Liberals and their newspapers have a very simplistic formula for analyzing female politicians: you’re either “for women,” or you’re a token of an anti-woman political movement. One of two women will be the next prime minister of Britain, but since they’re in the Conservative Party, who at The Washington Post is happy?
In Saturday’s paper, Post reporter Karla Adam wrote a pejorative article headlined “Women question feminist values of Britain’s next leader.” Adam spends all her time relaying what “some” people (that is, leftists) think is wrong with all this.
She summed up: “Some in Britain are celebrating how the next British prime minister will be a woman, but others aren't convinced that the two contenders for the job carry the flame of feminist values that match their own.” The online version then carried two negative tweets:
Adam finds the leader of the “Women’s Equality Party” to explain what the “women” should think, that neither Theresa May or Andrea Leadsom is enough like Hillary Clinton:
“It’s symbolically important to have women represented at the top of politics,” said Sophie Walker, leader of the Women’s Equality Party. “But while it’s important to have someone who looks like you represent you, it’s as important that the person is creating policies in a way that answers your experiences.”
She contrasted May and Leadsom with Hillary Clinton, who has won backing from many women's groups for her long track record in standing up for women's rights.
“Hillary Clinton is standing on a manifesto that states clearly she wants to stop the pay gap, she wants to invest in child care, that she will defend reproductive rights, that she sees that women’s issues aren’t women’s issues, they are everyone’s issues," she said. "And that’s precisely what we are not seeing from either May or Leadsom. We need to see a better understanding in their policy proposals for life for women in Britain."
Adam briefly quotes May, and briefly quotes Leadsom, but never finds any analyst or pundit to stick up for these Conservative candidates. All the analysts are on the Left – and none of them are identified as ideological.
Sam Smethers of the Fawcett Society, “a women’s rights charity,” said May’s record is mixed because she’s worked against domestic violence and the gender pay gap “but has also backed calls to reduce the time limit on abortion.” Adam said May used to be a “modernizer,” which is a positive word liberals use to describe themselves. “Modernizers” love untrammeled abortion.
Even the unnamed sources have a liberal view. Adam asserted that as Home Secretary, May has been “at the heart of a government whose austerity policies have disproportionately affected women, according to charities.”
Adam wrapped up the piece by quoting Laurie Penny in an article for the liberal New Statesman magazine titled “A Tory leadership race between two women is not a feminist revolution.” That’s a perfect summary of the liberal view. Here’s what the Post reporter quoted:
On the one hand, they could hardly do worse; on the other, the mess is monumental, and whoever is in charge of the long, uncertain slog back to stability will doubtless face precisely the public opprobrium that both David Cameron and Boris Johnson have proven too cowardly to contemplate, with some additional press commentary on their shoes, haircuts and outfit choices to distract us all from the collapse of civil society. I can hardly wait.
But here’s the opener, which offers a much clearer view of where Ms. Penny stands on conservatives:
Neither Andrea Leadsom nor Theresa May are the figureheads anyone with a scrap of interest in women’s freedom would choose, presuming we got a say, which we don’t. Nonetheless, I have spent the entire day being told that I should be pleased at the fact that the future leader of my country will be a female person. This is the feminist revolution in the same way that the Charge of the Light Brigade was a military triumph.
PS: This passage is the most unintentionally revealing (or hilarious) part of Adam’s article:
It is perhaps one of the great ironies of the leadership election that the party most closely associated with old boys clubs — the Conservative Party — will have produced the only two female prime ministers in British history.
Dear Karla: How is it an “irony” that Labour has never produced a female leader since Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power in 1979? Shouldn’t a feminist think irony has nothing to do with it? Shouldn’t a feminist wonder whether Labour’s failure to produce a female leader makes it a better candidate for “old boys club”? But then, the feminists will abide by a Bill Clinton (and his incredibly permissive wife) as long as their agendas match.
