In the aftermath of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s turbulent confirmation process, progressives face a familiar quandary: how could any woman be a conservative? They are particularly flummoxed by white women, with whom they cannot seem to budge the needle in their favor.
They see women who defended Kavanaugh as brainwashed by the men in their lives, and insist women couldn’t possibly have thought for themselves that a man accused of sexual assault was, in fact, innocent. They are further haunted by the fact that 53 percent of white women cast their votes for Donald Trump in 2016.
In a New York Times article released Saturday entitled, “White Women, Come Get Your People,” author Alexis Grenell condemns the female senators who voted for Kavanaugh: “These women are gender traitors…They’ve made standing by the patriarchy a full-time job.” She goes on to accuse women who voted for President Trump as “The same 53 percent who put their racial privilege ahead of their second-class gender status in 2016 by voting to uphold a system that values only their whiteness, just as they have for decades.”
Harper’s Bazaar claims with a hopeful, fiery tone that Kavanaugh’s confirmation will finally turn Republican women away from their voting habits, to ultimately unite in burning down “patriarchal institutions.” However, according the recent Marist poll, it is clear Republican women are far more motivated to vote for conservatives after the confirmation than they were before.
As Lucia Graves realized in The Guardian on Saturday, it turns out women in America are not a monolith. Graves says, “The women’s movement is, among other things, a study in all the ways women are divided from one another. Early suffragist movements were tainted by racism, and when women finally did get the right to vote, they couldn’t agree on candidates or causes to support.”
Graves sees this early division of ideals as catastrophic to the women’s movement, and goes on to blame Phyllis Schlafly for influencing generations of Republican women to vote as they are told.
In all of these condemnations of conservative women, there is always the broad stroke that they are stuck in an existence dominated by tyrannical men. There is never a suggestion that perhaps simply being a women does not dictate political stances, that maybe women are capable of forming their own opinions, and therefore able to dissent from the tribe the progressive left insist they belong to.
Conservative women today reject their casting as second-class citizens. They vote for what they believe to be a better America. Those 53 percent of white women who voted for Trump were not just blindly obeying a husband or father, they were voting against a candidate who did not represent their values, despite her sex.
Hillary Clinton did not offer a portrait of America that appealed to women with conservative values like promoting a small government and strong military. She did not appeal to women who believe that life begins at conception, and she certainly didn’t appeal to anyone who values her Second Amendment rights.
This concept is entirely lost on the progressive left. They were so blinded by their hatred of Trump, they couldn’t see how any woman could look past his obvious character flaws and vote for him. They could not see that, as imperfect a candidate as Trump was, Hillary was a far worse option for anyone with conservative ideas. They assumed that women, based entirely on their sex, would support the female Democratic candidate, no matter what she intended to accomplish as president. That line of thinking is beyond oppressive to women everywhere.
The same blindness to reality has overtaken progressive media since the day Kavanaugh was named the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court. Before any accusation of sexual assault even became public, the left had condemned Kavanaugh.
It can be almost difficult to remember now because the narrative changed so drastically following the release of Christine Blasey Ford’s letter to “Believe all women!” “Believe survivors!” and “He lied under oath!” But from day one of the Kavanaugh confirmation process, the left has been out for blood. It didn’t matter what his character was to them.
His initial three-day hearing was marred by protest interruptions and a Democratic senator declaring himself “Spartacus.” The majority of Democratic senators had no intention of voting “Yes” long before the eleventh-hour introduction of Ford’s allegation.
To the left, another Trump-nominated justice on the Supreme Court would spell the destruction of women in America, and lead to a real life “Handmaid’s Tale.” This all based on the misguided assumption that a conservative majority on the Supreme Court will end legal abortion in the United States, despite much evidence to the contrary. Kavanaugh himself declared 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision as “important precedent” during his initial hearings.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), whose announcement of her “Yes” vote removed doubt of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, is being tormented by the left for “betraying women.” Perhaps her decision is not the one they had hoped for, but Collins’s choice was a prime example of a woman standing up for what she believes, despite tremendous pressure to do otherwise.
Collins is no servant to any patriarchy, and no enemy of women. Her voting record proves that she is more than willing to vote against her GOP colleagues when moved to do so. She even provided a point by point explanation for her “yes” vote on a live broadcast so she could explain why Kavanaugh was a good choice to serve on the Supreme Court.
Regardless of her efforts and history as a senator, Collins’s choice to think for herself in this matter made her the subject of unrelenting ridicule from the left. A woman who dares dissent from the prescribed ideology of gender politics is instantly condemned by progressives. The mantra of “Believe all women” is gravely misleading, as the act of unsupported belief goes against all precedent of due process, and automatically condemns the accused with zero regard for evidence.
Instead of being praised for thinking for themselves, women who hold conservative values are condemned and mocked by the left. They are the subjects of threats and dismissal from thoughtful conversation.
Today’s political tribalism prevents women with conservative opinions from being outspoken in mixed company for fear of retribution, while their progressive counterparts are hailed as feminist heroes. This leftist rejection of a woman who has any opinion contrary to theirs is far more toxic to the cause of equality for women than anything else facing American women today.
