That's the motto
of the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW), a fledgling
college group in Virginia that wants to change the campus
culture of feminism and challenge the agenda of groups such
as the National Organization for Women, which has more than
100 official and unofficial campus chapters in the nation.
Staking out turf
for more traditionally minded women, members of the startup
-- who number between 20 and 30 -- have not formulated a
collective issue agenda but do consider themselves social
conservatives. As such, they tend to oppose policies
backed by their feminist peers who, for instance, campaign
for women in military combat roles and celebrate The Vagina
Monologues.
The founder and president of the group, fourth-year Karin
Agness, is a history major and aspiring lawyer. She
hopes to influence the agenda of the campus women's studies
department, which she says ignores conservative women and
their views in syllabi and in class discussions.
Agness also hopes to get more press in school publications
for women who hold conservative views on personal and
political issues.
The result of the virtual invisibility of conservative women
at UVA, she and others argue, is the perpetuation of harmful
gender-based myths, such as the assumption that women can
find success only in the workplace -- not in the home -- and
that the traditional family headed by a heterosexual couple
is "dead."
They say a liberal orthodoxy in women's studies classes
unfairly paints men as evil and society as an oppressive
patriarchy, and ignores differences between the sexes.
"In the women's studies department, they're not focusing at
all on children," Agness says. "Simply put, they say
all women should be CEOs and presidents and lawyers and
doctors. They don't include anything about children
and husbands. They're not talking about how to balance
work and family."
Agness hopes the group will serve as a sanctuary from
college Republican and other conservative clubs, which she
says tend to be male-dominated, career-oriented, and not
focused on issues of concern to women.
After spending the summer of 2004 as an intern on Capitol
Hill, Agness began to search for a group that would address
her interests as a traditionally minded woman. When
she didn't find one, she started up her own. It's
structured as an informal book club that features works
about conservative women and hosts speakers. Members
had their first meeting last year and met regularly while
school was in session. The group has had two meetings this
year.
"Now, fortunately we have a conservative women's club," says
Phyllis Schlafly, head of the right-wing Eagle Forum in
Alton, Illinois, and an outspoken critic of women's studies
programs. "Of course they're not for women at all,"
she says of the programs. "They're just for their own
intolerant, radical feminist and usually lesbian beliefs."
Following Agness' lead, women at the College of William &
Mary, and at Iowa's Drake University have started up their
own NeW chapters. Agness says she's working with other
women to help them inaugurate more chapters on campuses this
fall.
Despite its name, NeW's mission is not new. It aligns
itself with organizations such as the Clare Boothe Luce
Policy Institute, the Independent Women's Forum, and
Concerned Women for America, all of which are organizations
in and around Washington, D.C., that have tried to reach out
to college-aged women for years.
What is novel, however, is that this group appears to be run
for and by college-age women.
Supporters say the group is the natural outgrowth of an
emboldened religious right that now exerts strong influence
over the White House and both chambers of Congress, and is
further energized by conservative radio and television news
programs that have mushroomed over the past decade.
"I think there's a new openness and a new conversation about
having groups represent different women, since clearly those
old-guard groups don't represent all women," says Carrie
Lukas of the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Women's
Forum. "The National Organization for Women doesn't
speak for most women."
Attack on Progressive Culture
Critics depict
the group as the latest attack on progressive culture in the
United States. First came welfare, they say, then came
media, and now the target is academia.
"How much can they continue to go after the welfare state
and the liberal media when it's kind of obvious to most
Americans that they dismantled the welfare state and there
is no liberal media?" says Esther Kaplan, author of With God
on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled
Science, Policy and Democracy in George W. Bush's White
House.
Martha Burk, chair of the Washington, D.C.-based National
Council of Women's Organizations, agrees.
"Conservatives have been taking on women's studies
departments ever since women's studies departments existed.
It's part of larger strategy by conservative forces in
society to legitimize their own point of view," she says.
While NeW is still quite small, some say it could grow fast.
Katie Blouse, the 20-year-old president of the NOW
chapter at Rutgers University, says she doesn't think it
would be "too much of a jump" for a group like NeW to start
a chapter even on her strongly liberal campus in New Jersey.
Suzannah Porter, the 28-year-old president of NOW New
Jersey, agrees that right-wing campus groups have become
more vocal in recent years, energized by conservative and
Republican groups that are funneling millions of dollars to
college groups to tilt opinion in their favor.
Students for Academic Freedom, based in Washington, D.C., is
one such group. It opposes the sway of liberal thought
on college campuses -- especially in women's studies and
English literature departments -- by pushing colleges and
universities to adopt an "Academic Bill of Rights."
The bill requires professors to teach a wider range of
viewpoints on a given subject, avoid controversial issues
unless they are germane to the course's subject matter, and
end what some say are unfair grades for conservative
students.
Still, Porter is not overly concerned about NeW
gaining the upper hand on campus.
The current generation of students is "far more progressive
than previous generations," she says, noting that the
majority of college students favor reproductive choice and
are comfortable with same-sex marriage and interracial
relationships.
To bolster her case, she points to last year's March for
Women's Lives, a reproductive rights rally in Washington,
D.C., that organizers said drew more than one million
participants.
"Give 'em 10, 20 years and the neoconservative movement is
going to be really hurting," she says. "I really think
the majority of today's students, especially women, don't
buy into it."
This story originally appeared in the September 8 edition of
an online magazine called Women's eNews.
FEATUREWELL@FEATUREWELL.COM
(Emphasis added.)
