Feminism Unmodified: 1997 - 1999

Where we turn the soapbox over to the feminists, themselves. Compilation from the 1997 through 1999 issues of The Backlash!

Right Wing Women

"We are in the empowered state. The empowerment of women was obvious in the (1996) election: women elected the president of the United States, there is no question about it. - Betty Friedan, Women and Affirmative Action, American Enterprise Institute , December 1996

"One of NOW's most important strategies was to prevent the mass arrests of Operation Rescue demonstrators during blockades if access to the clinic could be kept open...mass arrests helped them cultivate their desired public image of being willing "martyrs" for the "unborn."" - Patricia Ireland, What Women Want Work against Parental Rights legislation or constitutional amendments is needed at the state level, wherever they may be introduced next year. - now-action-list Legislative Update, November 1996

"We have to be twice as intelligent to be in the same positions as men. ... Generally, men speak from positions of aggression and ego, women from heart and soul." - Sandra St. Victor, Ms Magazine , September/October 1997

"Men do not want equality at home. A strong woman is a threat, someone to be jealous of. Most of all, she is an inconvenience, and she can be replaced." - Jane O'Reilly, Ms Magazine , September/October 1997

"The anti-PC folks claim they are fighting censorship and coercion, when in fact they themselves are censoring and coercing diligently - to support the centuries-old agenda of white male heterosexual upper-class superiority." - Casey Miller, Kate Swift, Rosalie Maggio, Ms Magazine , September/October 1997

"Let's understand that we are the angels, so we better get flying." - Robin Morgan, Ms Magazine , September/October 1997

"The moms most likely to get sued for custody are formerly battered women on welfare." - Ariel Gore, Ms Magazine , September/October 1997

"Congress should amend the new welfare law to allow women to pursue postsecondary education by allowing college study and work study to count toward a welfare recipient's work requirement." - Title IX at 25: Report Card on Gender Equity, AAUW Public Policy Issues, 1997

"So, as the Promise Keepers get into formation, feminist activists are working to unmask the religious political extremists organizing its rank and file troops. ... Feminists will not be fooled by the many recent public disclaimers about this feel-good form of male supremacy with its dangerous political potential. We have seen them coming for some time." - Patricia Ireland, President of N.O.W., The Washington Post ( Archived Version ), Sunday, September 7, 1997; Page C03

"Men and women are not from different planets; women are from a poorer neighborhood." - Dr. Regina Barreca , July 1997

"True, the movement for woman's rights has broken many old fetters, but it has also forged new ones. The great movement of true emancipation has not met with a great race of women who could look liberty in the face. Their narrow, puritanical vision banished man, as a disturber and doubtful character, out of their emotional life. Man was not to be tolerated at any price, except perhaps as the father of a child, since a child could not very well come to life without a father. ... But woman's freedom is closely allied with man's freedom, and many of my so-called emancipated sisters seem to overlook the fact that a child born in freedom needs the love and devotion of each human being about him, man as well as woman. Unfortunately, it is this narrow conception of human relations that has brought about a great tragedy in the lives of the modern man and woman." - Emma Goldman, The tragedy of woman's emancipation , 1910

"It would be so misleading to the jury, it would be so inflammatory to the jury, that they're probably not gonna be able to decide whether there was a rape on this occasion if they hear of the prior sexual history." - Gloria Allred, CNN , September 29, 1997

"I was preparing the ground for women's lib by always playing the victim." - Shelley Winters, Inside the Actors Studio , Bravo, August 31, 1997

"Even better news: According to the Society of Women Engineers , average earnings of female engineers under age 30 are about $2,000 a year higher than those of their male colleagues." - Caitlin Kelly, Working Woman Magazine, June 1997

"Where there are allegations of spousal abuse or abuse of a person in a dating relationship, and there are allegations of serious injury, the D.A., as a matter of public policy, should always file felony charges." - Gloria Allred, Ms Magazine , July/August 1996

"I wrote The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women from pure anger." - Naomi Wolf, Seattle Weekly , July 30, 1997

"Ironically, since Reagan's election, NOW's membership and financial resources had increased dramatically." - Patricia Ireland, What Women Want

"Hate groups are now using the Internet, public access television, and grassroots organizing to spread their message." - now-action-list NOW Legislative Update, April 1997

"My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them." - Marilyn French, The Women's Room: A Novel

"N.O.W. Takes Aim at Misogynistic Rulings which award custody of children to men who are attempting to avoid child support payments." - Dallas Rainbow NOW Chapter

"THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW launch Victory 2000--The Feminist Face of Politics with the purpose of electing two thousand feminist candidates to office by the year 2000" - National Organization for Women , 1997 National NOW Conference Resolutions

"Feminism is not about changing men; it is about women walking away from men's thinking." - Susan Powter, The Susan Powter show , January 22, 1998

"Anything men can do, women can do better." - Anne Heche, MTV 1998 Movies Awards

"I'm concerned about diverting too many resources into some untested waters." - Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center , A.P. July 4, 1998, on the subject of the Government wanting fathers involved with their children's lives

"At the current rate of social change, women won't achieve full equality to men until the year 2270. But woemn won't be that patient." - Nancy Ramsey, president, Morning Star Imports, Fast Company , September 1999

