The Arrogance Of Feminist Leaders

Arrogance

“an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes
from believing that you are better, smarter,
or more important than other people”

Since the late 1980s, I have become more and more dissatisfied with the words and actions of feminist leaders. Recently, I was going through old files and found a paper I had written in grad school about the differences between pro-choice leaders and pro-life leaders. I wrote this paper at the encouragement of a male professor who considered himself a feminist. While the male feminist professor found some faults in my paper, he also found good points.

I showed my paper to a female feminist professor, who wrote her own comments. I had forgotten how shocking her comments were. Her comments reveal feminist leader arrogance. Below are two excerpts from my paper, the comments from both professors, and my responses to the female feminist professor’s comments. Also below is the female feminist professor’s final overall comment with my responses to each revealing statement in her final comment.

I gave one copy of my paper to both professors. The female feminist professor read the male feminist professor’s comments as she read my paper.

In my paper I cited research from a PhD dissertation by Marsha Vanderford Doyle, now Marsha Vanderford. Vanderford compared the words and actions of pro-life organizations and pro-choice organizations. It is one of the most revealing works I have ever read. I still have the copy I bought for my grad course. I also included excerpts from fundraising letters sent by Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women (NOW).

My paper is not dated, but I must have written it in the early 1990s because that’s when I was in grad school.

 

First Excerpt From My Paper
(Based on Vanderford’s Research)

“It is easily apparent that activists in the pro-choice movement are still the organizations and their officers. Individual pro-choice supporters are not encouraged to take any initiative, to perform any action on their own, or to give their own opinion of what could be done to keep abortion legal.”

Male Feminist Professor’s Comment

“Good”

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“Did anyone prevent you from writing them a letter?”

My Response

I did write Ms. Magazine three times in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I have written the National Organization for Women several times in recent years. I emailed a question to a Minnesota NOW chapter. When the Minnesota chapter’s response proved that I had not written my question clearly, I sent another email. I did not receive another response. Then I sent emails to every single NOW chapter in the country. Despite the use of “National” in it’s title, NOW does not have chapters in every state. I exchanged two or three emails with the president of one state chapter. She decided that since she was satisfied with her experience in NOW, nothing I wrote about my experience could be true.

 

Second Excerpt From My Paper

“In reading Vanderford’s dissertation and the mailings from Planned Parenthood and NOW, I was struck by some ironies — each group encourages behavior in its supporters that is the opposite of its approach to reproductive rights.

The pro-life side wants to severely restrict women’s reproductive choices, but in terms of pro-life activism, pro-life leaders encourage individual choice of action. The pro-choice side wants to guarantee a full range of reproductive choices for women, but the pro-choice leaders gave supporters few choices of action.”

Male Feminist Professor’s Comment

“Good”

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“Might those choices be the crucial ones?”

My Response

If the choices feminist leaders gave pro-choice supporters for activism were indeed the “crucial ones”, then abortion services would be available around the country. Instead, abortion services were available in 13% of all counties in the country the last time I saw a statistic. Plus, where abortion services are available, restrictions make getting an abortion extremely difficult. It does not matter that abortion is legal to women who cannot get an abortion.

On December 12, 2013, I received a mass email from NOW President Terry O’Neill asking for an end of the year donation. This was her first paragraph:

2013 was a hard year on reproductive rights; states passed nearly
100 restrictions on abortion and 11 states enacted outright abortion
bans that directly violate Roe v. Wade.

If the choices feminist leaders make are the “crucial ones”, why did those choices fail to stop nearly 100 new restrictions in several states and new bans in 11 states?

NOW President Terry O’Neill sent another email on December 16, 2013 to provide even more evidence of how ineffective NOW’s “crucial” choices are:

Conservative extremists spent most of 2013 attacking access to
abortion all over the country. And it’s only going to get worse in 2014.

All year we’ve seen Tea Party ideologues systematically undermine our
constitutionally protected right to abortion. This means that:

•  States passed nearly 100 anti-choice laws in 2013, on top of
hundreds more passed in 2012 and 2011.

•  23 states have passed restrictions on private insurance coverage
for abortion.

•  55% of women of reproductive age live in one of the 26 states that
are hostile to abortion rights.

•  87% of counties don’t have an abortion provider.

•  9 out of 10 abortion clinics experience harassment.

The pro-life side keeps winning because feminist leaders do not know how to make the crucial choices and do not learn from their failures.

This would be a good time for NOW President Terry O’Neill to pause and consider this saying from Albert Einstein:

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.”

Female Feminist Professor’s Final Comments

“You don’t make your case at all. You seem unfamiliar with such publications as Conscience or even Ms.

You ignore the fact that it takes a certain intellectual sophistication to be pro-choice whereas the anti’s have that vast wasteland of obedient women with time on their hands who are given something to do — however ineffectual it is. The anti-abortionists haven’t won because they’ve won the support of vast numbers of people. They’ve won because Reagan and Bush packed the Supreme Court — and Reagan and Bush won because they’ve vast sums of money from the super rich whose empires they serve — and which they’ve spent on racist appeals. They are anti-abortion only because that brings them vast sums from the Catholic Bishops Conference and about 10% of the vote. If the terrorists in the hierarchy abandoned their position that 10% would be gone in a minute.

How the fundamentalists vote has nothing to do with all the busy work they’re given to do and their leaders know it. It’s the keys of the kingdom notion that bullies them into being anti-abortion. The pro-choice leaders don’t insult us with the busy-work encouragement. Their request is honest and straightforward. I’ve lived through the history of the movement and know the organizations grew and were formed by women’s views that are always in process of reshaping themselves through a whole raft of publications. There’s been no repression at all. There is none now — you can correspond with any of them. You can join NOW and create local “actions”. NOW has encouraged its members to do so at every level. The problem is that the Vanderford study is far too narrow to have said anything meaningful about either side. The rhetoric of the pro-choice side should not be defined by letters requesting money. We don’t have access to the fortunes that Reagan and Bush have had.”

