KELLYANNE CONWAY MISSED FEMINISM MEMO
If Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, wants to redefine feminism as anti- male and pro- abortion then somebody needs to explain to her the connection between men and pregnancy. She doesn’t understand how this thing works. Hating men and urging women to get pregnant ( in order to terminate the pregnancy) is not in the feminist memo. The memo defining feminism ( you got yours, right?) says, “Feminism is the radical belief that women are human beings no better — and no worse — than men.”
Feminist isn’t a label: It’s an action. Feminism isn’t what you call yourself; it’s how you behave in the world.
It’s a deliberate undertaking embraced by women and men who realize that denying women rights and silencing women’s voices does nobody any good. Feminism recognizes that, especially in today’s political climate, rights won by women must be defended because they’re in jeopardy.
While political climate deniers like Conway might refute that threat — seeing herself always the exception to the rule, still playing the ingenue at 50 — they’re either ignoring the facts or inventing alternative ones.
“Individual feminism,” a phrase Conway used, is weirdly contradictory, like saying “party of one.” Feminism is a collective endeavor where systemic and historical biases toward women are recognized and defied.
Those who see themselves as above the fray are, as my students would say, “annoying” as well as arrogant.
There are deeply conservative, conventionally feminine and publicly visible women whom I respect in many ways but who kid themselves by believing they’ve “transcended” the gender divide.
They believe that feminism has nothing to do with them because their success has nothing to do with feminism. They’re wrong.
Without suffrage, without the women’s liberation movement and without ongoing efforts to preserve and extend intersectional feminism, which embraces differences in women including race, ethnicity, class, religion and sexuality, they’d be pregnant with a 13th or 14th child, unable to own property, unable to read, unable to vote and unable to speak in public.
Women who ignore the fact that others, their forefathers and foremothers both, fought like wildcats for their right to vote, run for office and become a public figure, are freeloading on history.
Some women, including a swath of adolescents, worrying that being labeled feminist might make them seem assertive, aggressive or unattractive, declare they’d prefer to be seen as “humanists.”
You can call yourself whatever you want, honey, but I’m not buying it. To slur “feminism” into “humanism” is to usurp women’s voices once again, to make the singular feminine into the so- called universal masculine. It’s a trick; it’s a dodge; it’s a gimmick.
A friend from college, Drea Thorn, put it this way: “Conway acts as though she’s an individualist teleported from outer space who gets to benefit from all the doors feminists opened before she arrived … she waltzed right in with no idea what we’re talking about.”
Wr i ter and performer Patricia Wynn Brown calls Conway “a dangerous circus act … with few effective challenges to her deceptions.”
Echoing the circus motif is George Monteiro, poet and scholar: “Poor thing. Conway thinks she is riding in the clown car, all the while running behind it, not knowing that they’ll never let her sit among them.”
“We deserve equal pay, equal protection under the law, and we deserve to be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Women are not second-class citizens; no matter how much the right- wing wishes we were,” says Erin Nanasi. “And that includes Ms. Conway.”
As for being pro-abortion? There’s no such thing: It’s like being “pro- chemotherapy.” But let’s agree on one point: Unless human beings have control over their bodies, they are enslaved. That was in the memo, too.
Gina Barreca is an English professor at the University of Connecticut and the author of “If You Lean In, Will Men Just Look Down Your Blouse?” and eight other books.