"These days, women are feeling so dispirited about the work world that they're actually leaving their jobs. The so-called glass ceiling isn't the problem. The problem has to do with what women see when they look up at the glass ceiling. They see what they are expected to sacrifice, and they opt out of even trying to smash the glass. ... They are expected to sacrifice who they are as human beings." - Helayne Spivak, Founder, president and creative director HRS Consulting, Fast Company , September 1999

"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat." - Hillary Clinton, First Ladies' Conference on Domestic Violence in San Salvador, El Salvador on Nov. 17, 1998

"The other attention-grabber obviously available to men in an ornamental culture was sexuality - an aggressive, ever-ready, action-packed display of it. Sexual performance was the quintessential response to commercial scrutiny, to the leer of the camera lens. Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man , p 532, 1999

"We know that hate crimes, violent and otherwise, are overwhelmingly committed by white men who are apparently straight." - Gloria Steinem, Consulting Editor, Ms Magazine , August/September 1999

According to the FBI Hate Crimes Report - 1999 , even though Whites accounted for almost 80 percent of the population, Whites accounted for only 44 percent of the hate crimes. African Americans, who at the time comprised about 12 percent of the US population, accounted for 10 percent of the hate crimes. This is not to malign Blacks, but to expose that Steinem's statement was racist, as the rate at which Whites committed hate crimes at that time was much lower than it was for Blacks. Where the bigot, Steinem, indulges in sexist and racist stereotyping, we are better than that and do not stereotype. - Editor

Ms Magazine

In 1999 when I looked it up, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that less than 4% of all homicides involved multiple victims (i.e., victims of serial killers), and that Blacks were 8 times more likely than whites to commit homicide. Again, this is not to stereotype or in any other way to malign Blacks (I belong to a racial minority, too), but to demonstrate Steinem was ignoring per capita rates to making sexist, racist generalizations about White men. - Editor

Ms Magazine

As a human being--not to mention an American Indian--I find Steinem's sexist, racist bigotry offensive. - Editor

Ms Magazine

" Ally ) is basically a woman's show, with female-centered plotlines, ...the once-compelling sex and power issues tackled in the courtroom have devolved into little more than mean-spirited attacks on women's issues." - Andi Zeisler, Editor, Bitch Magazine , Ms Magazine , August/September 1999

"I am sick from the numbers of women who are being brutalized and raped and sodomized, who are being killed, who are missing, who in a women's culture of nonviolence don't hurt the people who are hurting us. We take our own lives. We commit suicide." - Andrea Dworkin, Life and Death , p 115, 1997

"Over the past few weeks since the Columbine High massacre, we've broken through some denial about violence as a teaching tool. It's pretty clear that boys are literally learning how to hate and harm others." - Ellen Goodman, Globe Columnist, The Boston Globe , May 27, 1999

After more than 30 years of changing America's public education to conform to the feminist and progressivist agenda, now we learn they're teaching boys to hate and harm? So why are we trusting feminists and progressivists to teach our children? Note: that was intended to be sarcastic. Like so many other feminists, Goodman indulges in unwarranted generalizations to indulge in sexist stereotypes. - Editor

N.O.W. National Times

The term "tilting at windmills" comes to mind. While Corporate oligarchs of both sexes strive to concentrate more riches into fewer hands, the feminist flakes continue to rail against the social arrangement that carried us chrysalis-like from the stone age Neolithic revolution to the Industrial revolution. Today, only the poorest nations and communities can be called patriarchal because patriarchy is incompatible with high tech economies. Rather than tilt at windmills, the feminists would do better to focus their efforts on justice and fairness for everybody regardless of sex. - Editor, 1999

" Alanis Morrissette is thinking about writing a book called, Women Are from Venus, Men are Pieces of Crap." - Rosie O'Donnell, 1999 Grammy Awards, February 24, 1999

"Adultery is needed and accepted because today's couples, young and old alike, are cynical about love and more convinced than ever that relationships are primarily about passion and power. As a culture we no longer believe in the power of love." - Bell Hooks, Subversive Desire, Ms Magazine , April/May 1999

"Being sexy meant waiting and not doing, being watched rather than watching. ... We had learned that to become successfully sexual, we must not seek and initiate but wait and yield. ... The culture that surrounds girls signals to them that they must, sexually, forget themselves." - Naomi Wolf, Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood , pp 25-27

"The women's movement is not about biology, but about belief." - Gloria Steinem, C-Span , 10/31/98"

"An open gaze like that, at least from a man of lesser stature, would have annoyed me. But that evening, I had the opposite reaction." - former Time magazine White House correspondent Nina Burleigh on being ogled by President Clinton, July/August Mirabella magazine as quoted in CyberAlert , July 7, 1998

"Whatever their individual insecurities, there's no question that boys come of age with an entitlement so vast that displaying their boners in public is the least of it." - Andi Zeisler, Growing Up Norma, Bitch Magazine , Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998

"Mandatory sentences have leveled the playing field. Many people say that's just equal, but now women are, in fact, put in prison today at a more rapid rate than men. - Julie Stewart, president, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Women in Prison, Ms. , September/October 1998

"What we have now is something that some of my colleagues have called 'equality with a vengeance.' There is a debate amongst some feminist scholars as to whether we should continue to push toward equalization because, particularly in the area of criminal justice, equalization has hurt women." - Barbara E. Bloom, assistant professor, San Jose Sate University, Women in Prison, Ms. , September/October 1998