It seems I have underestimated a problem. A few days ago, I wrote:
A paradox of feminism is that some women are feminists’ worst enemy. Men are self-serving, albeit shortsightedly, when they say sexist things. Women can be too. The notorious Phyllis Schlafly, for example, “seizes in particular upon premarital sex as depriving women of their means for ensuring their support from husbands.”[1] Schlafly now seems like ancient history, but some conservatives continue to retain views on rape, abortion, contraception, sexuality, and even divorce that seem centuries out of date,[2] and women such as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are to feminists what Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas, and Herman Cain are to civil rights activists.[3]
In that posting, I was discussing Hillary Clinton, who probably lied to a court when she viciously attacked a rape victim in defending a rapist in 1975. “Going well beyond the defense of her client, she embodied women’s well-founded fears of reporting and pursuing charges of rape in the U.S. legal system.” No one who considers her- or himself to be a feminist should do such a thing.[4] Read more
- [1]Faye Ginsburg, “The Body Politic: The Defense of Sexual Restriction by Anti-Abortion activists,” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, ed. Carole S. Vance (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), 181.↩
- [2]David Benfell, “The Quixotic Quest to Comprehend Conservatism, Part 1,” May 16, 2014, https://parts-unknown.org/wp/2014/05/16/the-quixotic-quest-to-comprehend-conservatism/↩
- [3]David Benfell, “Clinton owes rape victims a deeply-felt apology,” Not Housebroken, June 24, 2014, https://disunitedstates.org/?p=6436↩
- [4]David Benfell, “Clinton owes rape victims a deeply-felt apology,” Not Housebroken, June 24, 2014, https://disunitedstates.org/?p=6436↩