My Responses

Female feminist professor’s comment:

“…that vast wasteland of obedient women with time on their hands who are given something to do — however ineffectual it is.”

My Response

If what pro-life women do is so ineffectual, how did they succeed at imposing nearly 100 new restrictions on abortions in several states and new abortion bans in 11 states?

Note that the feminist professor ignores the pro-life men who take action. Vanderford wrote about men and in my paper I quoted one of her references to male pro-life activists.

Plus, feminist organizations like NOW are not reshaping. Older, white feminist leaders are refusing to include or pass power to younger women and women of color.

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“You seem unfamiliar with…Ms.“

My Responses

I subscribed to Ms. Magazine for more than 10 years. I wrote my first letter to Ms. with coworkers at a women’s resource center to protest an ad for Absolut vodka. The ad showed a woman who was obviously wearing only a tee shirt. The label of an Absolut bottle was reproduced on the tee shirt. The woman stood with her feet wide apart and her mouth open as she pulled the shirt down to just barely cover her crotch. It was a woman-as-sex-object full-page ad in the leading feminist magazine. I made a copy of the ad and still have it.

I wrote my second letter to Ms. Magazine to protest a 1988 article, “The Women (and Men) Who Made Us Laugh, Cheer, Cry, and Cringe in 1988”. Under the heading “Women We’ve Seen Quite Enough Of”, feminist writers Nina Combs and Mary Suh insulted the following women:

Brigitte Nielsen (insinuated she was a dog)

Tammy Faye Bakker (made fun of her makeup)

Jessica Hahn (rehashed the incident with Jim Bakker)

Robin Givens, who divorced boxer Mike Tyson after he physically
abused her (asked if she married Tyson for his money)

Elvira (for showing cleavage)

Other insultees included Ivana Trump, Imelda Marcos, Leona Helmsley,
and Nancy Reagan.

Combs and Suh could write this article only because Ms. editors gave the two feminist writers permission to insult other women.

I wrote my third letter to Ms. Magazine after reading an article which quoted Gloria Steinem as saying. “The only alternative to feminism is masochism.” I later heard her repeat that statement in a television interview. I thought feminism was about giving women choices, but Gloria Steinem repeatedly tells women that their only choice is to accept her definition of the world. I stopped my subscription to Ms. and stopped calling myself a feminist. Now I define myself as an equality advocate. I advocate for equality between women, between men, and between men and women.

I never received any response from anyone at Ms. Magazine.

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“You ignore the fact that it takes a certain intellectual sophistication to be pro-choice…”

My Response

Apparently, feminist leaders did not condescend to respond to my letters and emails because I was too intellectually unsophisticated to recognize their intellectual sophistication.

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“…that vast wasteland of obedient women with time on their hands…”

My Response

I hope I do not have to explain how incredibly insulting this statement is. A good friend of mine is pro-life. She has never had time on her hands. Her “wasteland” is the same university where the female feminist professor taught until her retirement. She was raised Lutheran, not Catholic.

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“How the fundamentalists vote has nothing to do with all the busy work they’re given to do…”

My Response

The female feminist professor shows her arrogance in assuming she knows why pro-life women (and the pro-life men she refuses to recognize) vote pro-life. As for “busy work”, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) told its supporters to take action in their daily lives. Supporters chose what to do. In her dissertation, Marsha Vanderford wrote that pro-life leaders encouraged supporters to use:

“…the best of their abilities in their own special circumstances for the cause. Art teachers were reported designing Christmas cards to be sold for the benefit of the cause. Individuals wrote pro-life poetry and songs which were published in local newspapers and played on local radio stations. Housewives crocheted “for life” and contributed their products to craft sales benefiting the state office… From baking cookies to advising the governor, pro-lifers were working on many fronts to defeat the enemy.”

“The variety of acts described as connected to success for the cause allowed a wide range of individuals with many interests and abilities to weave pro-life action into their daily lives.”

These quotes were in my paper. Do you see the “busy work” the female feminist professor saw?

Vanderford pointed out that pro-choice leaders limited actions to courts and legislatures. It’s much easier to define supporters as intellectually inferior when you take action where they have little or no experience. It’s also easier to define anything other than courtroom or legislative tactics as “busy work”. For pro-choice leaders, it’s all about controlling what supporters say and do so leaders can satisfy their own desires. Pro-life leaders obviously have no need to control their supporters. They encourage true grassroots action: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Pro-life supporters did what they could, with what they had, where they were. Their small actions added up to big limitations on abortion access around the country. Pro-life supporters are still doing what they can, with what they have, where they are. Their small actions will continue adding up to big limitations on abortion access around the country.

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“I’ve lived through the history of the movement and know the organizations grew and were formed by women’s views that are always in process of reshaping themselves through a whole raft of publications.”

My Response

I’ve lived through verbal and emotional abuse from a different feminist professor as well as from two directors and two co-directors at a women’s resource center. I have talked to other women who endured abuse from directors of women’s resource centers. I hope that not all directors of such centers are abusive. However, my experience tells me that women who want power for themselves see the director position as a way to get power. Since their concern is their own personal power rather than equality for all women, they verbally and emotionally abuse women who threaten their power by expecting equality. I endured the worst abuse from a women’s resource center director when another staffer and I tried to create equality within the resource center.

And who is writing for the “raft of publications”? Feminists like Nina Combs and Mary Suh?

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“You can join NOW and create local “actions. NOW has encouraged its members to do so at every level.”

My Response

I was a member of NOW for one year when I still considered myself a feminist. Monthly meetings were dictated by the national office. I remember being bored.

I started regularly visiting NOW’s website in 2003. I signed up for emails from NOW in 2008. The emails have never encouraged me to take action. They have never defined me as an activist. After receiving an email asking for money to train “up and coming activists”, I sent an email asking how someone became an activist. I received no response. I could find nothing on their website about becoming an activist. NOW has a secret means of choosing activists to be part of their “dedicated network of grassroots activists”.

