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Jewish World Review Jan. 31, 2005 / 21 Shevat, 5765 I hate womyn By Diana West
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I hate women.
"I felt I was going to be sick," said Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor
at MIT who stormed out of the meeting. "My heart was pounding and my
breath was shallow," she informed reporters. "I couldn't breathe because
this kind of bias makes me physically ill." Why, had she not left the
room, she "would've either blacked out or thrown up."
Clearly, what the hard sciences need to attract more qualified female
candidates is a nice, comfy fainting couch. And let's send one over to
the U.S. Senate, too, while we're at it. "She turned and attacked me,"
Sen. Barbara Boxer whimpered on CNN in her twisted reprise of the
poisonous little temper tantrum she and other Democrats threw along the
way to the Senate confirmation of Condoleeza Rice as Secretary of State.
Having spray-painted Miss Rice a liar — and dashed off a quick
fundraising letter about it all on the side — Mrs. Boxer was now
depicting Miss Rice as a bully. Why? For a response that exhibited more
polish, more civilization than the smearing senator deserved: "I would
hope we can discuss what ... went on and what I said without impugning
my credibility or my integrity."
That's ladylike. I like ladylike. Poise under fire, and not a whiff of
vapors. This may well be beside the point. That is, sex should be
irrelevant in Senate confirmation hearings, even as the media harp on
the statistical exceptionalism of nominees who are not men, or not white
(or not both). But there seems to be something worth pondering in the
fact that both Condi Rice, the new face of American foreign policy, and
Barbara Boxer, its most aggressive opponent this week (rather, its most
aggressive domestic opponent since I don't mean al-Zarqawi) are women.
Approaching the Iraqi election this weekend, surveying the challenges
that lie ahead in encouraging democracy in the wider Islamic world — a
world where power is derived in many ways from a perverted sexual order
based on the oppression of women — this fact should mean something.
But — Condi Rice aside — it's not something to crow about. American
feminism, the ideological movement the Barbara Boxers and Nancy
Hopkinses out there call home, has ignored the plight of women under
Islam: the burqa-bondage of sharia law under which a woman's testimony
in a courtroom is worth half that of a man's; polygamy is legal and
divorce is a man's prerogative; inheritance favors sons; and violence
(even the hideously misnamed "honor" killings) against family women is a
way of life. Why?
In the case of Professor Hopkins, her privileged horizons end at the
faculty lounge, a cozy place where outcries against the mean old
patriarchy clatter with the teacups. In Mrs. Boxer's myopic case, the
cause of democracy abroad, indeed, the national interest of the United
States, is second to a vital, gnawing Democratic interest — undermining
George W. Bush. This is a strange cause in light of what his success
would mean particularly for women.
Miss Rice was never in doubt of confirmation. So why more "no" votes
(13) than any secretary of state has received in 180 years? The crude
message big Dem cheeses (your Boxers, your Kennedys, your Kerrys) sent
the White House was intercepted by the rest of the world, our inability
to present a united front even on the eve of Iraqi elections unnerving
friends and inspiring enemies.
"Give America's national security the benefit of the doubt," went
centrist Sen. Joe Lieberman's pathetic appeal on Miss Rice's behalf to
fellow Democrats. Little wonder Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another singular
Democrat who could see through the scrim of party affiliation to
reality's dangers, worried that Miss Rice's rough treatment would leave
her "diminished in the eyes of the world." That leaves the United States
diminished in the eyes of the world.
For liberty's sake, it is the Boxer Democrats who should be diminished
in the eyes of the world — and particularly the world's women. Will
they notice?
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© 2005 Diana West | ||||||||||
