Feminist Claptrap Exposed

Sarah Barracuda

You have to hand it to Sarah Palin. Suddenly the American presidential election is a whole lot more interesting.

We recall hearing the story of someone who, back in the seventies, was browsing in the University Bookshop in the Quad at the University of Auckland. He overheard a conversation between two young women who had obviously signed up to the new “ism” sweeping the corridors of the University at the time—namely, feminism. Maggie Thatcher had recently assumed the mantle of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The two were excitedly comparing notes and swapping opinions on what a wonderful step forward this was for the “movement”. But then one said: “One thing really troubles me, though. Thatcher favours nuclear weapons and is supporting the neutron bomb. That's not what feminists are about.” Too true.

From its inception as a movement, feminism has identified with and embraced a left-wing ideological position. The fundamental problem with this is that it assumes that sex determines political and ideological views. As Phyllis Schlafly has pointed out numerous times the very idea that there can be a distinctly woman's view on anything is absurd. Let me remind you that women just happen to be human beings, and as such necessarily reflect the diversity of views, opinions and commitments found throughout the entire human race. The notion that there can be a universal women's view on anything is inherently and unavoidably sexist. It is also just plain silly. Childish, actually.

But the hubris with which feminists presumed to speak for all women, and claimed to represent the opinions and convictions of an entire sex moved beyond puerility to become a display of empty sexist arrogance.

Enter Sarah Palin. Like Thatcher before her, Palin apparently holds a whole cluster of views which feminist ideologues reject. But last time we checked, Palin was a female. Using the idiocy of feminist logic would we now be entitled to claim that it is the universal woman's view that abortion is a terrible evil and that homosexual marriage is wrong?

Actually, like Thatcher and like Condoleezza Rice, Sarah Palin does more than two generations of ideological feminists to win admiration and respect for her sex. She is a living and powerful demonstration that women can think for themselves, thank you very much, and that they will not be represented by the sexist ideological claptrap that has passed for feminism over the past thirty years.

Wise sages are now telling us that Hillary Clinton supporting feminists will not support Palin. Imagine that! Isn't that a surprise. Wow, we didn't see that one coming! Of course they won't—and it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that they are women. Nothing. Nada. It has everything to do with the fact that Palin and Clinton feminists disagree on a whole host of issues: religious, social, ethical, and familial—just about everything, really. They always have, and they always will.

To repeat, there is no such thing as a universal woman's point of view. There is such a thing, however, as a point of view of someone who happens to be a woman—and that is all there is. Feminist ideology has always been claptrap. Palin makes that point in spades.

And while we are at it, we regret that the cloud that currently overhangs George Bush's presidency has apparently cast a pall over the accomplishments of Condoleezza Rice. She has served as a remarkable and accomplished National Security Adviser, then as Secretary of State. One can only hope that she will not be lost to public and political life in the year's ahead. A thoroughly class act in every way. And in the course of her service, she too has exposed, in passing, the intellectual bankruptcy of feminist ideology--and like Palin has done it in spades.