Almost every email I receive from NOW asks for money. I receive more fundraising emails from NOW than from any other nonprofit that has my email address. It seems that a high percentage of the money NOW raises goes to training activists, who travel around the country for their training. When they spend training weekends together they socialize with each other. NOW denies that training and socializing to the women who pay the bills.

In contrast, MCCL organizes a “Fall Tour” that “delivers pro-life education in abortion, health care, legislation and other issues throughout Minnesota.” MCCl also describes their Fall Tour as “pro-life education direct to you”. Anyone can attend. And during the 2012 presidential campaign, the conservative group Smart Girl Politics offered several levels of free online activist training for anyone who wanted to take it.

Female Feminist Professor’s Comment

“The problem is that the Vanderford study is far too narrow to have said anything meaningful about either side.”

My Response

Time proves that the female feminist professor also insulted Marsha Vanderford. The Quarterly Journal of Speech published an article Vanderford wrote based on her dissertation. Also, the magazine Psychology Today hosts a Birth of Wisdom blog. In 2011, the blog published a post that cited Vanderford’s article.

Women who lead feminist organizations (the Women’s Resource Center of my experience, Ms., NOW) and women who believe in the leaders of feminist organizations (the female feminist professor) tend to see themselves as intellectually superior to other women. They see their perspective as the only valid perspective. They use insults and emotional abuse to prove their superiority and protect their superior positions.

Feminist leaders also use exclusion. Do the female feminist professor’s comments indicate that she wants equality for the “vast wasteland of obedient” pro-life women? Do the insults in Ms. Magazine indicate that Ms. editors and writers want equality for the women they insulted? Does NOW’s practice of excluding ordinary NOW members from the training and socializing they pay for suggest that NOW wants equality for ordinary NOW members?

Camille Paglia has a different perspective on feminism than Gloria Steinem has. Steinem said about Paglia, “We don’t give a shit what she thinks!” Does Steinem’s comment suggest that she wants equality for Paglia?

I don’t agree with everything feminist leaders say and do, but I know that all of them deserve equality with other women as women and that other women deserve equality with them as women.

Feminist leaders reveal their arrogance with their feelings of intellectual sophistication. Their arrogance creates inequality for every woman they consider their intellectual inferior. Arrogant feminist leaders create inequality between women while they claim to be creating equality between men and women. Gloria Steinem arrogantly claims that “The only alternative to feminism is masochism.” I see another alternative — freedom from the insults and abuse arrogant feminist leaders use to create and maintain inequality between women.

Fundraising emails from feminist leaders also reveal their arrogance by letting supporters know they are too intellectually inferior to do much more than send money. NOW President Terry O’Neill is fond of writing things like:

“With your support, the NOW Foundation can mobilize our vast
network of allies and activists…”
December 31, 2012

“With your generous support, we can ramp up our state-by-state
initiatives…”
August 27, 2013

“Your donation today will help us…”
October 29, 2013

“In just the past two years, you have helped us defeat anti-abortion
ballot measures…”
November 14, 2013

“With your support, the NOW Foundation can mobilize our network
of allies and activists…”
December 29, 2013

NOW is so suspicious of its supporters’ intellectual capacity, that it decided it had to make sure supporters could remember where they were on the Internet when they visited NOW’s website. The website has fewer identifiers since I wrote the blog post counting the number of identifiers at now.org. NOW also apparently thinks supporters are too intellectually inferior to remember who the current president of NOW is. NOW President Terry O’Neill does not like to be caught without her title, even at the NOW website. When Kim Gandy was president of NOW, she made sure “NOW President Kim Gandy” appeared frequently on NOW’s home page. I once counted “NOW President Kim Gandy” eight times on the home page. Since I started writing about this title glorification, “NOW President Terry O’Neill” appears less often on NOW’s home page and I have seen just “Terry O’Neill” once, but now I don’t remember where.

Other feminist leaders are just as arrogant. In a fundraising letter from about 1990, Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) founder Eleanor Smeal went so far as to underline the intellectual inferiority of pro-choice supporters:

“at least four times a year we’ll notify you of pending actions nationally
and locally and let you know what action steps you can take.”

Equality between men and women will follow equality between women. Either those intellectually sophisticated feminist leaders keep missing that, or they are seeking equality only for intellectually sophisticated women like themselves.

To say it another way, either feminist leaders are not as intellectually sophisticated as they think they are, or they consider large numbers of women too intellectually unsophisticated to deserve equality.

The only way feminist leaders can prove they are not arrogant is to create equality between themselves and every other woman on the planet. Nina Combs, Mary Suh, and the editors of Ms. Magazine could begin by making both personal and public apologies to the women they insulted. NOW President Terry O’Neill could begin by asking ordinary women who have been successfully active in their own communities to set up free online training courses through NOW for any woman who wants to take them. Eleanor Smeal could begin by asking women to do what they can, with what they’ve got, where they are. Gloria Steinem could begin by acknowledging that feminists have been abusing other women since the 1960s. Note that abuse between feminists even has its own word — “trashing”. Steinem could also demonstrate what equality between women means by looking for areas of agreement with Camille Paglia and engaging in a respectful discussion. If Paglia is not respectful to Steinem, she will only reveal that she creates inequality between women.

What justification do any of these feminists leaders have for not taking these steps? Maybe they’ll make excuses the way the female feminist professor did when she wrote that the pro-choice side doesn’t “have access” to “fortunes”. Writing poems for newspapers or songs for the radio requires fortunes? The pro-life side had more money because pro-life leaders encouraged their members to take their own actions (designing Christmas cards, making crafts, baking cookies) to raise money for the cause.

Marsha Vanderford found that when pro-choice tactics did not succeed, pro-choice leaders blamed the supporters they kept silent and passive until the leaders wanted support.  Pro-choice leaders blamed failures on ordinary pro-choice supporters who did not send enough money, who failed to be persistent (which mostly meant failing to write the letters pro-choice leaders told them to write), or who stopped believing in success. Watch for those excuses in any response from the feminist leaders I wrote about here.

