Michelle Bernard, President and CEO of the Independent Women's Forum (the anti-feminist organization we love to hate), is out promoting her book, Women's Progress: How Women Are Wealthier, Healthier, and More Independent Than Ever Before. And boy oh boy is she fun to watch!
In the clip above, Bernard explains that she's a "real" feminist - you know not like those nasty hairy man-hating kinds that want women to excel at the expense of men.
She also notes that women who call IWF anti-feminist just "think it's cute to throw bombs." I'd hardly say that calling IWF anti-feminist - an organization that exists to bash feminism and convince women that sexism is actually fantastic for them - is throwing bombs. It's more like...lobbing marshmallows.
Just take this description of Bernard's book:
Though many influential groups feed on the prevailing myth that women are oppressed, most women are healthier, wealthier, and better educated than ever before. Michelle Bernard, the president of the Independent Women s Forum, lays out the facts in a new book that will make life harder for radical feminism's ideological hucksters.
Oh you caught us! We're such hucksters...trying to peddle the myth of equality! For shame.
Some more undeniable proof that IWF could in no way, never ever, be an anti-feminist organization:
- IWF's campus program is dedicated to shutting down productions of The Vagina Monologues across the country because it "glorifies promiscuity and treats women as sex objects."
- The organization was home to now-notorious Charlotte Allen, who wrote a WaPo piece about how stupid women are.
- The org spoke out against the HPV vaccine, claiming it would make girls slutty.
- In a press release for a report IWF did on young women and sex, it states that by "pouring through women's studies texts, [IWF VP Carrie] Lukas found feminist authorscriticizing the institution of marriage as repressive for women and uncovered essays glorifying promiscuity." (Oh noes!)
- They believe that women making less money than men is actually a good thing.
So yeah, nothing anti-feminist or actively anti-woman about them. Nothing to see here!
Thanks to Bella for the heads up.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Anti-feminist Michelle Bernard explains 'feminism'.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/7657
"I would say I would be the sort of feminist that you would've see in a much, a bygone era that was fighting for women's suffrage and that was fighting for the abolition of slavery..."
I hate to tell you, d-brain, but we won those wars. We have the vote, and slavery's no longer legal. You can't be that type of feminist anymore. It's ridiculously easy to be a proponent of a movement that's already succeeded in its goals. Idiot.
Oh those silly women who want to divorce the "needs" of their potentially abusive or unfaithful husband. Hell, there doesn't even need to be abuse involved. If the couple is no longer happy together, and it can't be fixed I think it'd actually be a much worse environment if they stay together "for the kids" and whatnot. I absolutely hate hearing my parents fight, I can only imagine how awful i'd be if that were a regular occurance.
MLEmac, I grew up listening to my parents fight violently (not just yelling, but physical violence and smashed furniture yelling) on a regular basis. It was horrible. I begged my mom on more than one occasion to divorce my dad because I couldn't take living with them fighting all the time. They never did divorce and a large part of that decision was to stay together for the kids. I never got the logic either.
Judging by the grammatical errors in that press release (e.g. "pouring over," when it's supposed to be "poring over"), the women of IWF really are as dumb and intellectually sloppy as Charlotte Allen said in WaPo. But I wish they'd stick to speaking for themselves.
What annoys me about books like these is that we can have a book about how far we've come AND at the same time how we have so much more to go. We are not even halfway there really, and to ignore that is just plain crazy, IMO.
So because SOME women are healthier, wealthier, and happier than ever before, we've reached equality??? What crack is she on? It's not like historically women have had a super high benchmark for equal treatment. It wasn't that hard to have a percentage of women noticeably better off than their earlier counterparts, because frankly conditions for women have been awfully shitty for so long.
One can be happier, healthier, and wealthier than a generation earlier, and STILL not have the same benefits as many a man. So glad we have Michelle Bernard's stunning logic defining our goals for us.
You know, I got the hpv vaccine, and I did it when it was first approved by the FDA and all this anti bullshit was talking about how it would make girls slutty. So I did a study where they monitored my side effects...guess what! Becoming a slut wasn't one of them!
Wow. She must define "anti-men" a bit differently from me because I'm not anti-men but I sure don't agree with the IWF on things.
And, um, if women really are "weathlier, healthier, and more independent", isn't that kind of the result of feminism - and feminism more recent than the suffrage feminism? Feminism that is still fighting for equality, just like the suffragists were?
Carrie Lukas makes me so stabby my eye twitches. I love Thom Hartmann, but when her oh-so-dismissive-tone (perfected by GW Bush) comes on I want to kill kill kill. You should hear some of the stuff she comes up with! It's appalling. I just do not understand people of privilege thinking everyone is privileged! It's incomprehensible.
One patriarchal pat on the head coming up!
You know - one thing in that post above that made me feel the need to comment...
"The org spoke out against the HPV vaccine, claiming it would make girls slutty."
I've always had a problem with the term "slut" simply because it's an exclusive term for women with no corresponding concept for us guys.
I've always imagined that "slut" had a specific connotation referring to a lack of self-esteem and promiscuity for the purposes of getting guys to like them.
My answer was always - how can you really know the deep underlying real reasons for a woman having many sexual partners? Maybe she just likes sex!
she might as well say: I'm the type of feminist that would have fought for women's rights if I lived back then, but who opposes women's rights today....:))
hmmm,... seems like a very convenient position to take. I also find it interesting that she calls herself a feminist at all.
"women are healthier, wealthier, and happier than ever before,"
This sentence says nothing about equality.
So if I stab you every day and then after a few weeks I switch to beating you with a stick instead you will be a little happier but only compared to how you felt before.
poeple might have been happier 200 years ago than they were 500 years ago. but that doesn't mean we should keep things at how they were 200 years ago!
but since you care ms. bernard, do you know what would really make everyone happy? equality.
Ooh! Ooh! I'm guessing that Tuesday's theme is, "A Cavalcade of Antifeminist Logical Fallacies."
Bernard: (easy!) Strawfeminist
Heidi Harris: Special Rationality Pleading and Bare Sexist Assertion
Fred Phelps: Appeal to Patriarchal Tradition
Pharmacists for Life: Ad Feminem Attack
Do I win?
Slutty behavior? WTF?
First of all, the word 'slut' needs to die. Who cares if someone has a lot of sex--male OR female? It's certainly not the government's business, or anyone else's for that matter!
Secondly...it's obvious to me that this woman has clearly never visited the planet Earth. Good Lord.
So things have gotten better for women, doesn't mean there isn't plenty of crap still to be dealt with. Or that there aren't people dedicated to turning back the clock.
Also there's the geography issue. The majority of women in the world are poor and lucky if they're treated better than livestock. If this idiot thinks the fight for women's rights is over, book her a one way ticket to the Congo or Afghanistan.
I think that Jessica was using the word "slutty" to reflect the IWF's views, not her own. After all, her most recent book (advertised in the sidebar) is called He's a Stud, She's a Slut and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know.
...She's a GEORGETOWN GRADUATE?!?!?!
Good Lord, D.C., where did you go wrong with this one?
Why not have Colonel Sanders on to describe what it's like to be a chicken? You'll notice they never pull this shit by inviting left-wingers on to characterize the Right.