Feminism Worked Well For Ginsburg. Other Women? Not So Much.
The death of SCOTUS legend Ruth Bader Ginsburg last Friday is the latest in a string of tectonic political shifts that started rumbling back in 2016. (We’ll let you guess what’s happened in 2016. Hint: Orange Man Bad)
Ginsburg’s death is significant for a number of reasons. It promises to unsettle the idealogical left/ right balance of the Court. It occurred with just six weeks left till the sulphurous 2020 presidential election. It means SCOTUS could be left with a four/ four split on the bench if the inevitable Court challenges arise from the 2020 election.
But make no mistake, the Ginsburg passing effect is about one thing: the 1973 legal elephant known as Roe v. Wade, widely— and erroneously— considered to make abortion legal up to the point of birth. In the Washington Examiner, Timothy Carney writes, “Roe invented a constitutional right to have an abortion up until the moment before birth. Only about 18% of the public supports that position, according to a recent poll by Marist and NPR.”
But most American women incorrectly believe that revoking Roe v. Wade will make all abortions illegal. That assumption— stoked by progressive media— has the support of a majority of Americans. And liberals such as Ginsburg did nothing to disabuse the public of that opinion, hinting broadly that any defeat of Roe v. Wade would soon see bans on all abortions in many states.
Setting aside the legal debate on Roe v. Wade, the decision is cherished as Mile One in the original feminist movement. The moment it emerged as a political force. Ginsburg (who joined SCOTUS in 1993) was, for many devoted feminists, the symbol of that legitimacy. She epitomized what the 1960s feminism craved— acceptance in a male political sphere. Many of the goals reached by the women’s movement have been during her judicial career.
(Some say not having a woman president or prime minister is indicative of an ongoing bias against women. But women statistically represent 51 percent of the population and could have voted in a female president anytime they chose if they were— as feminists like to pretend— a monolithic group.)
But the landmark of Roe v. Wade (and Canada’s decriminalization of abortion in 1988) and of feminism in general after 47 years has been a mixed result for women. (To say nothing of how it has been received by the unborn.) It has not freed them of traditional feminine roles such as mother/ homemaker. Instead it has added working outside the home— and its stresses— to their obligations. The Superwoman role was fine for Ginsburg, but many women have found the responsibilities of balancing two lives to be onerous.
How did this dissatisfaction occur? The second wave of feminists made common cause with the diversity left-wing, meaning victimhood first, last and always. So the movement went from the joys of bra-burning, sexual freedom and a hedonistic script to the tedious chore of finding oppression in every corner of their personal and professional lives. (See: Anita Hill)
They found disappointment in men’s cavalier response to their new sexual liberation— epitomized by Donald Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” and Bill Clinton’s libertine hooks-ups. Available women found themselves disposable women in the free-for-all of sexual freedom. In changing the standard sexual permission from No to Yes, it told men that a woman now had to explain why she was not obliging when sex was in the offing.
Free abortion meant no lingering responsibility for men. If you believe Christine Blasey Ford it left women broken 30 years later. As Erica Jong defined it— the zipless fuck.
Author Heather Mac Donald describes in her book The Diversity Delusion how women have now, in response, retreated from the hedonistic Sex In The City of the 1970s and 80s to Victorian standards for ceding sexual permission to men. “Liberated” feminists are now assigning men all the responsibility— and hence blame— for any sexual encounters gone wrong. So get drunk, spend the night with a stranger, have a relationship end badly— none of it is the fault of the “modern” woman.
This “every man guilty by his gender” was highlighted in the Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS hearings and in a number of fake rape stories ginned up by a willing media. https://abcnews.go.com/2020/deepdive/how-retracted-rolling-stone-article-rape-on-campus-came-print-42701166
That abdication of women’s responsibility, says Camille Paglia, extends to the politics of the office. “What troubles me about the ‘hostile workplace’ category of sexual harassment policy is that women are being returned to their former status of delicate flowers who must be protected from assault by male lechers.” writes Paglia. “Women infantilize themselves when they cede responsibility for sexual encounters to men or after-the-fact grievance committees”.
Worse, having joined Team Victim, women have discovered that while they may gain equality with men, they have been placed miles behind other grievance groups in the Woke hit parade. While a women must, in Hillary Clinton’s words, always be believed in any “he said/ she said”, this blanket exemption does not apply when a white women is in conflict with many other political flavours of the day. In the wrong equation even devoted feminists can find themselves accused of white privilege or cultural appropriation.
And, if you’re a conservative woman, you’re placed at the back on virtually every pecking order in the political sphere.
So, as Justice Ginsburg’s accomplishments are lionized this week it will be measured against the impact on women who’ve allowed the radical wing of feminism to make them more like Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale than Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca November 3.