The women's movement, which she helped found, has gone full circle and now excludes conservative women such as herself, lawyer and activist Cleta Mitchell writes in a New York Times opinion piece.
Mitchell notes that she helped found the Oklahoma Women’s Political Caucus as a college student in the early 1970s, and that the equal opportunities sought by women at the time have largely been achieved. Young women today need simply to walk through the doors she and others opened, she writes.
"The women's movement has ebbed because it succeeded," Mitchell says, but has now "has been so hijacked by post-millennium feminism that declaring victory is unforgivable."
The original fight was for "respecting women’s choices, whatever they may be," she said, but added that the modern women's movement doesn't respect those who choose not to go into business, politics or the media.
If they choose to be "moms and wives and attend Bible study or bake cookies, they are 'bitter clingers' and 'deplorable,'" she writes. "And if they happen to be conservative professional women, they are invisible."
The women's movement has become a "giant abortion-rights lobby," Mitchell said, "demanding abortion far beyond the Roe v. Wade trimester construct."
Women such as herself who oppose abortion are seen as opposing feminism, she said. "This is feminism today: abortion. No limits, no debate, no conversation. No nuances, no caveats, no tolerance."
In addition, the equal opportunities brought by Title IX legislation now actually allows men to compete — as women — in the same sports. And the actions are cheered by feminists, she said.
"The vestiges of a once proud women’s movement have deteriorated into a new politically correct tyranny where women are subjected to the presence of men in places that should be safe and should protect women’s privacy, like restrooms, all in the name of 'equality,'" Mitchell said.
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