Feminism

Making an absurd declaration on Friday's NBC Today, chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman asserted that the oppressive regime in Saudi Arabia was fairer to working women than the United States: "We still make 77 cents to the dollar as men. It's ridiculous. In a country like Saudi Arabia, where we question their rights, it's against the law to pay women less than men." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Guess what else is against the law in Saudi Arabia? For a woman to work without the permission of her male guardian. As a result, according to a report on PBS Newshour Extra, women in the Islamic state currently "only make up 5 percent of the workforce." Women must also adhere to a strict dress code and are banned from driving.

CBS made little effort to hide that it was siding with liberal dissenters inside the Catholic Church on Wednesday's CBS Evening News and Thursday's CBS This Morning. Scott Pelley hyped that there was a Vatican "crackdown on America's 57,000 nuns." Gayle King touted how "some Catholics compare it to the dark days of the Inquisition, a crackdown on a prominent organization of nuns accused of being radical feminists."

King and co-anchor Charlie Rose sympathized with the group of dissenting sisters during an interview of left-wing public radio host Sister Maureen Fiedler, and hinted that the Catholic hierarchy was "out of touch." Correspondent Wyatt Andrews also overwhelmingly slanted towards the disobedient religious and their supporters during his reports on the two programs, and played only one brief soundbite from a spokeswoman for the bishops.

If you’ve ever wondered why you don’t hear much reporting on some of the dreadful traditions and lack of rights that women in the Islamic world often face, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry provided a perfect illustration in a recent discussion with Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy.

Eltahawy’s essay, which appeared in the magazine Foreign Policy, is a straightforward attempt to disabuse people of the notion that there is any sort of equivalence between the treatment of women in the Islamic and Western worlds. In her words, non-Arabs need to “resist cultural relativism and know that even in countries undergoing revolutions and uprisings, women will remain the cheapest bargaining chips.”

New York Times reporters Mark Landler and John Cushman Jr. covered President Obama's plea to women's voters disguised as a commencement address at Barnard College, a woman's college in Manhattan: "In Graduation Speech to Women, Obama Leaps Into Gender Gap." What the paper failed to bring up was that according to its own polling, the female "gender gap" is currently Obama's problem, not Mitt Romney's.

There was also no mention in the Times of the irony of supposedly feminist Obama dislodging the originally booked (female) graduation speaker, the paper's own executive editor Jill Abramson.

Snark on, Michelle!  On the MSNBC show "Up With Chris Hayes" this morning, feminist author Michelle Goldberg attacked Ann Romney as "insufferable" and derided a phrase in Ann's op-ed on the subject of motherhood as "creepy."

Goldberg's "insufferable" shot drew approving laughter from the all-feminist panel.  And surely the attacks on the Romneys for their traditional family values will play well with a certain segment of the electorate. The problem for President Obama: that segment is one that is already almost entirely in his camp.  But these sort of mean-spirited attacks are likely to alienate the very voters in the middle that PBO needs to persuade.  Video after the jump.

In Saturday’s Washington Post, religion columnist Lisa Miller brought her usual radical feminism to the table insisting Mary be “heard” as the Vatican insisted that American nuns and sisters actually act like they belong to the Catholic Church.

But this line stood out: “For more than a thousand years, women like Mary have entered religious life hoping to find a safe place where they might receive an education and protection from the oppression of marriage and the dangers of child-bearing.” The oppression of marriage?

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor appeared on MSNBC's NOW with Alex Wagner Tuesday and claimed that the Democrats' "War on Women" campaign tactic had been validated by recent actions by GOP politicians. Under a graphic that bluntly stated as fact the liberal opinion that "War On Women Continues," Wagner and Kantor had this exchange:

NPR's Mara Liasson outraged female listeners on Weekend Edition Sunday on April 15 when she said Mitt Romney's political problems aren't with "stay-at-home moms," but rather with "educated women."

Seven days later, NPR admitted it scrubbed the clip and the transcript for the website. On April 22, in a letters segment, Liasson claimed "I misspoke and that's one reason why we corrected the interview for later feeds of the show." Maybe she didn't "misspeak" as much as she betrayed her own opinion. She's never stayed at home and her biographies list no children. At least NPR returned to the scene of the self-censorship:

TV star Cybill Shepherd went on a radical feminist bender on Friday's CBS This Morning, touting that there really is a "war on women" manifested by the "attack on Planned Parenthood." Anchor Gayle King had to cut her off, as Shepherd inserted her diatribe at the end of the segment, but revealed her sympathies with her guest: "I think you're raising a good point. We just need more time to do it."

