Feminist Amy Siskind: Trojan Horse to the conservative cause?

By Carey Roberts

Last Tuesday, 51% of the female electorate pulled the lever in favor of the GOP candidate to the U.S. House of Representatives. And for the first time in recent memory, a majority of women voted Republican.

Refusing to concede defeat, the National Organization for Women promptly instructed its members to organize. And to the Gender Guerillas, "organize" includes infiltrating the conservative ranks.

Exhibit A is Amy Siskind's recent editorial, "The Republican Party's Historic Opportunity with Women," in which she purports to offer advice to conservatives on how to attract the female vote: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/08/1694712/

But before we take a look at her manifesto — er, column — we might first ask, Who is Amy Siskind and what does she stand for?

Co-founder and president of the offbeat The New Agenda, Siskind is an unabashed proponent of abortion rights: "I am pro-choice and reproductive rights are important to me," she boasted in her August 30 Huffington Post column. So when Nancy Pelosi jettisoned insurance funding for abortion services from the health reform bill, Siskind savaged the Speaker of the House for the mortal sin of "betraying the sisterhood."

Siskind is amazingly candid in laying out her vision of a gender utopia. In her November 23, 2009 column in No Quarter, Siskind writes, "A major element in our battle for equality is getting women into positions of power. The hope is that these leaders, once in place, would promote women's issues and promote the next generation of women leaders."

None dare call that zealotry?

Siskind is clearly bewildered by female politicians like Sarah Palin who have not attained true feminist class consciousness. But in the end she counsels her readers that "Republican Women are not the enemy."

So if making-nice with conservative females represents an uneasy but necessary compromise, exactly who is the enemy? "Republican men running against Democratic women," we surmise from her Huffington Post essay.

So what's wrong with Siskind's "The Republican Party's Historic Opportunity with Women" column?

Well, let's start with her creative re-imagining of history.

In her opening paragraph, Siskind proffers this remarkable claim: "For the first time, women voters preferred the GOP."

Well, I guess that's right if we ignore the 1980 elections in which 46% of women voted for Ronald Reagan and 45% chose Jimmy Carter. And according to political scientist Jo Freeman, women favored the Republican candidate in every presidential contest from the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 until 1980.

How's that for striking out on the electoral Truth-O-Meter?

These factual errors quickly morph into a comical propaganda routine with Siskind's assertion that "women voters have decided almost every presidential election since 1960."

Not so fast, according to David Paul Kuhn, who wrote in The Neglected Voter that white males were the pivotal factor behind GOP wins in five out of the previous seven presidential campaigns. And not true, insists former Brandeis University professor Linda Hirshman who remarks, "With the possible exception of 1996, women have never voted a candidate into the White House when men thought the other guy should win."

Then the article draws inspiration from the Tinfoil Hat crowd, claiming that as of 2008, "gender equality was no longer a core tenet of the [Democratic National Committee]." This statement is so mirth-provoking that I won't devote editorial space to refuting it, except to refer the reader to a column I wrote earlier this year: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/roberts/100401

Siskind can't resist taking a couple cheap shots, calling the GOP "a bunch of white guys fighting it out for power." Then she berates Rep. John Boehner for "surround[ing] himself with a bunch of white guys, taking his party backwards."

If that wasn't enough, this past Friday Siskind's organization issued a breathless alert, "How Women Held Their Own on Election Day." Since women had voted equally for the two parties, Ms. Siskind goaded her readers — with bolded emphasis in the original, "now BOTH parties will fight for women's voters!"

Siskind wrapped up the alert by issuing a feisty challenge to Democrats and Republicans alike: "We say: let the bidding war begin!"

Three days later, Amy Siskind published the factually-challenged column outlining her vision of a gynocentric social dystopia.

So don't be surprised if other feminists come along in the weeks and months ahead, claiming to enlighten knuckle-dragging white-guys on what it means to be a card-carrying conservative.

© Carey Roberts