I was watching a show the other day and they had a clip from Phyllis Schlafly plugging her new book "The Flipside of Feminism." She basically said tht feminism is totally unnecessary, and that it has made women less happy over the last 30 or 40 years. She further said that since she was able to get a college degree in 1940, then "what's the problem?"
Apparently she never studied the suffragette movement when she was in college, because if it hadn't been for the brave women who fought for the right to vote, she wouldn't be able to. I'm always amazed that we have such short memories in this country when it comes to womens' rights. It's as if society just kind of let women do all the things they wanted to do, and no one had to fight to get us those rights.
What I find the most appalling is when women such as Schlafly, or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, enjoy their public lives and go out on their public speaking engagements and advance their public careers, all the while shitting on the very women who earned them the right to do those things. They can make fun of feminism all they want, but if it weren't for feminism, they wouldn't have had access to the choices they've been able to make.
In 2008 I was listening to a radio station on which a female politician was talking about how women need to spend less time worrying about their jobs and about the upcoming elections, and focusing that energy on raising their children. I specifically remember her saying "Don't let your children fall between the cracks during this election year." I'm thinking..."Who's watching your kids while you're making a *career* as a *politician* by yelling at women for daring to research their candidates when they should be watching their kids?"
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People like Bachman and Palin truly scare me.
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