Amy Coney Barrett Exposes Feminist Misogyny

Many people happily embrace Martin Luther King’s recommendation that we judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Strangely, these same people believe that it is a high crime, or perhaps a misdemeanor, to be judgemental. 

How do they reconcile these obviously contradictory positions? Obviously, they do not. That would require some real thinking, something that would seriously be beyond their ken.

Let’s take another self-evident truth. Feminists have long insisted that we judge women by their minds, not by their body parts or erogenous zones. About that no one would disagree. 

If women are to be judged by their minds Amy Coney Barrett should be every feminist’s wet dream. She is exceptionally intelligent, probably a genius. She is one of America’s greatest jurists. As opposed to say, Sonia Sotomayor, she was obviously not chosen to fulfill a few diversity quotas.

Yesterday, while Democrats were busy trotting out the talking points that they hope will win them the election, Barrett remained brilliant and composed, speaking without notes, before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats were reading statements prepared by staff and Barrett was speaking without notes.

Yes, I understand that famed Marxist socialist Nathan Robinson was not impressed by Barrett-- because he believed that she lacked something he called “virtue.” One does not understand what Robinson means by virtue-- presumably it involves Marxist policies that starve tens of millions of people to death-- but, those of who respect Robinson’s mind are still waiting for him to get over his adolescent infatuation with socialism.

In the realm of virtue, we note that, as Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman remarked in a column covered on this blog, Barrett is kind, courteous, considerate, congenial, and very easy to get along with. In the realm of civic virtue she stands out-- everyone who knows her likes her. All members of the Notre Dame law faculty endorsed her nomination to the court of appeals. She was consistently voted the best teacher by her law students. No one does not like her. No one does not admire her brilliance and her dedication.

No one except for a few cranky feminists, who have indulged in the worst kind of sexist attacks on ACB. Leave it to feminists to reduce women to their sexual organs. Doesn’t that tell us that feminists maintain a misogynist streak, that they do not like women, or they do not like being women?

Gay feminist Lauren Hough seems to have been looking for attention when she tweeted this bit of misogynist sexist drivel:

It’s a very weird thing to watch these old creeps congratulate a handmaid on her clown car vagina.

You can tell a lot about how a judge will rule by her fertility so I’m glad she’s already proven hers because the cervix check really shouldn’t be done live. But I’m excited for her to share her casserole recipe and some stain-removal tips.

You’ve come a long way, baby. Why should fertility be such a bad thing? If you thought that the feminist embrace of abortion on demand was about freedom to choose, you have just discovered that choosing the wrong way will earn you a mean girls tirade from a misogynist feminist.

Perhaps, it's all about resentment and envy. Why should Barrett have given birth to five children, when other women have none.

Jill Filipovic is seriously offended by the Barrett family. Her remarks are intellectually incoherent, but don’t worry about that. She wants us to ignore a woman’s achievements by focusing, like a laser beam on her private parts.

Washington Post contributor Jill Filipovic chimed in, mocking,  “It does seem telling that the Republicans who have spoken so far have emphasized Amy Coney Barrett’s fertility and family size. It’s almost like the message is, ok you’re a very successful Career Woman, but you’ve justified your selfish ambitions by having seven kids so it’s ok.”

Is there anything quite as unselfish as bringing up seven children. To those who have eyes to see, Barrett does not come across as ambitious-- no Hillary Clinton she. Barrett comes across as brilliant, perhaps beyond brilliant, so she is using her mind and her abilities to build a career. One that offends feminists.

In the matter of role models, I must disagree with those who consider Amy Coney Barrett a role model for women. In reality, she is an exceptional human being, a superwoman type, who manages to achieve things that other people cannot. One knows that she and her husband do not bring up their children without help. And one remarks that few men would be as cooperative as Jesse Barrett. 

When it comes to the question of having it all, I return to a point made by one Anne Marie Slaughter. See my posts here and here.

You will recall that Slaughter, then the head of policy planning in the Hillary State Department, chose to quit her job in order to care for her children. As it happened, when she ran off to Washington to work in the Obama administration, her older son had something of a meltdown. At age fourteen or so, he was suspended from school, started hanging around with the wrong people and got picked up by the police. Dare we mention that the Slaughter marriage was a role reversal of a sort, where her husband had taken on the lead parenting role.

Anyway, when Slaughter left her position to care for her children, she wrote about her decision in The Atlantic. She debunked the notion that women could have it all, but noted that there were some exceptional women out there who could have and do it all. As it happened, she was not of their company. Having to choose between her responsibility to her child and her responsibility to Hillary Clinton, she chose her child. One imagines that it was not a close call.

For her actions, Slaughter was wildly excoriated by the feminist mean girl contingent. She was denounced as a traitor to feminism and a traitor to all women. Obviously, it was excessive. The ladies protested too much. One woman, whose name I will leave out, was sensitive to the simple fact that trashing a woman’s character for placing childrearing ahead of career looked very bad indeed. So she deflected the issue and made it appear that she was torqued over Slaughter's bringing up the issue of whether a woman could have it all. By this mean girl’s lights, having it all was unrealistic and was being used as a sop to the patriarchy-- whatever that might mean.

In any event, we respect the difficult decisions women make. We ought all to be thrilled that an exceptional jurist like Amy Coney Barrett has constructed her life in a way that allows for childrearing and a brilliant career. But we ought to get over the notion that an exception can become the rule. It cannot. It will never be the rule.