Modern feminism doesn’t resonate with millennial women today because it’s been hijacked by the Left to advance liberal policies, the founder of a coalition for young conservative women charges.
“It’s time for a new version of feminism,” Karin Agness, the head of the Network of enlightened Women, told national conference attendees in Washington, D.C., Friday.
Agness recounted her experience as a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute for Politics earlier this year and how feminism has been construed on college campuses. At one event, Feminist Coming Out Day, Agness said old photo albums were shown and they were given cupcakes — vagina-shaped cupcakes.
“A vagina cupcake,” Agness said. “That was Feminist Coming Out Day.”
Agness shared another event she attended about dressing professionally as an empowered woman. The professor speaking said it was impossible for women to dress empowered in modern society.
“According to this professor, you didn’t actually pick out your clothes this morning,” Agness said. “The patriarchy did.”
Agness founded NeW, which calls itself America’s premier organization for conservative university women, in 2004 on her campus at the University of Virginia. Despite some ridicule and skepticism from the women’s center on campus, NeW has over 30 chapter across the nation nearly 12 years later and holds a national conference every year in D.C.
Featuring speakers including National Review’s Katherine Timpf, Townhall’s Katie Pavlich and the Manhattan Institute’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth, conference panels included topics like myths about socialism debunked, professional development and trigger warnings on college campuses.
A common theme across all panels was that college campuses can be a lonely place for conservatives.
Penny Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women For America, told attendees that the disdain for conservatives doesn’t end after college. She shared an experience at a holiday party where she and her husband told colleagues her daughter was interested in working for Fox News.
Nance said the response was overwhelmingly negative, as if they had said their daughter aspired to be a “pole dancer.”
As a result, Nance advised the conservative audience to know what they believe and remain prepared.
“The worst thing for conservative women is to be caught staring at our shoes because we don’t know what to say,” Nance said.
The panels often addressed free speech infringements that have swept across college campuses today.
“We support intellectual diversity on college campuses and free speech, the free exchange of ideas,” Agness said. “Let’s have a robust exchange of ideas.”
Catherine Sevcenko, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s director of litigation, shared a story of a student who tried to hand out copies of the Constitution on Constitution Day and was confronted by a security guard for not being in a designated “free-speech zone.”
“You cannot take your views of the world and enforce them on other people and announce that other people who disagree with you are dangerous,” Sevcenko said.
The rise of “trigger warnings” has had a negative impact on academic freedom, according to Sevcenko.
“When trigger warnings become a problem is when students say, ‘I don’t want to confront this … so tell me when it’s coming so I can skip class or ask for an alternative assignment,'” Sevcenko said. “And that frankly guts the purpose of a university.”
The Manhattan Institute’s Furchtgott-Roth also demystified the idea that raising the minimum wage would be beneficial. While those receiving a higher wage would benefit, employers would be forced to make serious changes.
“The problem is when employers have to pay $15 an hour, they have to hire a different group of people,” Furchtgott-Roth said. “It means there are fewer jobs and the person who could be making $7.25 an hour is now unemployed.”
She said raising the minimum wage actually harms teenagers and young adults because they haven’t developed as many skills as other workers. Additionally, she noted that technology would replace many entry-level jobs.
Various career advice was also given to the aspiring professionals, but Caren Merrick, founder and CEO of Pocket Mentor, summarized what determines success.
“The most influential factor in your career is you,” Merrick said.
NeW’s National Conference was held at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Chapter leader training will be held for student leaders on Saturday.
