I am sick and tired of feminists appropriating the word "women" to their own ends.
When feminists, their allies and useful idiots, say the word "women" they often mean "feminist".
Take for example, this quote from Eleanor Smeal, the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, commenting on the nomination of Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate:
“And so we are not against a woman being on a ticket for president. We wish it was a ticket that stood for women and women’s rights. Since it doesn’t, we’re opposing that ticket,” she said.
Who decided that Eleanor Smeal and the rest of her feminist comrades were the arbitors of what "standing up for women" means and what "women's rights" are?
I do not need feminists "standing up for me" thank you very much, and I do not want them to stand up for me. I wish they would be a lot more forthcoming in their statements. "Sarah Palin does not stand up for feminist and feminist values". That's what Eleanor Smeal is really trying to say.
And what about being a woman makes a woman have particular rights? I don't think there is such a thing as identity-specific rights. There are just rights. The right to life. The right to assemble. The right to free speech. And so forth.
Identifiers such as gender, race, creed, disability, etc do not define these rights.
All human beings have them. Occasionally, we restrict them for given purposes, but all human beings have at least some rights.
I think it's high time that women take feminists to task for their appropriation of our gender for their causes.
If they want to advance their agenda, that is certainly their prerogative in a democratic society. But saying that they stand up for "women", and that they advance "women's rights", and to speak as if they were the saviours of women is wrong and condescending. They should speak of feminist rights, feminist groups and feminist studies.
Not "women's".
I hope more bloggers take up this issue. It's time that feminists stop doing this. We must call feminists on this point.