Views » September 10, 2008 » Web Only

Feminism Without Feminism

By Susan J. Douglas

As the Republicans were swooning over Sarah Palin, proclaiming “A Star is Born,” we saw something else hatched too. Let’s call it Pit Bull Feminism, drawing from Palin’s own self-characterization.

With Pit Bull Feminism, you have the appearance of feminism—alleged Superwoman, top executive and mother of five—with a repudiation of everything feminism stands for and has fought for. By now most of us know Palin’s resume: adamantly anti-choice even in the case of rape or incest, anti-environment, staunchly pro-gun, for censorship of books, anti-sex education, and, reportedly, a passionate advocate for the aerial hunting of wildlife in Alaska.

Her record in personnel matters—trying to fire her town’s local librarian, trying to get her brother-in-law fired—and her smug, mocking stance in her acceptance speech both suggest a vindictiveness off-putting to millions of women who have sought, and not without success, to bring more empathy and humanity to workplaces around the country.

The hypocrisy of Pit Bull Feminism is quite breathtaking. One of the oddest juxtapositions at the Republican Convention was right wing pundits and politicians denouncing the sexism of anyone who questioned whether the mother of an infant could handle the job of vice-president, while delegates proudly sported buttons that read “Hottest VP” and “Hot Chick.”

For decades—ever since Richard Nixon, in language crafted by Pat Buchanan, vetoed a bi-partisan, comprehensive daycare plan in 1971 (the Senate fell only seven votes short of overriding the veto)—the Republican Party has scorned the needs of working mothers. They denounced daycare as “warehousing” your children, thwarted public policies designed to help working mothers and their kids like paid maternity leave, and have suggested that mothers who work outside the home are negligent.

Gerald Ford, in 1976, following his party’s principles, vetoed the Child Day Care Standards Act. (This time the House and Senate overrode the veto, despite the opposition of right wing Republicans like Jesse Helms, Bob Dole and Strom Thurmond none of whom, I believe, has succeeded at working outside the home for minimum wage while also changing diapers and packing lunches.)

Phyllis Schlafly, who in tone and manner Palin seems keen to emulate, denounced any federal support for child care as “blatant discrimination against the mother who takes care of her own children.” The right wing’s most frequently repeated mantra when attacking working mothers and comprehensive daycare programs has been “If you didn’t want to take care of them, why did you have them?”

Now, all of a sudden, the Republican Party is in love with working mothers, or at least this one. They’re also suddenly tolerant of unwed teenage mothers, a category of female they have also excoriated over the years, especially if the mothers were young African Americans. Charles Murray, a 1990s darling of the right and vehement critic of teenage pregnancy proclaimed, “I want to make the behavior of having a child when you aren’t prepared to care for it extremely punishing again.”

As “The Daily Show” reminded us just the other night, Bill O’Reilly referred to Jamie Lynn Spears’ parents as “pinheads” for not preventing their sixteen-year-old from getting pregnant. Now, however, Bristol Palin’s situation is a private matter, not to be touched, and Sarah Palin is a mother whose predicament we should empathize with because allegedly all of us understand the challenges of raising teenagers today. It is unspeakable to note that Bristol Palin is one of thousands of examples of this fact: Study after study has shown that “abstinence only” sex education programs are failures.

Pit Bull Feminism is about looking stylish and pretty so you can get away with attacking the accomplishments of those who have actually fought for women’s issues, like authoring the Violence against Women Act, as Joe Biden did. It is about using your status as a “hockey mom” (and now they’re better than other mothers?) to immunize you and your party against charges that you are, in fact, deeply anti-family when it comes to public policies.

But most of all, Pit Bull Feminism is about exploiting 40 years of activism, lawsuits, legislative changes, and consciousness-raising—all of which you have benefited from—in the hopes of then undoing them all if you manage to get into office.

Palin may have wowed the delegates at the convention and given the proceedings some needed spark. But for millions of women also juggling family, relationships and work, and without the perks of a governor’s office, the last thing we need is more mean-spirited, anti-family policies brought to us in peep-toe shoes. The last thing we need right now is Pit Bull Feminism.

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• Reader Comments

  re: “Pit bull feminism”

  Looking back at some of Susan’s articles and comments, I guess it depends on whose bull is in the pit.

  Tht’s OK — there’s plenty of “bull” to go around.

  Posted by whattheheck on Sep 10, 2008 at 12:07 PM

  Speaking from the other side of the Pond, it seems to me that a basic category error is being made here.  Being a “Superwoman, top executive and mother of five” does not automatically qualify any woman as a feminist.  It just means she’s a woman who has succeeded in acquiring power and influence *despite* her gender.

  To qualify as a feminist you have to at the very least subscribe to the basic tenets of the movement, and that includes reproductive rights and equal employment rights.  Without that, Sarah Palin is not a Pit Bull Feminist, she’s just a Pit Bull.

