When feminism and conservative women collide

[This is the first of a five-part series about politics, feminism and reflections on conservative women. Tune in tomorrow for some thoughts on the term "mama grizzlies" and the link between motherhood and political life. Cross-posted at Femocracy.net.]  

I guess the cliche is true that what’s old becomes new again. After a slew of political wins for women candidates last week, the topic du jour is Feminism Today. As someone who has considered myself a feminist for quite some time, it’s amusing to watch feminism declared "dead" or "irrelevant" for years – or, paradoxically, responsible for everything from the divorce rate to crime and Everything That Is Wrong With America – then have it be resurrected and trample the political landscape in a zombie-like fashion, with little thought put into the use of the term by its new appropriators and eating all our brains, as those of us who didn’t shy away from the label internally combust from its perversion.

And I’ve watched as Sarah Palin was first declared the final nail in the coffin of "liberal" feminism, only to pull a 180 and become the reviver of a "new kind" of feminism, as dubbed by the media. After the victories of Nikki Haley, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman and Sharron Angle, I’ve watched as women candidates winning became the culmination of feminism’s efforts, yet was a "huge blow " to feminism since the outcome helped Republican women. And I’ve held off writing about it, mainly because the majority of commentators did what the media practically exists to do now, which is to vacillate wildly between extremes with little measured commentary or careful analysis. (I may be biased, but I think the only thoughtful commentary I’ve read is on websites with a feminist bent, or op-eds by actual feminists, who really focus on these issues and are better positioned to be experts on this sort of thing.) Since this is important to so many women, to the whole country really, I thought it wiser to take a step back, watch it unfold and think about it more deeply. That is, until I read Ross Douthat’s column today and decided maybe it’s time to formulate my own perspective.

First of all, I always really appreciate when someone who does not identify as a feminist suddenly becomes an expert on the modern movement. It makes me as deeply uncomfortable as when middle-aged people write articles about the crisis of teens engaging in "hook-up culture" who do "the sexting." Suddenly, Ross (who, I will concede, generally seems to be an intelligent person, and is a much better thoughtful conservative columnist for the Times, then, say, neocon mouthpiece Bill Kristol), who writes pieces that sometimes romanticize the good old days when women focused on mothering and never, ever had (legal) abortions, positions himself as an arbiter of the debate that’s happening right now. In the end, he declares that we shouldn’t be so concerned with the future of the women’s movement, because the gains of this new class of women candidates are "a happy consequence of its victories."

Actually, I had already thought that women gaining prominence in politics was both a victory of feminism, and good for a country where the majority holding power are male. I’m all for gender equity in our elected bodies – even for women who may be conservative when I am a liberal. In fact, the day that conservative women hold as many seats on Capitol Hill and get as much cable news airtime to bash big government, the unemployed, welfare recipients, undocumented immigrants, even feminism, thereby inciting an urge in me to throw shoes at my TV, then I will consider it a true victory for equality.

But my issue is when women who don’t support the values behind feminism, who salivate for the demise of the institution, suddenly adopt it as a trendy new label that they can put on a sticker and slap on right next to their flag pin. I suppose this comes from how I identify as a feminist. Yes, I know all about the political movement, the "waves," the legislative victories – but I was born after the majority of this surge of action, and became cognizant of politics after so many gains had already taken place. For me, feminism was less a political movement and more of a way of life, even a belief system within itself. Do you believe that women should be equal to men in politics, the workplace and the home, and have the same range of rights to make their own choices and be treated with respect as human beings unto themselves? If yes, please check the "I am a feminist" box. This is not to say that I don’t recognize work to still be done, in terms of equal pay, workplace harassment, equality in marriage, domestic violence, rape rates, etc. It’s just to say that I think the belief in women as deserving equal rights is so simple that it’s a no-brainer. And anyone who paints feminists as hairy-legged, bra-burning Feminazis who want to to subjugate men is a simpleton who totally doesn’t get it and probably doesn’t respect women to begin with.

So with the rise of conservative women, there’s been talk of "litmus tests" again, as if liberal women are standing guard at a gate to the shiny temple of feminism, and won’t give conservative women the keys. The litmus test the media thinks all of us out-of-touch-with-the-heartland liberal feminists apply is whether or not someone supports abortion. If you don’t think women should have abortions, sorry, no keys to the kingdom for you. When the feminist ideology is depicted this way, I think this is absurd. As a feminist, my litmus test is this: Do you think women should have the power of self-determination and the right to choose their own courses, whether to be a wife or not, a mother or not, a working woman or not, or to balance it all at the same time? If you think women should have that power, and her choices should be respected because every woman knows the best path for herself, then you’re a feminist. So when those in the media talk about a litmus test of abortion, the fact that their perspective lacks nuance is problematic. Here’s the thing: I do think you can personally believe that abortion is wrong, that you might not be able to have one if you got pregnant, and the beliefs you hold personally within yourself shouldn’t mean you’re not allowed in the club. When you think abortion should be illegal, thereby restricting all women from making the choices right for themselves, then that is antifeminist – because then you don’t really believe in a woman’s self-determination. Let’s be clear: mama grizzly or not, Sarah Palin thinks all abortions should be illegal, even in the case of incest or rape. Which says to me that even after a woman’s autonomy over her own body has been torn from her through the experience of rape, Sarah Palin thinks she should be denied an abortion if she becomes pregnant because a bunch of anti-feminist people in government feel they should be able to dictate what happens to a woman’s uterus. If that sounds Orwellian, that’s because it is. It’s also insulting to treat adult women like children who need the real grown-ups to show them the way. I don’t know how many times we need to say this to get the message across.

So, to sum up: I think you can be anti-abortion within your personal choices. But if you harshly judge a woman who made a different choice then you as being loose, slutty, morally depraved or a baby-killer, that’s not feminist. If you support politicians, policies and laws banning abortions for other people that would restrict their own ability to decide, that’s not feminist. If you stand outside abortion clinics with signs and slut-shame women that go in, if you support violence against abortion doctors, if you think a  mother’s free will and health should come second to the life of the fetus, that’s not feminist. That’s my abortion litmus test. (Which is not to say I don’t have a whole range of qualifiers for feminist cred. I’m just aiming for the most obvious example, since so much of the focus on these conservative candidates is on their anti-abortion views.)

Coming back to my main point, of course we’re talking about how big the tent of feminism should be – because a slew of women that offer only faux support for other women have appropriated the label , and every time that happens, it’s worth a conversation. Of course we’re talking about the future of the women’s movement – because we still have miles to go, and we need people in power that align with policies that would advance women’s rights. This doesn’t mean we can’t recognize that conservative female candidates winning is a victory for women in its own way, because we are making inroads into a political power structure that has historically been dominated by men. It’s not an either-or, zero-sum equation: We can either wring our hands over where feminism is headed, or shut up and celebrate "ladies’ night." We live in a complex world. We can do both.