I sent emails to FMF, Ms., and NOW to let them know the title and publication date of this post. Only the national NOW office responded to me. It was the first time they responded after years of my attempts to contact them. Their response gave me more evidence to use against them, and they don’t even know what they gave me.

So much for that intellectual sophistication.

“Cliquish, tunnel-vision intolerance afflicts too many feminists”
Deborah Coughlin
Teri’s Hearstrongs
July 14, 2014

“The complexities of abortion”
Bertha Alvarez Manninen
Psychology Today” The Birth of Wisdom Blog
June 9, 2011

*In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Group
in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
Quotes on 208-209 and 244
Leaders blaming pro-choice supporters on 327

“Feminist “OMG!!” Moment: Meeting Gloria Steinem”
Williams Women’s Center: Bringing Feminism to the Purple Bubble
October 24, 2010

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“TRASHING: The Dark Side of Sisterhood”
Joreen
Ms. Magazine
April 1976: pages 49-51 and 92-98

“Vilification and social movements: A case study of pro-life and pro-choice rhetoric”
Marsha L. Vanderford
Quarterly Journal of Speech
Volume 75, Issue 2, 1989

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an American, I have freedom of speech.

As a woman, I have the right to express my opinion about anything the National Organization for Women claims to do for women.

In 2016, I started adding the section below to all of my new Feminist Leader blog posts. I also added it to all posts published before 2016.

The National Organization For Women
Silences Women

National NOW has blocked me on its Facebook page. I wrote comments based on my blog posts. All of my blog posts are based on a wide variety of evidence. Much of the evidence comes from National NOW’s website, emails and posts from NOW presidents, and emails from NOW staff members. I use no hostile language, no slurs, no profanity. I do use the phrase “glory addicts” in reference to NOW leaders. I also use “glory addiction”, “glory fixes”, and “a dedicated network of glory addicts”. Dr. Marsha Vanderford (Doyle) identified the glory needs of pro-choice leaders in her 1982 dissertation.

Feminist leaders have been silencing women for decades. bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf got together for a conversation that was published in Ms. Magazine in 1993. The discussion included why women choose not to call themselves feminists. Did these four feminist leaders working for women’s equality ask women who choose not to call themselves feminist to speak for themselves? Of course not! The four feminist leaders silenced millions of women by speaking for them without first requesting permission to speak for them.

Imagine a group of women who choose not to call themselves feminists getting together for a conversation to be published in a magazine about why some women call themselves feminists. Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree with nonfeminist women denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves? Of course not! Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree that nonfeminist women had the right to speak for feminist women without their permission? Of course not!

hooks, Steinem Vaid, and Wolf could have created equality between women. They could have provided a platform for women who choose not to call themselves feminist to explain their choice in their own words.

My feminist leader blog posts provide evidence that feminist leaders still create glory for themselves while relegating supporters to “secondary importance”. Dr. Vanderford used the words “relegated” and “secondary importance” in her dissertation. Eoin Harnett of University College Cork in Ireland used the same “secondary importance” phrase:

“Throughout the ages, women were frequently characterised
and treated as inferior and of secondary importance to men.”

NOW leaders even relegated two of their supporters to secondary importance. The supporters responded to my last two comments on National NOW’s Facebook page with comments supporting NOW. NOW leaders silenced those supporters by removing their comments along with my comments. Instead of creating equality, NOW leaders treat other women the same way patriarchal men treat women, as inferior and of secondary importance.

In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Groups in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
(Now Marsha Vanderford)
Quoted words on page 350.

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“Multitext Project in Irish History: Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870-1914”
Eoin Hartnett
University College Cork, Ireland
No date
This project is no longer available online.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Soft Skill Power Strategies For Attracting Unimagined Success

softskillstrategycourses.com

Facebook Page

Women Speaking Equality

Standards For Success Posters

Girl Grit

Girl Goodwill

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

When Will Feminist Leaders Do What They Expect Male Politicians To Do?

National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O’Neill published an article at huffingtonpost.com with this title:

“The Republican War on Women Can Be Blocked at the Ballot Box.”

O’Neill begins her article with this question:

Question: How do you get politicians to pay attention to
issues that matter to women?

I have a question for NOW President Terry O’Neill (O’Neill prefers to identify herself with her full title):

Question: How do you get feminist leaders to pay attention to
issues that matter to women?

These are some of the issues that matter to women but feminist leaders ignore:

Example #1

In an article about young feminists in the November 2010 issue of More Magazine Jessica Valenti spoke about her experience working for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. She told More: “Whenever there was a photo opportunity, all the young women and women of color would be ushered to the front. But when it came to inviting us to important meetings, that just wasn’t happening. When push came to shove, no one really cared what our opinions were.”

Example #2

In a letter in the November 2008 issue of More Magazine, Lydia Guy Ortiz wrote that she worked daily for feminist causes, but was “rewarded by a movement that does not value the complexity of my life experience.” She ended her letter by saying that the “traditional rhetoric doesn’t include me.”

Ortiz, Lydia Guy
Letters column under “(S)he Said, She Said”
More Magazine
November 2008, page 10

Example #3

During a LinkedIn discussion on feminism, one participant wrote that she found Ms. Magazine to be elitist. “In fact, I found more articles relevant to being a woman in current society in magazines like Family Circle and Woman’s Day than I did in Ms.”

Example #4

Ona Anosike wrote that she feels “marginalized” by current feminism “because I do not see myself, my stories, or the stories of the people I am surrounded by in life”.

Examples #5 & #6

Two women responded to the same blog post:

firetyger wrote this comment:

“The current feminist movement makes me feel completely alienated as a woman. I don’t want to be a part of their group think.  I’m very independent and I don’t appreciate being put down for being more egalitarian.”

mtngirlsouth wrote that feminists treated her as “somehow less intelligent” because she wanted to stay home with her children. She also wrote that she could never understand why to feminists “equality was supposed to [sic] actually mean superior.

Example #7

In January 2010 I wrote NOW a long letter about the issues that matter to me. I never received any response.

