declared: ``The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof. . . . [...] While paying lip service to the idea of equal parenting, NOW has steadfastly opposed efforts to broaden the rights of divorced fathers. With the exception of a few chapters, it has staunchly opposed such proposals as joint custody and mediation instead of litigation. Ten...

Albany LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES into the opening ceremony of the National Organization for Women's 40th Anniversary Con ference here, New York state NOW president Marcia Pappas announces that we are present at a "herstoric event." They really do talk like that. NOW, of course, is the nation's largest feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it reached the apex of its visibility and influence in the late 1970s and early '80s, when it went all out for the Equal Rights Amendment--and lost to Phyllis Schlafly's conservative legions. Today, weakened and marginalized, it staggers on, attempting to recapture the old fire. But...

Welcome to the "Checklist for Change" website! As the nine Democratic women in the U.S. Senate, my colleagues and I believe that it is time for a change in Washington: change in agenda, change in tone, and change in direction. That's what our "checklist for change" is all about. This is what we women do - we need our checklists. And we challenge Majority Leader Bill Frist to make the issues on our checklist priorities for the American people this year. This is by no means a complete list of priorities, but these are challenges that Congress can meet right...

(CNSNews.com) - Ms. Magazine's latest pro-abortion message invites women and girls who have undergone the procedure to submit their names for inclusion in the magazine and sign an online petition stating that "I have had an abortion." The petition targets the recent South Dakota abortion ban, which has been stayed until voters in the state decide on the November ballot whether they want to overturn the ban. "Whatever happens in South Dakota, 17 states now have trigger laws or pre-Roe bans that will ban abortion if the Supreme Court were to reverse Roe v. Wade," Ms. Magazine warns. The South...

We Had Abortions Join in a campaign for honesty and freedom. In its 1972 debut issue, Ms. magazine ran a bold petition in which 53 well-known U.S. women declared that they had undergone abortions—despite state laws rendering the procedure illegal. These women were following the example of a 1971 manifesto signed by 343 prominent French women, who also declared they had abortions. Even then, to many it seemed absurd that the government could deny a woman sovereignty over her own body. It is even more absurd in 2006 to learn that an abortion ban has passed into law in South...

Enforcers of the state's deadbeat parent laws are failing to use often enough one of most powerful tools in their box of incentives -- the threat of a loss of a driver's license, according to an audit released Thursday. Under state law, any parent who is at least 56 days delinquent in his child support payments -- or who owes more than $500 in back child support -- can have his driver's license suspended. But during a single two-month period, the state's Child Support Enforcement Division sent out warning letters to only 3 percent of the nearly 27,000 parents who...

THE Anglican Church descended into "ecclesiastical anarchy" last night as American traditionalists refused to accept the authority of a woman and asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to lead them instead. Liberals celebrated the election of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church while the traditionalist Fort Worth Diocese appealed to Dr Rowan Williams for "alternative primatial oversight". The appeal, being mulled over at Lambeth Palace, is expected to be the first of several. It represents the first formal step towards a schism that evangelicals say began with the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as...

Presbyterians Weigh Worship Alternatives (AP) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Delegates of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are to tackle whether to adopt gender-inclusive language for worship of the divine Trinity along with the traditional "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." A study panel said the classical language for the Trinity shouldn't be diminished, but advocated "fresh ways to speak of the mystery of the triune God" to "expand the church's vocabulary of praise and wonder." One reason is that language limited to the Father and Son "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women,"...

EVERY other weekend for the past four and a half years, I've spent three precious days with my two adolescent daughters. We play tennis in summer, ski in winter, travel when the school schedule allows. But no matter where we are, we're all keenly aware of the thin membrane of secrecy that keeps us from being as close as we were before their mom and I divorced. Like most divorced fathers, I'm caught in exactly the kind of nightmarish situation that experts on stress say to avoid — a great deal of responsibility, but very little power. I'm the major...

Surrounded by supporters and buoyed with their blessings, a Catholic nun today reported to prison for trespassing on government property. Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch will serve six months at a Lexington, Ky., federal prison for civil disobedience. Before leaving in a car caravan, about 20 supporters surrounded Lentsch in front of the John J. Duncan Federal Building downtown to sing songs and pray for her. Lentsch was sentenced for a November 2005 incident when she and other protesters entered the grounds of Fort Benning, Ga., which houses a school that has been blamed for human rights abuses in Latin...

