‘Are you a flake?” With that question on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace may have given a rallying cry to the new feminist revolution in American politics. Except this time, the favored f-word of faux liberation will likely be nowhere to be seen.
Wallace apologized, and, in a sense, the controversy is over. But only for him. He was merely hitching on to a narrative that was already popular in the media’s coverage of Michele Bachmann: This former tax attorney and third-term Minnesota congresswoman — who withstood a dedicated national campaign to defeat her last time around — is supposedly a dim bulb. That’s why she and Wallace were even having the conversation in the first place, and why she was in the position of having to explain to him, “I’m a serious person.”
The Wallace question encapsulates the attitude that drives Bachmann’s defenders crazy. There’s something more than a wee bit patronizing about the media’s treatment of both her and Sarah Palin.
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“What did Bachmann do to set the lefty blogs afire today?” my colleague Jim Geraghty recently asked. “Split an infinitive? Dangle a participle? Order red wine with fish? Wear white after Labor Day?” As Democrat Kirsten Powers recently noted: “If Joe Biden’s gaffes had received half the attention of Bachmann’s, nobody would take him seriously, either.”
Legitimate scrutiny for candidates is welcome, of course. If the media had turned it on for then-senator Barack Obama, he wouldn’t be a president in over his head today.
But the scrutiny Bachmann receives is way beyond anything Veep Joe knows. They question her very sanity. “Are you hypnotized?” Chris Matthews asked Bachmann last November. Later he would refer to her as a “balloon head.”
From Andrew Breitbart to Bill Bennett, there has been a gentlemanly rush to defend these political ladies against the onslaught. While Democrats drone on about a “War on Women,” one could argue they actually wage one, in more ways than one.
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Is it sexism? It’s an interesting question. It surely is a curious thing:
After decades of insistence that women have “equal rights” even when that really means special rights to ensure that the numbers of women in executive and other jobs are what a good redistributionist would like — never mind the choices women themselves make — it appears that the women who are on the rise in electoral politics are not exactly the type of women that longtime “Woman for President” campaigners had in mind.
In their 2000 book, Madam President: Shattering the Last Glass Ceiling, Eleanor Clift and her husband, the late Tom Brazaitis, wrote: “Political analysts believe the first woman president will be a ‘Sister Mister,’ having the body of a woman with the character traits of a man. More than likely she will come from the moderate-to-conservative segment of the ideological spectrum.” “Women,” they continued, “frequently go too far in proving their toughness. Seeking credibility, they cater to men’s issues — military defense and the economy — sometimes at the expense of losing touch with their natural constituency of women.”
That’s long been the problem with political catering to women. Women don’t all want that. In the run-up to November’s midterm elections, one poll found 57 percent of women saying “the private sector has better ideas than the federal government about how to improve the economy and create jobs.”
The economy and jobs are what motivated so many right-leaning women to become engaged in what has become known as the tea-party movement. (Single women tend to be another story.)
I’m partial to something then-governor Sarah Palin said just before she became the center of attacks: “Perceived whine . . . doesn’t do us any good . . . women in politics, or women in general.” We don’t need whine, we need solutions. Reform. Spending discipline. Seriousness. The unemployed are probably more interested in that than in academic discussions about feminism or media gotcha games.
Phyllis Schlafly was a pro-life, conservative woman in politics long before such a creature made it through the media’s filter. She declares her love for Sarah Palin, but has little patience when Palin (or anyone else, for that matter) tries to give new life and meaning to the word “feminist.” It’s a word she wants to make “a pejorative.”
For her part, Michele Bachmann seems to have little interest in using or otherwise talking about the f-word. When Kirsten Powers pressed her in a recent interview, Bachmann called herself an “empowered American” — as “pro-man” as she is “pro-woman.” She said: “I’m a woman comfortable in her own skin. I grew up with three brothers. My parents didn’t see us [as] limited [by gender]. I would mow the lawn and take out the trash; I was making my own fishing lures. I went along with everything the boys did.”
As she does now, with a feminine touch. No “feminist” and no “Mister Sister.” She’s just another candidate, bringing her gifts, natural and otherwise, to the stage. That’s not flaky, that’s just where we ought to be.
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Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. This column is available exclusively through United Media.
OFFICIAL "KICK OFF" SPEECH TRANSCRIPT: CLICK HERE
“I seek the presidency not for vanity, but because America is at a crucial moment.”
This morning in my birthplace of Waterloo, Iowa I was proud to officially kick off my campaign for President of the United States.
For too long we have watched President Obama mismanage our nation. In three years he has allowed unemployment to skyrocket and the debt ceiling to balloon out of control. We cannot afford to give President Obama four more years to jeopardize our nation.
We must act now, and I need your immediate support to do so. Raising the money to defeat President Obama begins today, and I hope you will join me by following this link to donate.
This campaign is for every American. For anyone who reads the headlines about the economy and grimaces. For every person who wants a better future for their children and grandchildren. For every citizen who is unemployed. For our troops at home and overseas. For our neighbors who are worried about losing their job. For every individual who is fed up with business as usual in our nation’s capitol. This campaign is to ensure your voice is brought to the White House and heard.
