Paladin Mailbox - Re: Phyllis Schafly
By: Jim David '76
Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Opinions
As a proud 1976 graduate of Furman - back in the halcyon days when there was no Conservative Students For A Better Tomorrow, no FOX News and everyone on campus just got along - I read with interest that Phyllis Schlafly was invited by CSBT to lecture at Furman. I was on campus a few years ago when CSBT protested an appearance by the singing drag troupe "The Kinsey Sicks." The fear mongering techniques used by CSBT were pathetic and laughable - these children who think they know everything but merely parrot nonsense they heard from Ann Coulter only accomplished selling out McAlister Auditorium for the performance. The audience loved the show and left wondering what, exactly, the problem was.
Schlafly has been spouting her Neanderthal bilge since before most who will read this were born, and her rhetoric has succeeded in nothing whatsoever but promoting a stomach ache. Her statement that "there is no such thing as a glass ceiling for American women" is an easily disprovable lie - as attested by the payrolls of corporate America, where female executives are still routinely paid less than males. Were it not for the efforts of the feminist movement, the "glass ceiling" would be much lower.
In making the head-exploding statement, "women who are feminists will end up unhappy and alone," Schlafly ignores the reality of feminists such as my friend Joy Behar of "The View," currently with her man for 28 years or the happily married Gloria Steinem, the godmother of all modern feminists. Schlafly has always lied whenever the lie fits her agenda.
Regarding the interpretation of the success of Sarah Palin as proof that there is no limit for what women can do, I say her ascendancy proves nothing other than that every conservative in America is a sucker for a pretty face. If she looked like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who towered over her in intelligence and achievement, Palin would never have gotten out of Wasilla.
And as to the insulting statement, "If women focus on careers first, they will end up forty, single and desperately wanting a child they can no longer produce," my best friend from childhood has moved into her 55th year on Earth happily married and happily childless. I have yet to meet a middle-aged woman whose life is miserable because she didn't reproduce - but maybe I don't spend enough time in South Carolina.
Schlafly has been spouting her Neanderthal bilge since before most who will read this were born, and her rhetoric has succeeded in nothing whatsoever but promoting a stomach ache. Her statement that "there is no such thing as a glass ceiling for American women" is an easily disprovable lie - as attested by the payrolls of corporate America, where female executives are still routinely paid less than males. Were it not for the efforts of the feminist movement, the "glass ceiling" would be much lower.
In making the head-exploding statement, "women who are feminists will end up unhappy and alone," Schlafly ignores the reality of feminists such as my friend Joy Behar of "The View," currently with her man for 28 years or the happily married Gloria Steinem, the godmother of all modern feminists. Schlafly has always lied whenever the lie fits her agenda.
Regarding the interpretation of the success of Sarah Palin as proof that there is no limit for what women can do, I say her ascendancy proves nothing other than that every conservative in America is a sucker for a pretty face. If she looked like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who towered over her in intelligence and achievement, Palin would never have gotten out of Wasilla.
And as to the insulting statement, "If women focus on careers first, they will end up forty, single and desperately wanting a child they can no longer produce," my best friend from childhood has moved into her 55th year on Earth happily married and happily childless. I have yet to meet a middle-aged woman whose life is miserable because she didn't reproduce - but maybe I don't spend enough time in South Carolina.