Dutch Feminazis Want to Punish Educated Mothers From the desk of Alexandra Colen on Fri, 2006-03-31 11:49 Sharon DijksmaSharon Dijksma, a leading parliamentarian of the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) wants to penalise educated stay-at-home women. “A highly-educated woman who chooses to stay at home and not to work – that is destruction of capital,” she said in an interview last week. “If you receive the benefit of an expensive education at society’s expense, you should not be allowed to throw away that knowledge unpunished.” Hence her proposal to recover part of the cost of their education from highly-educated women who...

When oursupposedly compassionate federal government pokes its nose into areas that, under our principle of federalism, should be none of its business, the result is often unintended consequences, gross injustices, and of course massive costs. A prime example is the 1986 federal Bradley Amendment, which mandates that a child support debt cannot be retroactively reduced or forgiven even if the debtor is unemployed, hospitalized, in prison, sent to war, dead, proved to not be the father, never allowed to see his children, or loses his job or suffers a pay cut.

The National Organization for Women calls for the resignation of Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, who has failed to lead the prominent (and previously all-male) university toward true inclusion of women. His recent comments generated a firestorm of response from Harvard/Radcliffe women who were outraged that he would embarrass Harvard with such a public demonstration of sexism and ignorance. "Summers' suggestion that women are inferior to men in their ability to excel at math and science is more than an example of personal sexism, it is a clue to why women have not been more fully accepted and integrated into...

Should the government really be telling businesses what products they can stock on their shelves? That‘s debatable, but it is happening. Wal-Mart was ordered this week by the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy to carry the morning after pill. It‘s an emergency contraceptive and a commercial one. The directive came after three women, backed by abortion rights groups, sued Wal-Mart to carry the pill in its Massachusetts stores. Dr. Rebecca Guy is one of those women. Dr. Guy, along with her attorney Mr. Sam Perkins, joined Tucker Carlson to discuss the case. CARLSON: Doctor, why should government be telling businesses what...

February 08, 2006, 7:54 a.m. Phyllis Schlafly Was Right Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, February 8, 2006The woman has earned a few “I Told You So�s. Most of America's girls typically don't get to celebrate Phyllis Schlafly during "Women's History Month," but they should. Mrs. Schlafly not only had the right idea when she fought the Equal Rights Amendment during the 70s, but predictions she made back then are still accurate today. Schlafly, of course, was head of the National Committee to Stop ERA. And stop it she did — the U.S. Constitution was not amended. She argued that...

Even if one suspected that the feminists were not being entirely candid in this obeisance to traditional moms, it was hard to come up with the proof, specific statements of disdain from them for women’s traditional roles in the family. Not anymore. In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks reported on Linda Hirshman, a retired Brandeis professor who has decided the time is right to push the feminist case to the next plateau, to, as she says, “radicalize feminism.”

WASHINGTON - Betty Friedan, whose manifesto "The Feminine Mystique" became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died Saturday, her birthday. She was 85. Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon. Friedan's assertion in her 1963 best seller that having a husband and babies was not everything and that women should aspire to separate identities as individuals, was highly unusual, if not revolutionary, just after the baby and suburban booms of the Eisenhower era. The feminine mystique, she said, was a phony bill of...

Kate O’Beirne’s new book, “Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports,” will turn out to be one of the most important books this year. It’s a highly readable take on what feminism hath wrought and how it wrought it. As Kate explained in an interview with National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez:“The modern women’s movement is totalitarian in its methods, radical in its aims, and dishonest in its advocacy. Coercion is employed through the courts to enforce its unpopular agenda, on issues like abortion and gender quotas. Radical...

Princeton University’s Prostitute, Cross Dressing, and Same-Sex Eroticism Course ranked the most bizarre Class HERNDON, VA – As tuition rates climb to an average of over $21,000 per year, today’s college students study prostitution, teeth whitening, and Beavis and Butthead. The following Dirty Dozen highlights the most bizarre and troubling instances of leftist activism supplanting traditional scholarship in our nation’s colleges and universities. Princeton University’s The Cultural Production of Early Modern Women examines “prostitutes,” “cross-dressing,” and “same-sex eroticism” in 16th - and 17th - century England, France, Italy and Spain (emphasis added). The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie: Race and Popular...

1. V-Day 2006 announced: Vagina Warriors - The New Revolution 2. Founder of The First V-Day Safe House Agnes Pareyio Named the United Nations in Kenya Person of the Year 3. Send A Message To U.S. Congress To Reauthorize VAWA This Year 1. V-Day 2006 Announced: Vagina Warriors - The New Revolution In 2006, there will be a "new revolution." V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls founded by playwright Eve Ensler, today announced "Vagina Warriors: The New Revolution" as the theme for the movement's 2006 campaigns and grassroots events. From Dar es Salaam to Charlotte,...

