REAGAN READER ANGELA MORABITO: I’m Conservative, So Why Can’t I be a Feminist?!

Follow Angela @AngelaLeeSaysHi

There is something that is threatening America as we know it.  No, not the McRib.  I mean the liberal kidnapping of the word “feminist.”  The two have a lot in common, after all:  both are phony, slimy, cheap, and harmful.

Like Oprah giving out cars, the liberals proudly announce to their ranks: “YOU get to be a feminist!  Aaaaand YOU get to be a feminist!” …only to other liberals, of course, and regardless of whether or not they actually care about women.  Conservatives don’t get to be feminists, no matter how much they care about women.  More on that later.

Liberals have staged a PR coup in getting us to think of the typical American feminist as a liberal.  In the liberal view of the world, you are either pro-life or you’re a feminist.  You’re either a feminist or you hate single moms.  And if you would choose skirts over pants on most days and like wearing makeup, you are submitting to the patriarchy and are most certainly not a feminist.

Naturally, this definition of a feminist creates problems for people like me, who are 1) women, 2) conservatives, 3) feminists, 4) I mean really women, like Taylor-Swift-listening, brownie-baking, cursive-writing, elliptical-machine-ing women.  I’m saying it now, and I’ll say it again:  I enjoy being female.  So shoot me.  (The liberals aren’t going to shoot me.  They hate that pesky little Second Amendment!)

But liberals tell me I can’t be a feminist, because I’m a conservative.  Liberals also tell me that I can’t carry pepper spray on campus (I do), watch ESPN while painting my nails (did that two nights ago), or cook dinner without submitting to the patriarchy (doing that in a couple hours; not only am I a gluten-free cook, I’m a socially-constructed-patriarchy-free cook, too! #multitalented).  The point is that, in order to be a strong, happy woman in America, you cannot listen to the left.

Let’s take a look at what the left has told us over the years:

Democrats opposed the Republican-authored19th Amendment, which guarantees all women the right to vote. Democrats support a woman’s supposed “right” to choose, when abortion is something that not only violates the bodies of women who don’t fully understand its implications, but it also makes less women.  Democrats support welfare policies that are proven to break up American families.  You heard me.  They love broken families so much that they’re making more of ‘em!

All of this begs the question—if liberals love women so much, then why do they hate truly feminine, womanly women so much?  I mean, look at how they treat women.  Secretary Clinton gets a free pass, since she 1) is a liberal and 2) is polite without every being overtly feminine.  I am not calling her a man.  I am saying that she succeeded as a woman because she GASP! submitted to the patriarchy and ditched her femininity.  We have a female Secretary of State.  We do not have a feminine one.  That is her choice, and if it allows her to do her job better, I respect it.  The fact still stands that she does not have a feminine image.

When women do show up in national politics who are feminine, they get treated poorly.  The more popular a conservative woman gets, the more insane she is made out to be.  Congresswoman Michele Bachmann got a Newsweek cover (YAY) on which she looks rabid (BOO).  Ex-Governor Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell (my last year’s Halloween costume), and Rep. Bachmann all get lumped in the conservative woman loony bin.  The GOP is trotting out its female contingent, and they are getting knocked down by the press, one by one.

Sometimes female candidates merit criticism.  When a politician bungles a crucial part of American history and calls it “gotcha” journalism, that’s a step back for US politics.  Keep those gotcha questions a-coming – but give them to the men too!  Give them to the liberals!   Until all of our elected officials get those questions, the liberal press is actually anti-feminist.

What we are seeing on a national level is something that I have experienced on a personal one.  I can tell you from experience, not all liberals are not feminist.  Try turning one down for a date – you’ll learn quickly just how anti-woman liberals can be!

The liberal conception of feminism is lethal.  It kills (abortion).  It hurts (by keeping half of the nation’s conservatives in a hypothetical loony bin).  We need to reshape the way Americans think of feminism.  And we have just the generation of women in politics and a female majority in universities for the first time ever that we need to do it.  You go, girls.

Angela is a senior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.  Follow Angela @AngelaLeeSaysHi.  She eats the garnish on her blog over here.

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