 

Implications

I respect the intelligence of men. I think many men are intelligent enough and perceptive enough to recognize that normal procedure in feminist strategy means ignoring the issues that matter to a wide variety of women. Why should male politicians pay attention to issues that matter to feminist leaders when they see feminist leaders ignoring issues that matter women?

“The Republican War on Women Can Be Blocked at the Ballot Box”
Terry O’Neill
Huffington Post
November 25, 2013

“What the New Feminists Look Like”
More Magazine News & Politics Editors
November 2010

“Why I Stopped Calling Myself A Feminist”
galadrial
galadrial’s Xanga Site
September 2, 2011

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an American, I have freedom of speech.

As a woman, I have the right to express my opinion about anything the National Organization for Women claims to do for women.

In 2016, I started adding the section below to all of my new Feminist Leader blog posts. I also added it to all posts published before 2016.

The National Organization For Women
Silences Women

National NOW has blocked me on its Facebook page. I wrote comments based on my blog posts. All of my blog posts are based on a wide variety of evidence. Much of the evidence comes from National NOW’s website, emails and posts from NOW presidents, and emails from NOW staff members. I use no hostile language, no slurs, no profanity. I do use the phrase “glory addicts” in reference to NOW leaders. I also use “glory addiction”, “glory fixes”, and “a dedicated network of glory addicts”. Dr. Marsha Vanderford (Doyle) identified the glory needs of pro-choice leaders in her 1982 dissertation.

Feminist leaders have been silencing women for decades. bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf got together for a conversation that was published in Ms. Magazine in 1993. The discussion included why women choose not to call themselves feminists. Did these four feminist leaders working for women’s equality ask women who choose not to call themselves feminist to speak for themselves? Of course not! The four feminist leaders silenced millions of women by speaking for them without first requesting permission to speak for them.

Imagine a group of women who choose not to call themselves feminists getting together for a conversation to be published in a magazine about why some women call themselves feminists. Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree with nonfeminist women denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves? Of course not! Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree that nonfeminist women had the right to speak for feminist women without their permission? Of course not!

hooks, Steinem Vaid, and Wolf could have created equality between women. They could have provided a platform for women who choose not to call themselves feminist to explain their choice in their own words.

My feminist leader blog posts provide evidence that feminist leaders still create glory for themselves while relegating supporters to “secondary importance”. Dr. Vanderford used the words “relegated” and “secondary importance” in her dissertation. Eoin Harnett of University College Cork in Ireland used the same “secondary importance” phrase:

“Throughout the ages, women were frequently characterised
and treated as inferior and of secondary importance to men.”

NOW leaders even relegated two of their supporters to secondary importance. The supporters responded to my last two comments on National NOW’s Facebook page with comments supporting NOW. NOW leaders silenced those supporters by removing their comments along with my comments. Instead of creating equality, NOW leaders treat other women the same way patriarchal men treat women, as inferior and of secondary importance.

In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Groups in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
(Now Marsha Vanderford)
Quoted words on page 350.

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“Multitext Project in Irish History: Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870-1914”
Eoin Hartnett
University College Cork, Ireland
No date
This project is no longer available online.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Soft Skill Power Strategies For Attracting Unimagined Success

softskillstrategycourses.com

Facebook Page

Women Speaking Equality

Standards For Success Posters

Girl Grit

Girl Goodwill

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

Why Do Feminist Leaders Think You Can’t Remember Where You Are On The Internet?

NOW‘s website has been revamped
since I wrote this blog post.

Smart Girl Politics Action no longer exists,
but Smart Girl Politics still exists.
It has also been revamped.

The National Organization for Women must think you and I are incapable of remembering where we are on the Internet.

I visit now.org occasionally to see what they write about. Every time I visit, I am astonished at how often I see a National Organization for Women identifier on the home page.

On April 26, 2013, I decided to count.

“National Organization for Women”        2 times
NOW Logo                                                    13 times
“NOW”                                                          25 times
“National Now”                                             2 times
“NationalNow”                                             11 times

On the same day I went to the home page of the conservative Smart Girl Politics Action site, sgpaction.com (no longer up), and counted.

“SGP”                                                               1 time
“Smart Girl Politics Action”                        1 time
“SBN”                                                               1 time
“SGS13”                                                           3 times

That’s 53 National Organization for Women identifiers versus 6 Smart Girl Politics Action identifiers.

NOW leaders expect their followers to remain silent and passive. The NOW home page is about what NOW and its leaders are saying and doing.

SGPA leaders expect their followers to be vocal and active. The SGPA home page is about what ordinary women are saying and doing.

NOW leaders apparently consider their followers so intellectually inferior that they need constant reminders to remember where they are on the Internet. SGPA leaders obviously see their followers as intellectually equal.

To those of you who have the same political beliefs as NOW, you may want to ask NOW leaders why they think you can’t remember where you are on the Internet.

To those of you who have the same political beliefs as SGPA, congratulations on receiving the respect and support all women deserve!

 

September 14, 2015 Update

NOW’s new website still has more identifiers than SGP’s new website. Pay attention to how many times you see NOW identifiers in the changing photographs at the top of the page. The changing photographs at SGP’s website are all about issues, not about SGP.

NOW leaders provide glory for themselves. SGP leaders provide information for ordinary conservative women. SGP did not help Mitt Romney win in 2012, but they are helping ordinary conservative women take action to advance conservative policies as part of their daily lives. Think restrictions on reproductive health care.

Perhaps you should ask the National Organization for Women why conservative leaders create more equality between women than feminist leaders.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an American, I have freedom of speech.

As a woman, I have the right to express my opinion about anything the National Organization for Women claims to do for women.

In 2016, I started adding the section below to all of my new Feminist Leader blog posts. I also added it to all posts published before 2016.

The National Organization For Women
Silences Women

National NOW has blocked me on its Facebook page. I wrote comments based on my blog posts. All of my blog posts are based on a wide variety of evidence. Much of the evidence comes from National NOW’s website, emails and posts from NOW presidents, and emails from NOW staff members. I use no hostile language, no slurs, no profanity. I do use the phrase “glory addicts” in reference to NOW leaders. I also use “glory addiction”, “glory fixes”, and “a dedicated network of glory addicts”. Dr. Marsha Vanderford (Doyle) identified the glory needs of pro-choice leaders in her 1982 dissertation.

