Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

PREFACE 17find to attack all women. It will harm the women who are working insuch problem areas as battery and wage discrimination. Why do anythingto endanger our fragile gains?" My friend's questions were sobering, andI want to underscore at the outset that I do not mean to confuse thewomen who work in the trenches to help the victims of true abuse anddiscrimination with the gender feminists whose falsehoods and exaggerationsare muddying the waters of American feminism. These feministideologues are helping no one; on the contrary, their divisive and resentfulphilosophy adds to the woes of our society and hurts legitimate feminism.Not only are women who suffer real abuse not helped by untruths,they are in fact harmed by inaccuracies and exaggerations.For example, as Ms. Whitehead noted, more women are screened forbirth defects than for battery. She was touching on a terribly importantproblem. Battery is still not taken seriously enough as a medical problem.Most hospitals have procedures to avoid discharging patients at high riskof suffering a relapse of the condition for which they are being treated.Yet few hospitals have procedures that would put women likely to sufferfurther abuse in touch with the professional services that could help themavoid it, a real and shocking problem. That battery is the chief cause ofbirth defects is perhaps more shocking, but it is untrue. The March ofDimes has developed an excellent hospital "Protocol of Care for the BatteredWoman." Wouldn't it have been more effective to publicize theproblem that Ms. Whitehead had actually talked about and promoted theMarch of Dimes' solution? True, the alleged findings had great value asgender feminist propaganda. But, being incorrect, they could lead tonothing constructive in the way of alleviating the actual suffering ofwomen.American women owe an incalculable debt to the classically liberalfeminists who came before us and fought long and hard, and ultimatelywith spectacular success, to gain for women the rights that the men ofthis country had taken for granted for over two hundred years. Exposingthe hypocrisy of the gender feminists will not jeopardize those achievements.Battered women don't need untruths to make their case before afair-minded public that hates and despises bullies; there is enough tragictruth to go around.With that in mind, I shall evaluate here the views of such feminists asGloria Steinem, Patricia Ireland, Susan Faludi, Marilyn French, NaomiWolf, and Catharine MacKinnon and the findings that inform them. I