Fellow right-leaning writer, Erika Bachiochi, has written at Politico that Amy Coney Barrett is America’s “new feminist icon.” Actually, she’s not.
Far be it from me to side with feminists, but when it comes to a concept known as “conservative feminism,” I make an exception. That phrase is an oxymoron, much like “jumbo shrimp.” You’re either a feminist, or you’re not. All this trying to soften the language to make sure people know that when you say you’re not a feminist, it doesn’t mean you don’t believe women have rights is silly. If you know even one person who believes women shouldn’t have rights, congratulations: That person is the single exception to the rule.
The problem with women’s “rights” is that it’s not something you can look up in a dictionary. It’s far too varied to have any one meaning, and people will always disagree on the specifics. But to feminists, there is only one meaning: the right to be viewed as indistinguishable from men.
And what makes women biologically distinct from men? Babies. Babies are at the heart of every controversial political issue surrounding women. At Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said to Barrett, “You are controversial because many of us that have lived lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems.”
Indeed, there are three overarching tenets of feminism. The first is that it’s a grave injustice that women have babies and men do not. Thus, the abolition of this fact (via abortion, universal child care, and a deep well of government subsidies for single mothers) must be the goal. How else can we get the babies out of the way so women can become professionals, which feminists consider far more valuable than raising children?
The second tenet is that feminists are imprisoned by their negative view of women and their place in the world around them. Many people think feminism is exclusively anti-male, but, in fact, it’s anti-female. What feminists hate is what they view as the burden of being female: babies. So there we are back to babies again.
You’ll note that prior to having children, the sexes feel remarkably “equal.” Both men and women go to school, and both work professionally. Where they become distinct is that, at some point, most women (not all, but most) become walloped with maternal desire. Once the kids come along, the so-called inequities begin — and our sex differences become more and more pronounced from that day forward.
The final tenet of feminism is, ironically, that there are, in fact, no differences between the sexes aside from their sex organs (and even those can be changed now). All those differences you think you see are simply a result of a social construct. Biology isn’t real. Parents make their boys and girls different from each other by the way they raise them — so says the group of women who have the least experience with children.
Which brings us back to Barrett. If confirmed, she’ll be the lone mother — of seven, no less! — on the current Supreme Court. Both Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor have no children.
That is no coincidence. The vast majority of women do not have the drive, the desire, the tenacity, and the resources to have a large family and to be a Supreme Court justice. Barrett is not a feminist; she’s a unicorn.
Any woman (or man) who subscribes to the above three tenets may safely refer to herself as a feminist. Fortunately, the vast majority of women, Barrett included, do not. Unlike feminists, we have no beef with God or nature or the Establishment, or perhaps a conspiracy of male, chauvinist pigs, for making us female. On the contrary, we relish in being women.
“Barrett knows the secret of a culture that fully supports family life: No professional work — even that of a Supreme Court justice — can best the essential work of a mother or a father, whether a parent has many children or only one,” Bachiochi wrote in Politico.
Precisely. Which is why Barrett cannot, by definition, be a feminist.
Suzanne Venker (@SuzanneVenker) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She’s the author of five books and a relationship coach, as well as host of The Suzanne Venker Show. Her website is www.suzannevenker.com.
