Single Issue Goddess: The War on Women's Intellect

Check out the first five installments of Susan L.M. Goldberg’s ongoing series dissecting HBO’s Girls:

June 6: A Biblical Feminist Confronts The Girls Goddesses, Part 1

June 16: Sex Mitzvah’d: Virginity Isn’t Easy for Girls

June 23: Money: Is That What Girls Goddesses Really Want?

June 30: Millennial Girls Are Easy: Sex, Power & Porn

July 7: Sex for Girls‘ Sake: Porn, Art, or Both?

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Camille Paglia, the liberal feminist professor who staked her reputation as a cultural critic by bucking the tenets of modern feminism has turned her keen eye on the hypocrisy within the Democrat Party. In her latest commentary on women in politics, Paglia once again highlights how current so-called “liberal” feminist attitudes are keeping women barefoot and pregnant in the minds of voters:

“It’s completely reactionary. That women were being defined as being exclusively interested in their own bodies. I think it’s sad that women are even being discussed in this way by the news media …that women are single issue voters that can think of nothing outside the domestic sphere. …I think the first woman president is going to emerge from the GOP because there’s not this obsession. The women coming up in the GOP have this attitude that economic issues and geopolitics are primary, not necessarily the defense of Roe v Wade. Which again I think has distorted feminism. Abortion rights, it’s one issue among many. Women must be encouraged to take the long view, the large view, to think geopolitically. I’m afraid, within the Democratic Party, that is not happening.”

Paglia, a devout renegade feminist who voted for Obama, hit the nail on the head of the War on Women. In the days leading up to the 2012 election, Forbes reported that women, the target demographic of Obama’s campaign, were being stereotypically swooned by-you guessed it-abortion talk:

“It’s no surprise to me that female swing voters are going to vote Obama—he made their core issues the most vocal issues of his entire campaign. Abortion was named the “single most important issue for women in this election” by female voters in 12 key swing states in an October Gallup poll and Democrats have been serving up women’s issues including abortion, access to contraception and healthcare for nearly a year, hammering home a Republican “war on women” that threatens their right to decision-making over their own bodies.”

Only days prior, Forbes published an op-ed by Dr. Scott W. Atlas that included detailed statistics illustrating the ethical qualms the majority of Americans, of every race and economic class, have with abortion. Dr. Atlas also detailed a litany of facts regarding how poorly women will be treated under Obamacare. Nevertheless, the Democrat Party with birth control martyrs like Sandra Fluke, marched on to victory with its War on Women, a battle waged by politicians and stars alike.

Dunham, a five-star General in the battle, cut to the chase in her 2012 pro-Obama ad, comparing voting to sex and saying of Obama “Your first time shouldn’t be with just anybody, you wanna do it with a great guy. …Someone who really cares about and understands a woman.”

In the context of birth control and abortion rights, that doesn’t say very much about the guy. But what does it say about women, like Lena Dunham, who believe in the War on Women? How has goddess feminism stereotyped women into an entire bloc of single issue voters? Are women as single issue as goddess feminists would like them to believe?

Sati, the practice of burning a widow alive on her husband’s funeral pyre, was outlawed during the British mandate. There are still pro-sati advocates in Indian courts today.

For all their goddess worshipping, polytheistic cultures have a tendency to treat the women in their own societies rather poorly. Take, for example, ancient Greece:

“Greek women …were placed almost on the same level with the slave and were under the authority and control of their husbands both by custom and by law. …In Sparta, for instance, women were cultivated physically in order that they might be good mothers and produce sons who would be superior warriors.”

Even the goddesses themselves believed women, whose purpose was to populate the state, to be inferior:

“Athena’s opinion of women is made clear as well. She discusses how she was not born of a woman and respects men much more. This is a very important point when dealing with the difference s between the respects the goddesses are given, compared to the respect given to mortal females. If women were seen as nothing more than carrying cases for children, then their place in even reproduction has been diminished to not much more than that of a vessel.”

Fast-forward to modern day India where, despite having a religion loaded with goddesses, women have fought an uphill battle for equal rights, mainly due to the fact that Hinduism at its core treats women as inferiors, even slaves to men:

Hinduism as a religion opposes the role of women and gives them no respect at all. In addition to that, the Holy Scripture, Vedas, also negates their significance all the more. …The famous book, The Laws of Manu quotes, “In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons: a woman must never be independent….Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure (elsewhere), or devoid of good qualities, (yet) a husband must be constantly worshipped as a god by a faithful wife….”

