I had something of a pleasant surprise today when I bimbled over to Burningbird to read some interesting stuff about blogging, interactivity, culture and business ... and found that she had seen Lauren's mention of my post that was a response to Liza's DailyKos post (reposted from her own site) about NARAL, women's equality and the Democratic party. Before getting into the heart of it, Shelley mentions:

The timing on reading this was a bit uncanny, as I had just finished watching the movie Iron Jawed Angels: the true story of Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and the fight for women’s suffrage back in the beginning of the last century. Burns and Page were also at odds with the leading women’s suffrage organization of the time (the National American Women’s Suffrage Association) and split off into a separate organization (the National Women’s Party), which supported more direct methods to work for the vote for women.

This context for the rest of Shelley's post is important, for it puts the Democrats' treatment of women and our "pet issues" in context as well.

To return to Liza and MediaGirl’s discussion, both seque into a strongly philisophical discussion of the nature of feminism, arguing whether it is post-modern/deconstructionist/post-structuralist, which is beyond this poor geek’s understanding of modern philosophy.

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to define what feminism is, but more to assert that feminism can't be defined by one philosophical view.

Anyway....Shelley then says:

What caught my interest the most, instead, was the writing at the end of MediaGirl’s post–when discussions focused on the fight for rights are sometimes seen as a splintering apart of the “progressive� movement.

In an excerpt from my post, she quotes me saying:

The Democrats have abandoned their position, and then used their retreat as justification for the abandonment. It’s not a popular fact, but you see it all the time these days in the “Do you want to be right or do you want to win?� arguments.

Yep. I said that. Then Shelley's post gets very interesting, for she connects today's shenanigans on the left regarding women's rights to the suffragist movement of the 1900s.

Back in the early 1900’s, women’s rights were tied into support for the Democratic party at the time, including support for Woodrow Wilson as President.

Burns and Page, though, refused to endorse Wilson because he had not followed through on a promise to bring about the vote for women. They so outraged the Democratic Party, which after all had counted on the women’s vote in those states where it was legal, that the Party hired counter-protestors to assure the populace that the rights of women were always on the minds of the DNC.

Not to be deterred, another method Burns and Paul devised to fight for women’s rights was based on tactics used in the suffrage movement in the UK. They started a silent protest out in front of the White House, the first of its kind practiced in the United States.

At first, there was much public support. It was a compelling protest with a simple message. But when the country entered WWI, everything changed. Shelley describes the horror:

The populace turned on the women protestors, accusing them of being traitors for not giving unquestioning loyalty to Wilson. The government arrested them on trumped up charges of obstructing traffic, and sentenced them to two months service in a working prison or ten dollars fine–expecting the women to pay the fine (and hopefully bankrupt the coffers of the organization). Instead, the women chose prison time, saying that to pay the fine would admit guilt and they were not guilty of anything but standing up for their rights. Over two hundred would end up serving sentences of several months duration in Occoquan, a work prison in Virginia.

By all accounts, Occoquan was a hell hole, and the women were demeaned and treated harshly, as if they were common criminals rather than political detainees. To protest the conditions in the prison, Paul went on a hunger strike and was eventually force fed. Others joined the strike and the publicity derived from their efforts and the treatment afforded them eventually forced Wilson into publicly leading the cause for an amendment granting women the right to vote–calling the move a needed “war measure�, to save face.

Now we find ourselves on the front lines of a new battle: women's equality. We Americans like to say that women are equal, but a small but powerful minority is set to make fertile women into breeder slaves of the state, with no authority over their own bodies.

And now that the Democratic Party as dropped the Equal Rights Amendment from it's platform, there's a new push to embrace the Democrats for Life, who advocate, among other things, laws to "Prohibit transporting a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion. Makes an exception if the abortion was necessary to save the life of the minor." (That's right, mom. Uncle Porkbarrel knows better than you what's best for your daughter.)

Who speaks for women? It seems that the Dems and their defenders are falling over themselves to abdicate that responsibility. The Asses want to join the Elephants in the coathanger parade.

The real joke is that they expect us to join in the festivities.

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media girl also blogs at other places.