Feminism and Conservative Women

This past week I was reviewing what I had written about throughout these last couple of weeks, and I realized something. I noticed that my posts had leaned more to the left, which I want to apologize for. I would like to remind everyone that feminists are people who believe in and fight for the equality of both sexes. Feminists do not only have to be women, and they do not have to be liberal. So, I decided to write about how young Republican women who believe in feminism feel about their place in society today.

An article from Public Radio International said that younger women tend to be more moderate with their beliefs and feel as though they do not fit in with the extreme views of both parties. Conservative women feel as though due to their party affiliation, they are somehow not for woman. In this article, a girl named Jami speaks up about the assumptions made by her peers when she labeled herself as a Republican. She said that they believed she was anti-abortion and against gay marriage, which is actually not the case. She said that she had been called “anti-women and anti-humane."Similarly, during the Women's March, pro-life women felt neglected by pro-choice women because they simply did not agree with them on one topic. As the author of this piece explains, if feminism is the fight for equality women should be able to make their own decisions politically. I agree with this completely, and I understand how upset some women must feel as they are put down constantly for what party they are affiliated with and are called horrible things because of their party's stereotypes. A woman or a man can be pro-gender equality while not agreeing with everything the current feminist movement is known for supporting. Patrice Onwuko who is a political strategist at the Independent Women’s Forum said that there are a lot of young conservative women who support the ideals of women empowerment but ask “where are the conservative voices?" The left has taken over the feminist ideology in current society and made these Republican women feel like they do not belong in the fight for equality as they are not Democrats. I hope that more people on the right can vocalize their pro-feminist beliefs so that younger conservative women will not feel cast aside, but ready to stand alongside other people to support all women.