MSU professors link hunting with sexual violenceBy Page W. H. Brousseau IV Three female Michigan State University professors studied the magazine "Traditional Bowhunter," and concluded that hunting is a form of sexual violence with animals substituted for women. They describe hunting as, "erotic heterosexual predation, sadomasochism, restraint for aggressive sexual energy, and allied with the abuse of women." I think I need to take up bowhunting. The article entitled, "Animals, Women and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting" was published by the Society & Animals Forum. The genesis of the article was the 2003 video "Hunting...

Three female Michigan State University professors studied the magazine "Traditional Bowhunter," and concluded that hunting is a form of sexual violence with animals substituted for women. They describe hunting as, "erotic heterosexual predation, sadomasochism, restraint for aggressive sexual energy, and allied with the abuse of women." I think I need to take up bowhunting. The article entitled, "Animals, Women and Weapons: Blurred Sexual Boundaries in the Discourse of Sport Hunting" was published by the Society & Animals Forum. The genesis of the article was the 2003 video "Hunting for Bambi," which reached national attention that year when many news-outlets reported...

The feminist left is outraged that judge Samuel Alito voted in 1991 to uphold a Pennsylvania law that would have required married women to notify their husbands of a decision to abort. Alito stands accused of patriarchal overreach and making it possible for outraged and abusive husbands to attack their wives. Planned Parenthood called Alito’s vote “callous disregard of battered women.” Karen Pearl, interim president of Planned Parenthood, said much the same thing in a blog, and the criticism spread rapidly on the left. A woman writing in the Philadelphia Daily News said Alito’s vote in the case proved he...

Wednesday, November 2, 2005 American Girl boycottedAccused of luring youth into radical feminist ideology Posted: November 2, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com After repeated unheeded warnings, a pro-life group launched a boycott yesterday against the popular doll maker American Girl for its association with a group that promotes abortion rights and lesbianism. "American Girl has refused to sever ties with pro-abortion Girls Incorporated," said Ann Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, "This leaves us no choice but to call for a boycott of American Girl dolls and accessories for the duration of the 2005 Christmas shopping season."...

Full-Time Motherhood? How Selfish November 5, 2005 BY JULIE SHILLER Across the nation, privileged young women are seeking to be competitive candidates to gain admittance to prestigious universities. Impressive SAT scores, awards, grades and extracurricular activities are of the utmost importance for college-bound high school students and their families. The priorities of many of today's elite young women, however, are surprisingly conventional, according to one survey. The most fortunate and educated women say they will conform to traditional gender roles after completing their Ivy League degrees. They are choosing careers as full-time mothers and expect to be supported financially by...

To all friends of strong, smart, and bold girls: Girls Inc. has empowered girls for over 141 years, first as Girls Clubs of America and since 1990 as Girls Incorporated. In centers across the country, generations of girls have learned their strengths, explored their worlds, prepared for productive, interesting lives, and offered each other the support necessary in dealing with the challenges of growing up. Grounded in research and tested in the field, Girls Inc. programs address the whole girl. They build her athletic skills and competitive spirit, nurture her ability and interest in science, math and technology, equip her...

The suggestion that the [Yale] alumni magazine's editors are insensitive to women is...delusional...In [a recent] issue.., the renowned-alumnus slot goes to Debbie Stoller, the editor of Bust magazine ("For Women With Something to Get Off Their Chests") and author of Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, which inspired an international network of women's knitting groups.

By the time this column is printed, Justice for All's cultish tribute to the fetus will have left the grass of our campus. While the right wing whack-jobs are now gone from our fading campus lawns, the ghosts of their messaging haunt me. What we saw when Justice for All came to Auraria was complete and utter disrespect. Not only were we visually assaulted by an enormous display of gory images with questionable validity and undeniable shock value; the women who make up our student body, faculties and staff had the essence of their freedom questioned. This is not something...

ST. LOUIS -- Few living Americans have done as much to shape the nation's direction as Phyllis Schlafly, who is arguably the most important woman in American political history. She is the suburban housewife turned best-selling author who heralded conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater's 1964 Republican presidential campaign as "A Choice, Not an Echo," followed up by becoming an authority on nuclear-missile defense and then, in a stunning upset, led the forces that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). When asked about her greatest accomplishments, however, Mrs. Schlafly takes care to mention perhaps the most important lesson of her long career...