Feminist leaders have been silencing women for decades. bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf got together for a conversation that was published in Ms. Magazine in 1993. The discussion included why women choose not to call themselves feminists. Did these four feminist leaders working for women’s equality ask women who choose not to call themselves feminist to speak for themselves? Of course not! The four feminist leaders silenced millions of women by speaking for them without first requesting permission to speak for them.

Imagine a group of women who choose not to call themselves feminists getting together for a conversation to be published in a magazine about why some women call themselves feminists. Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree with nonfeminist women denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves? Of course not! Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree that nonfeminist women had the right to speak for feminist women without their permission? Of course not!

hooks, Steinem Vaid, and Wolf could have created equality between women. They could have provided a platform for women who choose not to call themselves feminist to explain their choice in their own words.

My feminist leader blog posts provide evidence that feminist leaders still create glory for themselves while relegating supporters to “secondary importance”. Dr. Vanderford used the words “relegated” and “secondary importance” in her dissertation. Eoin Harnett of University College Cork in Ireland used the same “secondary importance” phrase:

“Throughout the ages, women were frequently characterised
and treated as inferior and of secondary importance to men.”

NOW leaders even relegated two of their supporters to secondary importance. The supporters responded to my last two comments on National NOW’s Facebook page with comments supporting NOW. NOW leaders silenced those supporters by removing their comments along with my comments. Instead of creating equality, NOW leaders treat other women the same way patriarchal men treat women, as inferior and of secondary importance.

In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Groups in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
(Now Marsha Vanderford)
Quoted words on page 350.

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“Multitext Project in Irish History: Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870-1914”
Eoin Hartnett
University College Cork, Ireland
No date
This project is no longer available online.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Soft Skill Power Strategies For Attracting Unimagined Success

softskillstrategycourses.com

Facebook Page

Women Speaking Equality

Standards For Success Posters

Girl Grit

Girl Goodwill

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

 

Maybe You Can Get An Answer…

This is an email I sent to Rachel Maddow, Reverend Al Sharpton, MoveOn.org, and OurSilverRibbon.org. NOW President Terry O’Neill appeared on Maddow’s and Sharpton’s shows in the fall of 2011. The National Organization For Women participated with MoveOn.org in the Silver Ribbon Campaign in January 2012. The subject line for my email was “Maybe you can get an answer.”

 

Email Message

Are you aware that the National Organization for Women creates inequality between women? Equality means equal access and equal opportunity.

Read What The New Feminists Look Like” in the November 2010 issue of More Magazine. Once upon a time, Jessica Valenti worked for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. Valenti told More that,

“Whenever there was a photo opportunity, all the young women and women
of color would be ushered to the front. But when it came to inviting us to
important meetings, that just wasn’t happening. When push came to shove,
no one really cared what our opinions were.”

Valenti left NOW and started feministing.com, a blog with readers and contributors from around the world. Feministing apparently has more readers than Ms. Magazine had in its heyday. The National Organization For Women does not even have chapters in every state.

NOW trains only state and national leaders to work on feminist causes. They claim to have “a dedicated network of grassroots activists” that takes action around the country. If NOW trains only state and national leaders, who are the “grassroots activists” in its dedicated network? Not the ordinary women who by definition are the grassroots of a cause. Instead of grassroots action, NOW takes grasstops action. NOW denies ordinary women equal access to training and equal opportunity to take action.

NOW President Terry O’Neill sends frequent emails asking “contributors” for money. (NOW Presidents like to always to be referred to by their title.) NOW President Terry O’Neill never explains how she uses the contributions. It seems to me that NOW uses the money so state and national leaders can travel around the country and socialize with each other while taking the training that is denied to the people who make the training possible.

For the 2012 presidential election, the conservative group Smart Girl Politics had online activist training that any member take. Minnesota Citizens Concerned For Life organizes a fall tour around the state offering training that any member can take. SGP and MCCL provide equal access to training and equal opportunity to take action.

During the 2012 election, SGP regularly sent out surveys to ask members their opinions. I have never seen a survey from NOW, and I signed up for emails years ago. The opinions of ordinary women, young feminists, and feminists of color are unimportant and meaningless to NOW leaders. Ordinary women like me have neither equal access nor equal opportunity to express our opinions.

The women behind Feministing give ordinary women equal access and equal opportunities. Ordinary women can submit posts to Feministing’s Community site. Some of the Community posts later appear on the front page of the Feministing site.

I began pushing NOW to create equality between women with a  letter I wrote in January 2010.  My pushing seems to have had some effect. Since my letter, the phrase “NOW President Terry O’Neill” did not appear on NOW’s old home page quite as often. (I once counted “NOW President Kim Gandy” eight times on NOW’s old home page.) In her frequent emails asking for money, NOW President Terry O’Neill has begun to acknowledge that the ordinary women donating money are part of any success NOW creates.

I’ve also left phone comments about emails from NOW Action Center. The “action” is forwarding “Your letter” to a politician, an email written by NOW. “Your letter” used to include one of these phrases:

“As a supporter of the National Organization for Women”

“As an active supporter of NOW”

“I am writing to you as member of the National Organization for Women”

Those phrases were often at the beginning of “Your letter” so that NOW got its organizational advertising in right away. After forwarding “Your letter”, contributors were also invited to send even more money.

After I left a message on their comment line expressing displeasure about those self-serving phrases, the inclusion of those phrases mostly ended. I hope other women complained about NOW’s blatant attempts for attention. Since self-promotion is most important to NOW President Terry O’Neill, she has never encouraged contributors to write their own letters with details from their own lives.

I plan to keep writing blog posts about feminist leaders because I want equality and feminist leaders are creating inequality.

If you want equality, ask NOW leaders why they deny most women equal access to training and equal opportunity to take action. I can think of only four reasons.

