Bachmann told me in an interview Tuesday that she wouldn’t call herself a feminist—instead, she simply described herself as “pro-woman and pro-man.” When I pressed her on the matter, the Minnesota congresswoman said she sees herself as an “empowered American.” – Kirsten Powers
I’ve been waiting for this particular moment for a long time. The Hillary effect continues to produce political opportunities for women to break out, regardless of whether Michele Bachmann can rival Clinton’s 18 million cracks, though she’s on a course to be the first Republican female to win the caucus state of Iowa, much to T-Paw’s chagrin.
Political moments like this don’t come along often. This has the potential of being a seminal moment for the conservative movement and their outreach to women, though it remains to be seen whether the macho misogynists who run the Republican Party will see this for the historic opportunity it is.
Kirsten Powers gets the story, for which she deserves credit, with her Fox News channel access proving the perfect channel for Bachmann to broadcast the message. That it happens to be the most important breakthrough for the Right where women are concerned is undeniable, though we’ll have to wait to see if they understand what Michele Bachmann has done. I doubt she even knows the importance of what she said, because it takes a feminist to see it.
I’ve written about this for quite some time, wondering what woman on the Right would go beyond contorted conservative feminist-esque rhetoric by offering a positive alternative vision for Republican femmes that left their lame and divisive selective “pro life” mantra behind.
Then along comes a so-called gafferiffic “flake” named Michele Bachmann, the first politically competent conservative female to run for the presidency, offering a free at last path. That she did so in an off the cuff comment to a Democratic feminist is precious.
After watching Palin’s tortured conservative feminist cry when she spoke at the Susan B. Anthony event last year, I wondered when, if ever, conservative females would finally give up the ghost on feminism, a model that can never fit or worked for them, which history has proven. Asking continually why conservatives don’t disavow feminism, with the only answer from the Right sniping derision, which came off as petulant defensiveness.
Since Phyllis Schlafly ruined the Right’s coolness, the Republican Party has been struggling to break out of their past restraints and go beyond their abortion rights opponent stance and selective “pro life” mantra. That Bachmann’s comment comes when modern women are now primarily focused on economic issues makes the timing perfect.
Mrs. Bachmann could potentially change the conservative playing field, going well beyond Schlafly, as well as Sarah Palin’s unimaginative verbal femme contortions, while mining a seminal Republican talking point that is actually modern. Bachman’s premise is that women no longer need a separate activist wing to get what’s due them. Nothing fits the Supreme Court Wal-Mart decision era more perfectly than Bachmann’s “empowered American” mantra, coming in an age of austerity and amidst the Obama era’s diminished capacity for fighting for Democratic Party principles.
Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has also added to her authenticity while giving Republican female conservatives a genuine path to rhetorical relevancy.
The opening for them came in the 2010 midterms, with women breaking evenly for Republicans and Democrats.
For four decades, the Republican struggle among female voters has been tortured, with the last conservative star Sarah Palin adding to the pretzel logic by declaring an “emerging conservative feminist identity,” a ludicrous pronouncement, because there can be no such thing as “conservative feminism.”
You simply cannot be a feminist if you do not support women’s full freedoms, which the Right clearly does not. Their war against women, which is being waged through their Planned Parenthood assault, but also demeaning women’s personhood through state government ultrasound pregnancy tests, “heartbeat” bills and other invasive laws directed only at pregnant women, proves it conclusively, even as these onerous legislative laws make a mockery of “small government conservatism,” which now only aims to control women’s lives on the wings of extreme ideology.
Into this Michele Bachmann steps, not only declaring the Right’s separate status on the political playing field by rejecting the feminist label outright, but she instead simply offers another label saying she’s an “empowered American.”
Shorter Bachmann: Modern conservative women don’t need your stickin’ feminism. This is the 21st century and I’m an “empowered American.” It’s brilliant, for her purposes and for the agenda of the Republican Party.
It ends the Right’s feminist problem by refusing to play in that ballpark, which has always been the road to set Republicans free.
Most importantly for consevatives, it disavows a concept that’s weakened Republicans and made them seem anti-women, which they are, though with this rebranding they jump beyond the ’70s to a time when new generations have no loyalty to feminism or the times that forged the laws that aid women across the board, no matter a woman’s politics.
Feminism did the work, now Bachmann is trying to lead conservative women beyond the movement that hamstrung Republicans with women for 40 years, while also allowing Bachmann to run for president in a party that doesn’t respect women’s freedoms. Feminism made Bachmann’s “empowered American” possible, because of gains made through this movement. Hey, but who cares, right? Certainly anything that attempts to wash away feminism is good for the Republican Right.
Bachmann affirms equality unequivocally, with no separate status of “feminist” required for her. She is daring Republicans and the conservative Right to break with the divisive and retro “feminazi” Rush ranting and bashing once and for all.
With “empowered American,” Michele Bachmann looks modern, dare I say it, even post-feminism, a term Republicans have tried to use but no one bought, because they couldn’t sell it. But as women now turn to economics as their primary concern the moment is ripe.
This is potentially a phenomenal political moment for Republicans.
However, Republicans and conservatives like Michele Bachmann still can’t effectively answer the most important question of all: Is freedom just for men?
But they don’t care, because for conservatives, invoking God is the answer for everything else.