The worst form of abuse experienced by some South Asian women is bride burning, whereby “a bride is killed at home by her husband or husband’s family due to his dissatisfaction over the dowry provided by her family.”

It would appear that worshipping a goddess doesn’t make you into one. There is a trend among polytheistic cultures to view women as inferior beings whose sole purpose is to bear children. Is it any wonder, then, that goddess feminism views abortion rights as the single most important issue facing women today?

In contrast, the women’s suffrage movement in America – otherwise known as First Wave Feminism – was dramatically influenced by Bible-believing women. Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and a host of suffragettes were Quakers; scores of American Jewish women fought for equal rights; the Jewish League for Women’s Suffrage in England drew a strong connection between Judaism and women’s rights. According to Paglia,

“…feminist history has insufficiently acknowledged the degree to which the founders of the woman suffrage movement—that is, the drive to win votes for women—were formed or influenced by religion.”

Dunham’s single issue stance on politics seeped into the second season of Girls through her fictional alter-ego Hannah. On the rebound after an unceremonial break up with S&M fantasy-driven Adam, Hannah hooks up with a straight-laced law student, Sandy. Eventually they break up in a cringe-worthy fight that starts when Sandy admits he wasn’t a fan of Hannah’s essay and ends with Hannah informing her female and gay male friends that she dumped him because “I can’t be with someone who isn’t an ally to gays or women.”

Played by Donald Glover, most critics took the bait and focused on Sandy’s race, believing Dunham to be addressing the dearth of critical complaints regarding the overt whiteness of her show. A few, however, also used Glover’s appearance to highlight Dunham’s own admissions to lacking a diverse social circle. Apparently, race isn’t the only area in which diversity is lacking in Dunham’s world:

“…the fundamental issue that Hannah isn’t actually able to deal with people who aren’t exactly like her, even in something so small as not agreeing on the quality and aims of her essay. She’s the conservative one, not when it comes to political stances but in terms of dealing with anyone who doesn’t align with the ideas about the world in which she’s so certain.”

The episode, which also featured Jessa touting the “both parties are evil” perspective favored by most Millenials, was thoroughly critiqued by Matthew Walther in the American Spectator. Reflecting on Hannah’s pretense for breaking up with the black Republican, Walther writes, “I am inclined to think that, like Hannah, whose knowledge of the subject is limited to a few clichés about ‘how crazy the economy is right now,’ Dunham is not very interested in politics.”

The critique is a slap in the face to Dunham who has labeled her show a “feminist action.” Yet, if Girls really is the mouthpiece for Dunham’s “voice of a generation” Paglia may well be right: the first woman President could not possibly come from the liberal side of the aisle as long as their politics remain, at best, barefoot in the kitchen and, at worst, hare-brained on TV.

Goddess feminism demands a single-issue mindset that revolves around a “woman’s right to choose” reproduction. This is not surprising considering that goddess cultures view women as nothing more than “vessels” for bringing forth new and healthy life for the state. The same attitude rings true today. Dr. Andre Lalonde, a “senior Canadian doctor” expressed concern over Governor Sarah Palin’s decision to give birth to her down syndrome baby, Trig:

“But a senior Canadian doctor is now expressing concerns that such a prominent public role model as the governor of Alaska and potential vice president of the United States completing a Down syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality. And thereby reduce the number of abortions.

Published reports in Canada say about 9 out of 10 women given a diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy through abortion.”

The doctor’s practical reasoning hearkens back to ancient Greek attitudes towards a woman’s service to the state. In a country with nationalized health care, the state’s fiscal burden would skyrocket were those women to carry full term and raise special needs children. Children, mind you, who would not necessarily turn into the most physically productive members of the state.

It may sound cold and calculating, but Canadians aren’t the only ones expressing their displeasure in Palin’s decision. A series of liberal websites and personalities have criticized the Governor, claiming she only gave birth to her son for political purposes. Oddly enough, these politicos are the ones using Trig Palin to forward their own goddess feminist “War on Women” mentality. In fact, at only 4 years old, it is Trig Palin who has shed light on how very influential goddess feminism is regarding the role of women in society and in politics. For that reason alone every American woman should embrace the sanctity of life, beginning with their own.

“(Palin) did a disservice to every woman in America. She knew from the first month of pregnancy that kid was going to be Down’s Syndrome. It’s brain dead. A virtual vegetable. She carries it to all these different political events against abortion, she did it just because she didn’t want to say she’d had an abortion. How long is it going to live? Another 12, 15 years? Doesn’t even know it’s in this world. So what kind of compassionate conservative is she? I don’t think anybody will want her near the White House.” — Larry Flynt