First Reason

SGP leaders and MCCL leaders are smarter than NOW leaders. (They train thousands more people to take action than NOW leaders train, so they are in a better position to influence outcomes.)

Second Reason

NOW leaders think most women are too stupid to train.

Third Reason

NOW leaders think most women are incapable of taking action.

Fourth Reason

NOW leaders are glory addicts who want to keep all the glory of taking action for themselves.

You could also ask NOW leaders why they deny most women equal access and equal opportunity to express their opinions. The reasons would be similar to those above.

Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton should interview Jessica Valenti. Valenti has left Feministing, but the other feminists running it should know how to contact her or would probably be great interview subjects themselves. The interviews would also provide insights into what feminists from around the world are thinking and doing.

I am not trying to get on television myself. I have endured enough thoughtless and insensitive comments, questions, and advice concerning the tragedies I survived to last the rest of my life. If I appeared on television, even more people would feel they had a responsibility to bombard me with thoughtless and insensitive comments, questions, and advice. I am writing books that I will publish myself so that I can do only radio interviews to promote them.

I sent an email to about 45 state NOW chapters. Only one state president responded, and she decided I was off-putting. Since people in your organizations are on speaking terms with NOW President Terry O’Neill, perhaps a few of you could ask those questions about equal access and equal opportunity and get answers. NOW President Terry O’Neill would not answer those questions if I asked them.

Please consider asking NOW those questions so all women can enjoy equal access and equal opportunity.

 

Update February 2012

On February 16, 2012, NOW Action Center asked supporters to send “Your Letter” with this first sentence:

“As a supporter of the National Organization for Women, I am concerned
about the growing number of attacks in Congress and elsewhere on birth
control – which is basic  health care that should be available to all women
without controversy.”

Obviously, NOW only took a break from its organizational advertising. Details of real women’s lives still do not matter to the leaders of the National Organization for Women.

 

Update September 13, 2015

Nobody responded to my email.

“What the New Feminists Look Like”
More Magazine News & Politics Editors
November 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an American, I have freedom of speech.

As a woman, I have the right to express my opinion about anything the National Organization for Women claims to do for women.

In 2016, I started adding the section below to all of my new Feminist Leader blog posts. I also added it to all posts published before 2016.

The National Organization For Women
Silences Women

National NOW has blocked me on its Facebook page. I wrote comments based on my blog posts. All of my blog posts are based on a wide variety of evidence. Much of the evidence comes from National NOW’s website, emails and posts from NOW presidents, and emails from NOW staff members. I use no hostile language, no slurs, no profanity. I do use the phrase “glory addicts” in reference to NOW leaders. I also use “glory addiction”, “glory fixes”, and “a dedicated network of glory addicts”. Dr. Marsha Vanderford (Doyle) identified the glory needs of pro-choice leaders in her 1982 dissertation.

Feminist leaders have been silencing women for decades. bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf got together for a conversation that was published in Ms. Magazine in 1993. The discussion included why women choose not to call themselves feminists. Did these four feminist leaders working for women’s equality ask women who choose not to call themselves feminist to speak for themselves? Of course not! The four feminist leaders silenced millions of women by speaking for them without first requesting permission to speak for them.

Imagine a group of women who choose not to call themselves feminists getting together for a conversation to be published in a magazine about why some women call themselves feminists. Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree with nonfeminist women denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves? Of course not! Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree that nonfeminist women had the right to speak for feminist women without their permission? Of course not!

hooks, Steinem Vaid, and Wolf could have created equality between women. They could have provided a platform for women who choose not to call themselves feminist to explain their choice in their own words.

My feminist leader blog posts provide evidence that feminist leaders still create glory for themselves while relegating supporters to “secondary importance”. Dr. Vanderford used the words “relegated” and “secondary importance” in her dissertation. Eoin Harnett of University College Cork in Ireland used the same “secondary importance” phrase:

“Throughout the ages, women were frequently characterised
and treated as inferior and of secondary importance to men.”

NOW leaders even relegated two of their supporters to secondary importance. The supporters responded to my last two comments on National NOW’s Facebook page with comments supporting NOW. NOW leaders silenced those supporters by removing their comments along with my comments. Instead of creating equality, NOW leaders treat other women the same way patriarchal men treat women, as inferior and of secondary importance.

In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Groups in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
(Now Marsha Vanderford)
Quoted words on page 350.

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“Multitext Project in Irish History: Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870-1914”
Eoin Hartnett
University College Cork, Ireland
No date
This project is no longer available online.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Soft Skill Power Strategies For Attracting Unimagined Success

softskillstrategycourses.com

Facebook Page

Women Speaking Equality

Standards For Success Posters

Girl Grit

Girl Goodwill

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

 

A Dedicated Network Of Glory Addicts

Sign up to receive emails from the National Organization for Women (NOW), and you will periodically receive emails about their “dedicated network of grassroots activists” that NOW President Terry O’Neill describes as “unparalleled.” NOW President Terry O’Neill (NOW presidents seem to prefer being referred to by their title) continually asks for money to support these unparalleled grassroots activists. I sent an email asking how NOW would use my money if I donated. No one responded. I searched NOW’s website for any information about how NOW leaders use donations. I found no information. I also sent an email to NOW asking how someone becomes an activist. No one responded.

I wrote a long letter to NOW about all of these issues. I also wrote that when I first started paying attention to now.org I thought NOW existed to promote former NOW President Kim Gandy because I was astonished at how often her name appeared on the home page of NOW’s website.  (Since I started writing blog posts about feminist leaders, NOW has changed its website.) One email from the NOW Action Center included “NOW President Kim Gandy” 5 times. I received no response to my letter, though NOW President Terry O’Neill puts her name on the home page less often than she used to. Also, in one of her emails asking for money, she assured readers that our money would always be put to good use. She included no details about what the good uses are.