That’s why I’ve made the decision to get in this race. As a mother, wife, small-business owner and public servant, I offer the leadership and passion our party needs to win the White House. It will take years to undo the damage Barack Obama has done, but we cannot begin to recover until he is defeated.
As our campaign gets officially underway I need your immediate support. I need to know you stand with me and agree our nation cannot be left in the hands of the Democrats any longer.
Your donation of $25, $50, $100 or any amount up to the legal limit will ensure I have the funds necessary to run a successful and effective campaign.
President Obama’s campaign team has been working for months to build his billion-dollar campaign war chest. Raising the money to defeat Obama will not be easy, but it starts with your immediate donation.
In the coming months I will be taking my constitutional conservative message on the road as I travel across the country. I hope to see you at events on the campaign trail. I look forward to restoring our nation with you by my side.
Thank you for your continued support and friendship.
Sincerely,
Michele Bachmann
P.S. In order to make certain Barack Obama is a one-term president we need to compete on both a grassroots and fundraising level. Your donation will send a strong message to Obama that you are tired of his failed leadership and dangerous policies. No amount is too small. Please donate today! Thank you.
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Michele, New-Feminist Belle
Relegating Ms. thinking to the dustbin of history.
‘I’ve given birth to five babies, and I’ve taken 23 foster children into my home,” Michele Bachmann explained from the stage of the first major Republican presidential primary debate of the 2012 season.
Jon Stewart would joke the next day that Bachmann was the winner of the primary “baby-off.” Imagining himself moderator, The Daily Show host added: “And I just wanna ask everyone else here up on the dais, Have you ever had to divide a birthday cake into 28 equal pieces?”
The Minnesota congresswoman was answering a question about abortion and brandishing her most authentic credentials as an embodiment of those God-given rights America was established to protect.
She also underscored one of the ways she is a formidable challenge to conventional media narratives about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — a woman who fearlessly and credibly calls President Obama on the “shocking” lack of empathy that his policies demonstrate. She represents a continuing, promising threat to the prevailing view of what exactly social justice (see www.seeksocialjustice.com) and even feminism is.
The entrance of Sarah Palin onto the national political scene in 2008 marked a milestone: No longer could the mainstream media pretend that women in politics were all about liberal Democrats, wedded to the so-called ‘women’s issue,’ legal abortion. Now a candidate for the presidency, Bachmann drives that point home.
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“Michele Bachmann’s commanding presence and performance in the debate sealed a political evolution that has been fomenting for some time: the diminution of feminism and the evolution of femininity,” Kellyanne Conway, president of the polling company, says.
It’s about time. Polls consistently show that the majority of the country leans toward being pro-life — it’s why advocates of legal abortion will talk about making it “rare.” We’re a country that knows that abortion is not a good [thing]. And even 57 percent of “pro-choice” women in New York City think the 41 percent abortion rate there is outrageous, according to a McLaughlin & Associates poll done for the Chiaroscuro Foundation this spring.
Bachmann’s prominence makes it “harder for liberals to insist that women cannot advance without abortion,” Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women of America says. “Sandra Day O’Connor’s basis for the Casey decision — that women rely on abortion, even build their lives and careers around the availability of abortion — is shot.
Bachmann proves that “woman’s issues” are not limited to abortion and government-enforced privileges for women in the workplace. Nor that a woman needs either to succeed.”
Gone, too, are the days of the faux pioneer. In 2000, Laura Ingraham called it The Hillary Trap, at the time the first lady was launching her political career. “She wanted to be seen as the strong, assertive, mature feminist, but she advocated policies that were guaranteed to keep women as dependent on government, unions, and even the United Nations as she was on Bill.”
“In filing her papers, Bachmann became the first serious female U.S. presidential candidate who is neither a career politician nor married to one,” Conway says about the former Democrat. “She has an everywoman appeal that connects her to millions of Americans; she is accessible, authentic, and affable. She is passionate but not angry; intelligent but plainspoken. Like many woman, she came to her beliefs through a series of events and over a number of years.”
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Scroll down for more information about 2012 presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.
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She represents the Tea Party movement at its empowering best. As Conway recalls:
Bachmann is not alone. 2010 was rightly called the “Year of the Conservative Woman,” with record numbers of right-leaning women winning state and federal elective office. What’s more, it was the year of the conservative woman voter. Women constituted a majority of the electorate that produced historic gains for the GOP, and for the first time since pollsters have been tracking it, women favored Republicans over Democrats for Congress. That was a huge turnaround from the 56 percent who voted for President Obama two short years earlier. Millions of women identify with the tea party and women are much more likely to call themselves “conservative” than “liberal.” Their elevation of Republicans was consonant with their rejection of bailouts, spending, government expansion, and the tipping point: health-care reform. Women have married their microeconomic sensibilities with macroeconomic savvy.
