When women who consider themselves feminists read a load of crap like this from the New York chapter of NOW, we feel betrayed:
Ultimate Betrayal Felt by Women Everywhere
ALBANY, NY -- Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.
Yuck. Just yuck. I could’ve sworn we’d dumped the notion of sticking up for men when we didn’t think they deserved it. Or shutting our mouths when we disagreed with them. Or "burying our anger" if they compromised on issues important to us. If New York NOW members kept quiet about Kennedy’s stands -- until yesterday -- and were "always waiting in the wings," I think they’ve missed an important stop or two on the Equality Express.
The press release only gets worse ... with the bonus of exclamation points!
And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us.
Shrieky non-professional press release! Using junior-high-girl-dumped-by-her-boyfriend-for-new-girl-in-town framing! And guilt-tripping too! Terrific example of politically savvy empowerment, women! Thanks! Way to get fellow power brokers to take female voices seriously!
He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not "this" one). "They" are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com,
Yes! Progressive white men who happen to think a different candidate is preferable for president are the oppressors! Nobody can build coalitions like NY NOW! (As an aside, I assume only white men are oppressive if they don’t want Hillary for president. Because African-American males who support Obama because he’s one of them, well ... that’s natural. But white males who support Edwards ... ouch. Never mind. My head hurts.)
This sophomoric whine is Exhibit #1 in the ineffectiveness of chip-on-the-shoulder identity politics. And when polls show that while a vast majority of women believe the women’s movement has been of benefit to themselves and this country -- and yet fewer than a quarter are willing to identify themselves as "feminists" -- something’s gone terribly wrong with the public face of the movement. This press release shows why. I don’t want to be associated with the authors either.
Thanks, New York NOW, for crystallizing in one short document pretty much every shallow stereotype about "women’s libbers" that’s been bandied about for half a century. You didn’t just piss off the white progressive men you attacked. You pissed off a lot of women as well ... as evidenced by most of the commentary in IndianaDemocrat’s diary that first brought the issue up.