Growing up in the 90s, feminism and "girl power" were practically thrown in my face every time I turned around, whether it was Hillary in her pants suits on TV, the Spice Girls singing about sisterhood, inspirational quotes about the "glass ceiling" on classroom posters, or every glossy cover of Cosmo insisting that I could do anything a man could do.
"The Future is Female." Or so I was told.
As it turns out, all of that comes with a little caveat: The Future is Female, but only if that female is a progressive who hates men and promotes a leftist agenda.
It's sort of like how the NAACP, whose mission is to "achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of black people and all persons of color," just endorsed the white Abigail Spanberger, who is running against a black candidate, Winsome Earle-Sears, for governor of Virginia.
The virtue signaling is conditional. You must read the fine print. Because, as it turns out, in the words of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, "There is nothing in this world the so-called 'feminists' hate more than conservative women."
Just last week, Sanae Takaichi became Japan's first female prime minster. She's got an impressive resume that includes both private and public sector careers, and even her list of hobbies is impressive. She's a drummer and pianist, a big rock and heavy metal fan, a Sommelier d'honneur, a car and motorcycle enthusiast, and a scuba diver, and she practices judo and karate.
This is the woman they told me about back in middle school! She broke the Japanese glass ceiling and then some. The feminists — and the MSM —should be celebrating, right? Nah. They reported on her new role with the excitement one gets before going to the dentist, making sure to add words and phrases like "hardline conservative," "ultraconservative," and "right-wing" to their headlines — little dog whistles to let their base know that while it might look right on paper, they're going to sit this one out.
The truth is that Takaichi is conservative on both political and social issues. She's also very pro-United States and, as we saw earlier this week, very pro-Donald Trump. The man spent a day with her in Tokyo and, by the end of it, they looked like they'd known each other for decades.
Related: Baseball Diplomacy: Trump & Japan's New Prime Minister Become Fast Friends
The same happened earlier this month when Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader who has dedicated most of her life to fighting communist dictators, won the Nobel Peace Prize. She's an engineer — girls in STEM! — who also started a charity for orphans in Caracas and a nonprofit election monitoring group in a country that was taken over by Hugo Chavez. Speaking of Chavez, she stood up in person and called him out to his face, and she eventually ran for political office herself.
If we lived in a fair world that was free of Communism and the dictators it creates, Machado would probably be president of Venezuela now. Instead, she's lived in hiding for over a year, separated from her family. If Maduro falls soon, she won't be president, but she'll be the face of the movement that finally relieved Venezuela of Chavismo, and she'll play a major role in the transition to a democratic government. Shouldn't we celebrate that?
But wait, she's in favor of free markets and private property, and she's also someone who is very pro-U.S. and promises that the two countries will become great allies once the Nicolas Maduro regime is gone. She even dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize to President Trump, and today I heard her on a podcast singing his praises. That made the feminists quite uncomfortable.
The same could be said for Giorgia Meloni, who became Italy's first female prime minister in 2022. Did the MSM throw a huge celebration? Of course not. Meloni has also been involved in politics and activism from a young age, but she stands on the wrong side of the aisle and gets the same "far-right" label treatment from the very women who should be celebrating her. As a leader, she's pro-life, pro-Italian sovereignty, and tough on immigration. She also believes there are only two genders and gender ideology shouldn't be forced upon schoolchildren.
And her biggest crime of all is that she has a great relationship with President Trump. You should see the two of them together.
All three of these women should be feminist icons. Instead, they're mocked, ignored, or placed under a microscope and questioned, depending on what day it is. They're beautiful, strong, and powerful world leaders who have fought against the odds and risen to the top. These are the women who lived in my imagination when I was a kid and everyone around me was preaching about the future being female. These are the role models I craved all my life.
I just never realized that when they materialized, they'd have an asterisk next to their names.
