April 05, 2012 03:39 PM UTC

New Feminism vs Old Feminism

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• by: Konola

About two years ago Sarah Palin tried to convince the world that she was a feminist.  Mama Grizzly gave a speech to an anti-abortion group, sprinkling the term “feminism” liberally throughout. At the time the Washington Post opined that Palin was simply using the words of the women’s movement to attract more women to the conservative movement. She was selling “anti-women policies shrouded in pro-women rhetoric.” Having lived on the fringes of the women’s movement, my opinion was simpler: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire.

Fast forward to 2012, and we are looking at a different world. The Palin new feminists are losing ground and old feminism is seeing a new awakening. Women all over Colorado are planning a march on the capital in Denver on April 28. Robyn Parker, a woman I met because we are both on the board of Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County, has been busy organizing local women to attend that march.  This march isn’t just happening in Colorado, there are similar marches being planned all over the nation for the same date.

The old feminism is experiencing resurgence because the grizzly feminists were taken seriously by Republican legislators. They started passing laws that trampled on a woman’s right to manage her own reproductive health. Some extreme legislators even passed laws that would legalize the rape of a woman by requiring transvaginal ultrasound prior to any abortion, and without the consent of the woman.  

Transvaginal ultrasound involves sticking a wand into a woman’s vagina. It is an unnecessary, and expensive medical procedure for a pregnancy that is about to be aborted. The only possible reason for a law mandating this procedure is to humiliate and punish a woman who didn’t keep her panties up, even in the case of rape or incest. Medical professionals have begun questioning the use of ultrasound on pregnant women because of its possible association with the increase of autism in our society. Republican legislators are not doctors, but they have been dishing out prescriptions for procedures that would harm both the woman and the fetus.

Those laws were just the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Previously  legislators were insistening that Planned Parenthood, which delivers reproductive health to both men and women, be cut out of funding by both governments and the pink ribbon folks. The backlash to that move was so swift that we could see pink ribbons hitting the recycle bin all over America.

Have the Republicans learned anything? Nope! They doubled down and started talking about eliminating birth control. A bunch of out of touch Catholic Bishops linked up with some extremist Republican presidential wannabes claiming that giving women access to birth control, through their health insurance, was a violation of their religious freedom. The religious freedom of women be damned.

And now the poor misunderstood GOP is facing an 18 point gender gap for the fall election, with women supporting Democrats over Republicans. The supreme irony is that yesterday John McCain recommended that Mitt Romney select Palin as his running mate. Mama grizzly wasn’t a feminist two years ago, and she isn’t one now. Putting the resurging women’s movement back into the bottle, and corking it with a Palin is not going happen. Women are mad as hell about the laws that are taking away their freedom, and no half-time governor from Alaska is going to change that, even if she is a pretty sex object.