Feminists should applaud Trump nominee even if they don’t share her views
JUST after the unofficial announcement of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the former White House press secretary, tweeted about how the judge’s appointment should be cause for celebration. “If liberals actually cared about empowering women, they’d be applauding Judge Amy Coney Barrett – a working mom with impeccable legal credentials – not denigrating her with bigoted attacks on her Christian faith,” she wrote.
So true. But Barrett immediately came under fire from feminist critics – my social media timeline came alive with a million criticisms, showing the ugly side of modern feminism. You see, while today’s feminists claim to champion the rights of all women, they speak only for women who agree with them – vocally, frequently and on demand. Anybody else is #cancelled.
The sad thing about this is that Amy Coney Barrett is everything feminists claim to admire. She is a brilliant and accomplished lawyer and judge. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame Law School at the top of her class. Now she has been nominated to the US Supreme Court.
She is also a mother of seven, including two adopted children from Haiti, and a third with special needs. She balances a busy and happy home life with a successful career. She appears to have what all of us feminists aspire to when we say women should be able to “have it all”. But Barrett is Catholic, and pro-life too. And she does not easily fit into any ideological box.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the woman she is set to replace on the Supreme Court, viewed abortion rights as central to sexual equality, but that’s not the only way of looking at the issue. There are pro-life feminists too, although you won’t often find them taking up space in mainstream political parties or media. You will, however, find them in the minds and conviction of millions of women around the world who want equality but wonder whether it is OK to end human life at its most vulnerable moment.
Gloria Steinem once described a feminist as “anyone who recognises the equality and full humanity of women and men”. That’s inclusive, but it isn’t how things are. So many of today’s feminists preach intersectionality and inclusivity. They claim to champion the rights of all women, but they speak only for women who agree with them – so much for admiring successful women, or for encouraging women to be independent-minded or brave.
What we have instead is a situation where women who don’t subscribe to a very precise vision of what constitutes a good feminist are kicked out of the very unsisterly ‘sisterhood’. For any movement seeking to advance the cause of women, that’s a massive problem.
Even Fleabag creator Phoebe WallerBridge has said in a BBC interview that while she wants to live by feminist ideals, she also has “bad thoughts” and does things that might appear not to “align with the message”.
“A lot of women – and probably some men as well – feel like they could fall into a trap of being a bad feminist, which is somebody who doesn’t tick all the boxes of what it is to be a perfect feminist, or be a perfect spokeswoman for the cause,” she said. “There are so many potholes in the road. It’s kind of frightening and you want to be able to say the right things.”
If we’re really intent on more women smashing glass ceiling and serving in leadership positions, it might be worthwhile to interrupt the abortion bandwagon for half a second and stop dismissing women if they do not tick all of the right ideological boxes. For too long, we’ve acted as if there is a right and wrong way to be a feminist, when that’s not and shouldn’t be the case.
Feminism should be grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves. Whatever feminism you choose – good, bad, flawed, half-baked – the label isn’t the preserve of just some women.
The International Women’s Day website this year declared: “The race is on for the gender-equal boardroom, a gender-equal government, gender-equal media coverage, gender-equal workplaces, gender-equal sports coverage, more gender equality in health and wealth… so let’s make it happen.”
Let’s do that and let’s applaud Amy Coney Barrett’s ability as a person, independent, with her own heart and mind, to be who she wants.
The same should go for any number of women who hold different political views but agree that women’s voices should be a part of any national conversation. Their feminism is real too and their perspectives matter. It’s beyond demeaning to say we should all believe the same thing because we are women.
Here’s a radical feminist thought. Some women are religious. Some aren’t. Some women are pro-life. Some think abortion is a fundamental right. Some have large families. Some are childless. That doesn’t make them anti-women or any less feminist.
The matriarchy of feminists is still working overtime dictating to us women what we should believe, what our best interests are, and how we should vote, demonising anyone who doesn’t fall in line. It’s time to demand a feminism that is for all women.
It’s beyond demeaning to say we should all believe the same thing because we are women