  Posted by TheologyJen on Sep 10, 2008 at 12:54 PM

  Women Want Safety, not Biden’s Reckless Idealism

  Senator Joe Biden proudly proclaims that he was beaten with impunity by his older sister as a youth. This is the same sister that raised his two sons after his wife and daughter were killed in an auto accident.

  Biden has often claimed that the Violence against Women Act is the greatest achievement of his career. Yet he fails to recognize the role women play as perpetrators of violence against men and children.  Hundreds of studies show that women commit acts of domestic violence as often as, or more often than men.  It’s a well established fact that a child is more likely to be killed by the mother than by the father, a neighbor, an acquaintance, a stranger or a sex offender.  Many studies also show that lesbian women physically attack their intimate partners at least as often as heterosexual men. 

  As a result of Biden’s Violence against Women Act, the federal government pays states to create laws effectively requiring that innocent men be removed from their homes and families without even an allegation of violence, with no legitimate standards of evidence, when a woman makes a claim that she is afraid.

  Elaine Epstein, president of the Massachusetts Bar Association (1999), has said “the facts have become irrelevant… restraining orders are granted to virtually all who apply. Regarding divorce cases, she states “allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage”. According to Epstein, who is also a former president of the Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association, restraining orders are doled out “like candy” and “in virtually all cases, no notice, meaningful hearing, or impartial weighing of evidence is to be had.”

  State restraining order laws are starting to fall because they’re unconstitutional. The federal law behind them, written by Joe Biden, is likely to fall as well, not because it isn’t popular, but because it is clearly unconstitutional.

  There is a rapidly growing activist community dedicated to addressing this issue. One of the focal points of this community is the Glenn Sacks blog, www.glennsacks.com .

  Supporting Documentation Follows (if it isn’t blocked by the anti spam filter)

  Here are some of the facts regarding Biden’s abuse at the hand of his sister.  During senate hearings held on December 11, 1990, Biden testified to the abuse.

  http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0503roberts.html

  This recent CDC study indicates that women between the ages of 18 and 28 initiate reciprocal violence against their intimate partners about as often as men.  It also indicates that women initiate non-reciprocal violence against their intimate partners more than twice as often as men.

  http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a

  Here is a link to a bibliography of over 200 studies indicating that women are as violent as men in their intimate relationships:

  www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

  According to the US Department of Justice, women also abuse, neglect and kill their children at significantly higher rates than men.  Here’s some of the data on child homicides.

  http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/figure4_2.htm

  Research clearly indicates that lesbian battery is at least as common as heterosexual battery.

  http://www.glennsacks.com/domestic_violence_a_2.htm

  http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml

  http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianhealth/a/DVFactsMyths.htm

  Cathy Young reports on the Elaine Epstein quote and the broader issue at Salon.com here:

  http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1999/10/25/restraining_orders/

  and provides in depth analysis here:

  http://www.iwf.org/files/50c58dda09f16c86b2c652aa047944f6.pdf

  Posted by HumanRights101 on Sep 12, 2008 at 3:40 AM

  The transcript of the Senate hearing in which Biden described being abused with impunity by his sister is available here (see p.171-172):

  http://www.fathersandhusbands.org/BidenHearing.pdf

  Posted by HumanRights101 on Sep 12, 2008 at 3:51 AM

  NJ DV Law Overturned Amid Epidemic of False Allegations

  New Jersey’s domestic violence statute has recently been found unconstitutional.  The New Jersey Attorney General is taking this case to the state’s Supreme Court.

  The New Jersey Law Journal reports that Judge Richard Russell of Ocean City made the following remarks on tape during a judicial training session regarding the issuance of restraining orders.

  source: 
  http://www.fathersandhusbands.org/NJ_Rights_1.pdf

  “If I had one message to give you today, it is that your job is not to weigh the parties’ rights as you might be inclined to do as having been private practitioners.  Your job is not to become concerned about all the constitutional rights of the man that you’re violating as you grant a restraining order.  Throw him out on the street, give him the clothes on his back and tell him, ‘See ya’ around.’ “

  A new municipal judge attending the training session stated “The statute says we should apply just cause in issuing the order.”  “You seem to be saying to grant every order.”  Russell quickly replied, “Yeah, that’s what I seem to be saying.” 

  The article is full of comments from Russell and his colleagues that are equally inflammatory.

  Perhaps you think Russell should have been disbarred for instructing judges to ignore the constitution.  In doing so, he violated his greatest responsibility as a judge in the most blatant way possible.  Perhaps you think he should have gone to prison.

  Russell now serves on the New Jersey Supreme Court’s State Domestic Violence Working Group, the Executive Committee of the State Bar’s Family Law Section, and the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Family Practice Committee. He currently is the chair of the court’s Child Support Subcommittee.

  Given a recent ruling declaring New Jersey’s domestic violence statute unconstitutional and given the imminent Supreme Court challenge, the truth regarding the real practices that are being used to separate men from their children and their homes must be heard.

  Posted by HumanRights101 on Sep 12, 2008 at 3:55 AM

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