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THE election of women as
leaders in Chile, Liberia and Germany may cause feminists to
imagine an era where they will be standing toe to toe with their male enemies
on the world stage.
The fantasy has even been
fuelled by the promotion of Geena Davis
to US
President in the television series Commander in Chief.
Davis is seen as a Hollywood prelude
to Hillary
Clinton's run for the White
House.
But the feminist euphoria in
thinking women can solve all the world's problems could be shortlived. We have had many female prime ministers and
presidents in the past.
There was Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, Israel's Golda Meir, India's
Indira Gandhi, Sri Lanka's Sirimavo Bandaranaike
and Benazir
Bhutto of Pakistan.
None was noted for advancing
the feminist cause.
Indeed, Thatcher was loathed
by the sisterhood, most of whom could barely
acknowledge she was female.
"Grocer's daughter"
was the epithet hurled at her, with the emphasis on grocer.
Why are feminists such
professional snobs?
One Nation's Pauline Hanson
was repeatedly described as running a fish-and-chip shop as if that was her
main credential.
Of the new titleholders,
Chancellor Angela Merkel
of Germany is conservative
and intent on repairing Germany's
relationship with that bete noir of feminists, President George W. Bush.
She worked at one time as a
barmaid in the former East
Germany to put herself through university,
rejecting both communism and feminism as dogma.
Liberia's President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf
aims to eliminate the corruption plaguing her poverty-stricken country.
Her inauguration was attended
by US First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice.
This is not exactly a feminist
scenario.
The only president who fits
the feminist mould appears to be Michelle Bachelet
of Chile.
Single mum, socialist-marxist, and former political prisoner during the
Pinochet regime, she may indeed advance the feminist cause.
But will that make the women
of Chile
any happier? Are women anywhere in the world happier because of feminism?
Kate O'Beirne, a US National Review columnist, has a
new book, Women Who Make the World Worse. This is a serious examination of
30- plus years of feminist policies.
O'Beirne recounts the hypocrisy of powerful feminist leaders during the Clinton
years -- Bill, that is.
She compared them to battered
spouses willing to endure any humiliation so long as they didn't lose their
man.
"As long as Bill Clinton
supported abortion rights, affirmative action, and federal child care, it
didn't matter that he was a sexual predator," she writes.
Feminism, far from promoting
the happiness and well-being of women and society, has instead left great
swathes of melancholy in its wake.
O'Beirne mentions one large study of well-being data on 100,000
Americans and Britons from the early 1970s to the late 1990s.
It found that while US men had
grown happier, women were 20 per cent less happy.
The so-called "women's
movement" was and is a misnomer. Feminists honestly believe they speak
for all women: "I think this way, I am a woman, I
represent all women."
This is nonsense.
In 1984, feminist Bella Abzug
confidently predicted the victory of the Walter
Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro
ticket as "women . . . join across all racial, social, and regional
lines in stark opposition to President Reagan and his policies."
Women voted for the Ronald Reagan
ticket over Mondale-Ferraro by 56 per cent per cent to 44 per cent.
Feminists now claim that they
were never against marriage and family. Currently they are all for same-sex
marriage and lesbian families.
BUT in 1971, Ms
magazine founder Robin Morgan
called marriage "a slavery-like practice -- we cannot destroy inequities
between men and women until we destroy marriage".
Germaine Greer recommended all women leave their
husbands in search of more satisfying "rambling organic
structures". Seaweed perhaps?
Logic is not a feminist strong
point and Kate
O'Beirne's book is a useful reality check for those anticipating
a feminist commander in chief.
babette@endevourforum.org.au
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