The far left actress made her devotion to the pro-abortion cause clear, and hinted that pro-lifers were so extreme that they would try to kill her: "Abortion is our constitutional right. We should keep it legal. And also, birth control should be available to everyone....I'm coming to lead the next march on Washington, and I'm not going to wear a bulletproof vest. My mother's scared for me." [audio available here; video below the jump]

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter was the latest to downplay Obama-supporter Hilary Rosen's insult of Ann Romney of having "never worked a day in her life," in his Sunday Review "news analysis," "From Flash to Fizzle." Stelter argued that Hilary Rosen's insult would be the latest controversy to burn hot and then be totally forgotten:

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell has been a key player in pushing the network's "war on women" meme, such as when she viciously tag-teamed with liberal senators to attack Susan G. Komen founder Nancy Brinker to her misleading, biased coverage of the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas.

So it's no surprise that Mitchell joined forces with liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus at the top of her program today to spin for Democratic activist and PR flak Hilary Rosen, who stepped in it earlier this week with her ill-advised attack on Ann Romney.

On Friday's CBS This Morning, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman did his best to brush aside the controversy over liberal diehard Hilary Rosen's attack on Ann Romney, claiming that the issue was "our latest example of false indignation." Friedman also defended the class warfare argument of the frequent visitor of the Obama White House: "I think everyone knows the point Hilary Rosen was trying to make."

The left-leaning columnist also claimed that the defense of Mrs. Romney was a cynical ploy for the votes of women: "When you have a close race like this, that is so close, you need every vote, particularly if you're in Romney's case – nineteen points behind on women – you're going to seize on anything...this was a chance to jump on it- you know, use it as a wedge issue, get some more votes." [audio clips available here; video below the jump]

Friday's New York Times portrayed Obama supporter Hilary Rosen's gaffe on CNN Wednesday night, when she accused Mitt Romney's wife Ann of having "never worked a day in her life," as less of a Democratic fumble and more of a pox-on-both-their-houses moment for both presidential campaigns.

The story came at an awkward moment for the paper, which prominently played up Mitt Romney's alleged woes with women voters on Thursday's front page: "Romney Taking Steps to Narrow His Gender Gap." And the paper has constantly insisted that the issues of birth control access and abortion will kill the GOP in 2012.

Sexual stereotypes are acceptable, as long as they portray women as superior to men. That's the takeaway from Cathy Horyn's feminist hyperventilating over two female fashion design icons on the front of Thursday's Styles section, keyed on a new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called “Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: Impossible Conversations.”

In "The Edge Goes to the Women," Horyn wrote "Could it be that women, despite being outnumbered by male stars, are better designers than men?" The front of the section was dominated by a graphic showing the two designers with speech bubbles. Schiaparelli is portrayed saying "Women are better designers than men," while Prada replies "I know!"

On Saturday, left-wing radical turned MSNBC host (is that redundant?) Melissa Harris-Perry was missing only the pom-poms, as she trumpeted the plight of a Canadian beauty contestant she described as "born a male...self-identified as female...and had gender reassignment surgery at the age of 19." Harris-Perry gushed, "You go, girl!..we are all going to be watching and rooting for you."

The leftist columnist exclaimed how "May is going to be an exciting month for my feminist friends and me. For the first time, we're going to be able to watch a beauty pageant with pride." After noting how Miss Universe officials backtracked on their original decision to disqualify the now-Jenna Talackova, Harris-Perry added, "Others might want to take note of this turnaround, like the city of Anchorage, Alaska, that just rejected a ballot initiative to add sexual orientation and trans-gendered identity to a list of protected classes." [audio clips available here; video below the jump].

While liberals scream about the right’s “war on women,” their hypocrisy is more than evident. ABC is running its second show this season with the word “bitch” in the title, and there’s only silence from the exquisitely sensitive feminists so aghast at Rush Limbaugh’s comments about left-wing activist Sandra Fluke.

Where is the left’s outrage over “GCB,” short for “Good Christian Bitches,” and for “Don’t Trust the B- in Apt. 23?” Surely, branding women as “bitches” should spur the feminists to action in droves. It hasn’t.

Updated [14:38 et]:  Audio available here and video added after the jump.

Appearing on NBC's Sunday web-based feature Press Pass, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley tore apart the media obsession with the contraception debate: "The media thinks that women only care about contraception, that's not true. They care about contraception, and education, and health care, and jobs, and the economy."

Haley leveled the criticism after Meet the Press host David Gregory grilled her on the "gender gap" in Republican support being an obstacle to Mitt Romney defeating President Obama in November. Haley took Gregory to task for the question: "I find it comical that the news media wants to continue to talk about a gender gap, and so I'll challenge you to ask a man about the gender gap as well."

