Feminism's New Low

"Sandra Fluke has shown us the new lows to which the women's rights movement has fallen," writes Fay Voshell, a self-described traditional feminist who sees the need for a women's rights movement throughout the world.

Time was when real feminists fought for the right of little girls to be educated as well as little boys. Time was when they fought protracted and heartbreaking battles for women's right to vote. Time was when they fought for the right to own their own property, to be in charge of their own monies, to be equals before the law.

Time was there were heroines such as Abigail Adams, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Whatever their personal vagaries, oddities, and conflicts may have been, they all fought for core values, values which included women having equal rights in education, in politics, in their homes, and before the law. They fought and they suffered on behalf of future generations of women, and the victories they did achieve were made possible by changing laws and/or amending the Constitution -- amendments which gave the vote to blacks and women.

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Once upon a time, even for secular feminists, the ideal was equality of men and women before the law — equality of opportunity to pursue careers of one's choosing. Once upon a time, feminists resented the reduction of women to the status of mere chattel or sex objects.

But now we are seeing secular feminism come full circle. Now the new radical feminist is glorying in being a mere sex object, and she boldly presents herself as such. Fluke, the latest representative of the new feminism, wants to boldly crusade for the "right" of women to be mere sex objects. Further, women are to be subsidized for maintenance of their reduced and tiny identity by being given free birth control.

Voshell suggests how Abigail Adams and other early feminists might respond to modern feminists:

My dears, there are far more heroic victories to be won than seeing your pet peeve "rectified" by HHS mandate. There are more serious battles to be joined in the struggle for female emancipation than making sure insurance companies allied with religious institutions provide you with the means to have safe sex, no matter what the cost to religious liberties. There are injustices and atrocities toward women which take precedent over your free birth control agenda, an agenda you wish to impose on all, regardless of their constitutional right to refuse coercion against conscience.

All over the world, women and children are being trafficked for sex; women and girls are being subjected to genital mutilation; unborn girls are the victims of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide; and women are subjected to the horrifying strictures and consequences of sharia law. This is to say nothing of the women who are enslaved by the demeaning and destructive practice of polygamy or the women of the world who are without clean water and food for themselves and their children.

Time was, apparently, when some of the issues listed above were important to you, Ms. Fluke.