Feminist Jill Filipovic can’t figure out why no one likes feminists anymore. She’s so puzzled, in fact, that she wondered about it out loud via Twitter on Monday afternoon.
https://twitter.com/JillFilipovic/status/892058767612760064
Her introspective Twitter query came on the heels of news that the Democratic Party will no longer withhold funds from candidates who oppose abortion, which she also tweeted about.
https://twitter.com/JillFilipovic/status/892057087542349824
Teen Vogue’s Lauren Duca also had a meltdown on Twitter over the news.
This is a betrayal of every woman who has ever supported the Democratic party. https://t.co/oQzgkUAoLX
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) July 31, 2017
Aaaaand this is why no one likes feminists anymore, because anyone who doesn’t support their values is likened to Judas.
This is a rejection of progressive equity under the guise of "strategy." Winning with an anti-choice candidate is a loss for human rights.
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) July 31, 2017
First of all, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the Democratic Party is re-thinking its abortion stance after it failed to get an unapologetically pro-abortion woman elected in the White House last year. As Ben Domenech pointed out last year, the Democratic Party strong-armed Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) into squishing his pro-life values in order to prop up his running mate, Hillary Clinton, whose abortion stance was wildly out-of-touch with most Americans.
A recent poll found that most an overwhelming majority of Americans (74 percent) think abortion should be limited to at least the first trimester. Interestingly, these numbers increase among women respondents, as 77 percent of women support such restrictions on abortion. Most women think abortion does more harm than good, that it is morally wrong, and that it’s an immediate priority for the government to restrict abortion to at least the first trimester. Most Americans also support the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal taxpayer dollars from funding abortions.
So why, then, is it any surprise that Clinton, who made unfettered access to abortion the crown jewel of her campaign, failed to gain support among female voters? And why are feminists like Filipovic at all surprised to learn the Democratic Party, after a stunning run of defeats at both the state and national levels, is finally maybe open to candidates whose stance on abortion is in line with a majority of the American people?
Second, Duca’s assertion that “winning with an anti-choice candidate is a loss for human rights” makes no sense. Simply put: being “pro-choice” means supporting abortion, the grotesque practice of dismantling and killing a child while it is still inside the womb. That is itself a human rights violation. But, according to Duca, anyone who thinks differently than she does is a betrayer of humanity. Spare me.
These illuminating tweets help explain why only 32 percent of women consider themselves to be feminists, 43 percent of Americans think feminism is “angry,” and why 30 percent believe it to be “outdated.” The feminist movement isn’t about empowering women or championing equal opportunity for both sexes — it’s about forcing an unappealing ideology down everyone’s throats.