It’s a far cry from the “war on women” rhetoric Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is stuck on, clinging to what Conway calls “the tired, harsh, outdated feminist playbook.”
“These are not the issues that defined 2010 (or 2008 for that matter), and it is tough to imagine a critical mass of American women responding kindly to gloom and doom rather than optimism and opportunity,” Conway warns.
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Bachmann “seems the happy warrior, even as she takes on President Obama’s policies unapologetically. She neither leads with her gender nor believes it entitles her to special treatment,” Conway observes. The primary season is young and, as it should be, Bachmann will have to compete with the guys for the nomination. But it’s easy to see her appeal. And it’s important to acknowledge what she represents: a culture coming out of a lie. Liberal feminism, with its addiction to abortion and its bullying of men, was never what American women and men — and certainly the American family — needed. Despite some of the best of its intentions, it was mixed up in eugenics and disloyal to the legacy of the suffragette movement, a failed experiment in remaking reality that has left a trail of misery.
Bachmann may have won the baby-off, but her husband would have, too, if he were the candidate. They earned it. And that’s an early message of the Bachmann candidacy: We girls can be confident, feminine, life-affirming complements to men at home, in school, at work, and in politics. And even be pro-life conservatives. We’ve come a long way, baby.
__________________
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online. This column is available exclusively through United Media.
STOP the progression from feminine to feminist to feminazi - to marginalize all men and destroy conservative women. JOIN THE TEA PARTY TODAY!
Dear Patriot,
The feminist movement in this country is a despicable sham. The women who run these groups should hide their faces in shame and not dare to say they are pro-women or pro-women’s rights. Among them exist some of the worst offenders, women who hate women.
Michael Flood, sociologist, defines misogyny as the hatred of women, and notes “Though most common in men, misogyny also exists in and is practiced by women against other women…”
It’s clear from continuous and recent attacks on successful, powerful women, like Sarah Palin, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Laura Ingraham—who happen to be conservative—that misogyny is alive and well within the ranks of the feminist enclave. It’s clear that if you’re a self-described conservative woman, it’s “game over” when it comes to feminists coming to your aid in the media when the “evil male” bashes you with vile, sexist language designed to diminish the conservative woman by attacking her womanliness.
There was a time when I would listen to a news story, hear the vicious remarks made against a woman—who happened to be conservative—and the naïve part of me would wonder when NOW or Gloria Allred would step up to defend them, call out the perpetrator for intolerable abuses. There was a time when I actually had an expectation that these so-called feminists were there to help ALL women. As time passed, so did that expectation. It became painfully clear through past years that if you were a conservative woman in the spotlight, it was open season.
These past months and weeks have brought us doozies, ranging from the verbal assault by Ed Schultz of MSNBC on talk show host, Laura Ingraham, from Palin compared to a case of “herpes” by Chuck Nice on the “Today” show (CBS), to Palin’s 14-year-old child ridiculed in a “joke” at a baseball game by David Letterman (CBS) referring to her as being “knocked up” in the 7th inning, to Keith Olbermann (NBC) on comparing conservative journalist, Michele Malkin, to a “Mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it” to numerous other accounts documented on the internet.
When a nation does not protect its women and children, what is left? There is a thin line between verbal hatred translating into physical attacks and when feminist leaders and our country's leadership do not take a strong stand against these outrages, it is up to people like us to bring back civility.
MSNBC and many other leftist media outlets could never be accused of fomenting gentlemanly behavior or of taking the high road. These in-the-gutter media guys and gals know they can get away with misogynistic attacks against women as long as the women they assault with their words are conservative. Period. The perpetrators hold hands with the so-called feminists and grin from the sidelines at these continuous assaults against conservative women. The “feminists” stand back and salivate like a bunch of hungry jackals.
These “feminist” women are a disgrace to womanhood and it’s up to conservative women like us to turn the tide.
As a conservative woman, you are a true Patriot. You love your men, your families, and you love your country. You work hard to instill a value system in your children and live by an honor code that has raised generations of children who have grown up to be givers, not takers. Tea Party women are conservative women. As Patriots, we women must unite and expose the Trojan Horse that is the Feminist Movement. Conservative women can and must help change the tide that is creating the true global warming threat—a heated hatred toward conservative women.
Let's stand up together! By standing up for conservative women, we are standing up for all women; this is not a gray area. We must stand up for all women everywhere by supporting the conservative movement and working hard to gather women into our ranks. Patriotic women and men can begin by speaking out against the attacks targeting conservative women to our family members, to our friends, to our co-workers. You can begin by getting other conservatives you know to join us in our efforts. No longer remain silent. In silence, acceptance is often implied.
Together, Tea Party men and women--true conservatives--can protect the future of our country by growing stronger in numbers and keeping the faith that good will prevail. As a nation, we'll be measured by how all our women and children--across party lines--are treated. Help us change the leadership tone that has creeped upon us and tainted traditional codes of conduct. Together, we can be the people who defend and protect.
Thank you,
Teresa Acosta
Social Media/Marketing Director - The National Tea Party
