Re-defining feminism

I saw this interesting article on The Age website today, and it raises some valid and fascinating questions.

It refers to the co-opting of the feminist label by an increasing number of conservative women, and centres on the debate of whether you can be a 'pro-life' feminist.

In my many readings of the shady ideologies of US Christians, one thing is almost a constant - many Christians of the more fundamental strain have a single-minded opposition to abortion and to a lesser extent birth control in all forms. Only recently, President Obama slapped down a measure that would have gutted the US Planned Parenthood organisation, ostensibly because of the abortion services they refer women to, but the measure would have gutted all services that provide not only advice or referral on birth control or abortion, but also cervical cancer and a raft of other women's health measures.

That this was wholeheartedly supported and prompted by the usual nutbar Christian Right/far right Republican goonshow should not be a surprise. What should be a surprise is the support from women, some of whom may define themselves as conservative feminists within that sideshow. Indeed Sarah Palin is often touted as a conservative feminist, even though she supported that measure, and supports the hardcore Christian ideology that prompts similar policies.

As a personage of the testicular persuasion, I am more than aware that any opinion I weigh in with in a debate on feminism is relegated to that of enthusiastic onlooker. That being said, I can sympathise with author Anne Summers' opinion. I find it incomprehensible that a woman can deny other women access to birth control or abortion - even in cases of rape or incest or threat to life - and call herself a feminist. If the basic tenet of feminism is to promote equality and a life of dignity for women, then it makes me scratch my head in bewilderment for a self professed feminist to say 'No, I know you were raped, but go have that baby' or 'I know it's going to kill you, but while away your last hours alive delivering an orphan'. Let alone that part and parcel of the specific attack on Planned Parenthood was denial of services like the provision of cervical cancer vaccines and the like as mentioned above.

At what point can you willingly hand over the reigns of everything biologically female to a bunch of predominantly white male idealogues and still call it in keeping with your feminism?

The Christian fundamentalist roots of US conservatism are increasingly nurtured by the Reconstructionists these days. A lot of the Christian Feminists in the US either have direct ties to, or at least pay lip service to this broad cult. I write about the Reconstructionists fairly often, if only because I view them as about on par with the Taliban and thus worthy of little more than outright condemnation. I would go as far as say that while being a modern/moderate/progressive Christian AND a feminist is certainly possible, being a fundamentalist/Reconstructionist/hardline Christian AND a feminist is almost impossible. The fundamentalist ideology at its heart is one that does not want women to work, voice opinions, or in fact do anything more than darn socks, cook dinner and breed on demand. There is no room for any kind of feminism within that ideology. None. It is entirely antithetical. In the same way you can't be a feminist Taliban woman, I don't think you can be a feminist christian fundamentalist woman.

Why co-opt it then? Why do such anti-woman feminists want to reside under the banner of feminism? Perhaps it's a lot to do with the perceived domination of conservatism by men? Indeed, despite any form of qualification, skill, talent or sense figures like Palin or Bachmann, and before them Gore and Baker, were big hits in the conservative crowd, a breath of fresh air. They rallied women to the conservative cause (not in great droves one should point out) and softened the face of Christian conservatism. They made it look friendly, welcoming, up with modern trends, not just dominated by angry, crusty, old, woman-hating white fucks like Newt Gingrich.

The message given by support of Sarah Palin in her VP run in particular was 'See - the Republicans CAN move with the times, we have a chick!'

Well whoopee-fucking-doo to quote Bill Paxton from his role in 'Aliens'.

In this day and age, it's simply too hard to say 'Hi! We're political movement X! We want to remove all women from the workplace, all girls from schools, and strip away anything that might enable a woman to have any say in being a mandatory incubator!' Run that on a banner at election day, and you'll be hounded out of town, and fair enough too. It's a hard job as a woman to front beliefs like that AND call yourself a feminist. Call me crazy, but I reckon some folk take exception to beliefs like that.

I think it's a lot clearer to say that conservative feminists co-opt feminism to mainstream what is at heart a very savagely anti-woman message, than to say there may be some feminist sympathy in their ideology. The sad thing is, they may be attempting to unite conservative political and religious views with the more modern role of women in society, but they're working toward a doomed end. Their brand of conservative feminism is, and will always be, at odds with the religious element. They belong to a strain of faith that demeans, fears and forever seeks to control women. There's simply no way to ally that with an ideology that uplifts, seeks to protect and values the contributions of women.

Anne Summers is right - we may have all bloody hated Thatcher, but at least she wasn't a pawn of antiquated iron age superstitions like a Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin is. You can be a politically conservative feminist, but at least you still value women. You can't be a religiously conservative feminist - you'd have to throw either the faith or feminism out the window.

Finally, they claim they're re-defining feminism, but there's nothing new in their definition. In fact, their definition leads inexorably back to something else - a time before feminism, and the second-class citizenship of women once more. What right have they to re-define anything? What time have they put into the movement? What benefits of feminism have they enjoyed and been thankful for? I could stand up and say I've re-defined socialism or capitalism or any other -ism, but it doesn't make it true, and it certainly doesn't mean anyone should either listen to me or believe me if I did say it.

At the end of the day, it's just another kind of co-opting - like when a major polluter rebrands their products as 'green' or 'fair' or 'rainforest friendly', like when a Republican candidate puts out Spanish language ads, while supporting a man who views immigration as a plague, like when a politician says he supports internet freedom but wants us to be like Iran or China.

It's what we used to call bullshit back in the day.