Sorry, Masters golf tournament, you may be the most prestigious contest in the sport, but you don't meet the exacting standards of feminist activist/NYT golf writer Karen Crouse: "High-ranking players with daughters are not willing to talk about it. Somebody has to make a stand. Why not me in my own little way?”

The New York Times reporter is not done with her crusade against Augusta National. After excoriating the club's all-male membership policy in both a column and news story yesterday, the opening day of The Masters, Crouse told Golf.com's Damon Hack that she did not want to cover the tournament again until a woman was admitted to the club.

Of late, the liberal media has been extremely interested in letting people know that Rush Limbaugh shouldn't have called abortion activist Sandra Fluke a slut since such language is inappropriate. That's a decidedly different attitude from how the media have regarded vulgar and sexist attacks on Wisconsin Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch—and her children.

Kleefisch is a wife, mother and cancer survivor who faces a recall vote on June 5 along with Governor Scott Walker after they helped pass a law last spring that would affect public workers' collective bargaining rights.

Update/correction (30 March 2012, 16:12 p.m. EDT): Brewer is no longer employed with MSNBC. I was going off of outdated information on her Facebook fan page. The post below is corrected accordingly.

"A compelling, alarming case against the GOP and its 'War on Women.' Lest you think it can't happen here, just ask Iranian women how conservative, religious fanatics ripped their rights away." [see screen capture below page break; h/t @mattjmobile]

That's how former MSNBC host Contessa Brewer introduced her Facebook fans to a March 25 New York magazine piece by Frank Rich entitled "Stag Party: The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women."

Saturday's front-page New York Times story by Susan Saulny focused on the Santorum campaign in Louisiana before Santorum's easy win in the Republican primary there: "On the Right, Santorum Has Women's Vote."

Saulny emphasized the religious angle of Santorum's appeal. The condescending story provided slight corrective to the paper's misleading previous coverage assuming Santorum lacked support from women, but maintained the unsubstantiated idea, embraced by the Times, that moderate Republican women are turned off by appeals to social conservatism.

A tribute to veteran feminist Gloria Steinem by contributor Sarah Hepola that compared her to Martin Luther King Jr. led the New York Times's Sunday Styles section, "A Woman Like No Other." Famous (now infamous) Obama portraitist and hagiographer Shepard Fairey contributed the large likeness of Steinem that dominates the page.

After some background on Steinem pushing the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970, Hepola asked the question nobody but the New York Times is asking:

On Monday the New York Times offered yet another unsubstantiated tale of the GOP scaring away female voters. Reporter Ashley Parker's story, under the headline "Romneys Court Women Alienated by Contraception Issue," not only fails to back up the headline, but contradicts itself.

The paper's own recent poll finding, buried by the paper last week, found most women oppose the Obamacare mandate that religious institutions provide contraception coverage. That tidbit from the poll didn't make it into Parker's story. And Parker didn't seem to realize the implications of a poll result she did cite: Social conservative candidate Rick Santorum is far ahead of the more moderate Mitt Romney among female Republican primary voters. If the paper's headline were true, wouldn't those "alienated women" be flocking to moderate Mitt instead of scary Santorum?

When the press wants to smear a conservative outfit, it embarks on a mission to find and highlight someone, no matter how peripheral their involvement or unreflective of that group's beliefs, to portray as somehow typical of their mindset. But when someone who is clearly a long-time activist in the "pro-choice" movement clearly betrays the truth -- that the movement really is pro-abortion without limits -- they're nowhere to be found.

I expect that to be the case with Jessica DelBalzo's latest item ("I Love Abortion") filed at RH Reality Check, and not merely because the press is so predictable. It's because the press ignored an arguably more outrageous commentary Ms. DelBalzo filed at the same site in August, where she proudly told readers that she had discussed abortion and with her two year-old child, and that all "pro-choice" mothers of toddlers who successfully escaped the womb should do the same thing -- before the "forced-birth bullies" have a chance to exert their awful influence.

Here's your daily dose of liberal hysteria, courtesy of New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal's Thursday evening post, "Grand, Old and Anti-Woman." Previously Rosenthal called Republican House Speaker John Boehner a racist  for asking President Obama to delay a speech to Congress.

Our good friends at Concerned Women for America (CWA) have an excellent video that mashes up President Obama's attack on Rush Limbaugh for his Sandra Fluke comments with million-dollar Obama donor Bill Maher's misogynist slurs against women in politics from both sides of the aisle, such as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

"Stop the hypocrisy. Tell Obama's Super PAC to donate the $1 million from Bill Maher to a charity supporting victims of domestic violence," the ad -- which you can watch in an embed below the page break -- concluded. Yesterday, you may recall, MRCAction.org put out a petition drive for Obama's Super PAC to give the $1 million back to Maher.