Some months ago, NOW President Terry O’Neill started using the word “allies” in emails asking for money. She never identifies any of these allies. NOW President Terry O’Neill is consistently secretive about how she spends donations, who can be an activist, what activists do, and who NOW’s allies are. I finally found some information on a page at NOW’s website, but that information is no longer on NOW’s website.

Under “Key Elements” was the list below for “Empower Activists”. It is no longer on the web site.

Train new and seasoned activists:

Conduct a political assessment of the community.

Build supporter lists.

Get media exposure.

Plan local actions.

Organize rapid response teams.

Raise funds.

Sounds innocent and useful, right? Then why the secrecy? Why hide what they do with the money and whom they do it with? Who else hides what they do and whom they do it with? Addicts. NOW President Terry O’Neill, the dedicated activists, and the allies are all glory addicts. They get their glory fixes from situations that make them feel important and meaningful. They are a dedicated network of glory addicts.

This glory addiction goes back at least two decades. Eleanor Smeal, president of NOW from 1977 to 1982 and again from 1985 to 1987, sent out a letter around 1990 that began with the sentence, “For the past 20 years I’ve fought for women’s rights.” In exchange for completing an Abortion Rights Questionnaire and sending a “generous contribution,” Smeal promised that “at least four times a year we’ll notify you of pending actions nationally and locally and let you know what action steps you can take.” Smeal added the underlining. In that letter, Smeal succinctly described the purpose of the National Organization for Women and her Feminist Majority Foundation — to give glory to feminist leaders while keeping ordinary women silent, passive, and waiting for permission to speak and act.

In an October 7, 2010 email NOW President Terry O’Neill wrote:

“With your help, we can support our grassroots activities in the states where
feminists have the most to lose.  States like California, Pennsylvania, Florida,
Washington and North Carolina. We can return our friends to Congress and
bring them reinforcements as well, but only if we have the resources.
Contribute today.

With the elections less than a month away, there is absolutely no time to waste.
NOW’s nationwide network of grassroots activists are making phone calls, going
door to door, and urging voters, especially women, to get out and vote — but we
cannot do it alone.  Contribute today.”

Notice that NOW President Terry O’Neill does not ask ordinary women to participate in the “grassroots” activities. We are only supposed to send money so that all the glories of being important and meaningful go to the glory addicts.

More clues are in an August 10, 2011 email from NOW President Terry O’Neill:

“But this time around was different! In the run-up to the siege, the National
NOW Action Center worked around the clock, placing hundreds of phone
calls to supporters in the Washington, D.C., metro area, coordinating rides
and trainings, and welcoming NOW grassroots leadership from around the
country into our neighborhood.”

First, the activists at the National NOW Action Center got their glory fix of importance and meaningfulness. Second, the “NOW grassroots leaders from around the country” got their glory fix of importance and meaningfulness. What do you want to bet that donations paid for the travel expenses of those “grassroots leaders” so they could get their fixes of feeling important and meaningful? It is only a guess, of course, because NOW President Terry O’Neill keeps the details of what she does with the donations a secret, that classic sign of addiction.

One of my favorite examples of what NOW leaders, dedicated activists, and their allies will say to justify feeding their addiction is this statement from an article about a spring 2005 State Presidents Training Program:

“In addition to elected leaders, 33 activists from 14 states braved the chill of
an extended Washington, D.C., winter for intensive training in the area of
their choice.”

Telling themselves that they “braved” the chill of an extended Washington, D.C. winter made them feel important and meaningful. I live in Wisconsin. An extended Wisconsin winter is far colder than a “chill.” Would NOW leaders, dedicated activists, and their allies give me the glory of feeling important and meaningful for braving long Wisconsin winters to go about what I do to create equality for women? Never. They are grasstops who cannot allow a real grassroots movement of ordinary women to show up their “bravery” as a sham.

Somehow, ordinary citizens who believed in Barack Obama managed all by themselves to contact people, organize meetings, and urge people to go out and vote. NOW leaders, dedicated activists, and their allies seem to think that ordinary women who support equality do not to have the same abilities as the ordinary citizens who believed in Barack Obama. According to NOW President Terry O’Neill, ordinary women who support equality need leaders, dedicated activists, and their allies to speak words and take actions. What is unparalleled about this dedicated network of glory addicts is its system of excluding ordinary women from taking real grassroots action.

Feminist leaders, dedicated activists, and their allies need ordinary women to remain silent and passive to guarantee a steady supply of the importance and meaningfulness that satisfies their glory addiction. NOW leaders, dedicated activists, and their allies will employ all the secrecy they can muster to keep feeding their addiction. If any of them read this post they will do what any self-respecting addict would do — deny, deny, deny.

I challenge NOW President Terry O’Neill to explain her secrecy about how she spends donations and chooses activists. I challenge NOW President Terry O’Neill, the dedicated activists, and their allies to explain why they prevent ordinary women from taking their own — and real — grassroots actions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an American, I have freedom of speech.

As a woman, I have the right to express my opinion about anything the National Organization for Women claims to do for women.

In 2016, I started adding the section below to all of my new Feminist Leader blog posts. I also added it to all posts published before 2016.

The National Organization For Women
Silences Women

National NOW has blocked me on its Facebook page. I wrote comments based on my blog posts. All of my blog posts are based on a wide variety of evidence. Much of the evidence comes from National NOW’s website, emails and posts from NOW presidents, and emails from NOW staff members. I use no hostile language, no slurs, no profanity. I do use the phrase “glory addicts” in reference to NOW leaders. I also use “glory addiction”, “glory fixes”, and “a dedicated network of glory addicts”. Dr. Marsha Vanderford (Doyle) identified the glory needs of pro-choice leaders in her 1982 dissertation.

Feminist leaders have been silencing women for decades. bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf got together for a conversation that was published in Ms. Magazine in 1993. The discussion included why women choose not to call themselves feminists. Did these four feminist leaders working for women’s equality ask women who choose not to call themselves feminist to speak for themselves? Of course not! The four feminist leaders silenced millions of women by speaking for them without first requesting permission to speak for them.

Imagine a group of women who choose not to call themselves feminists getting together for a conversation to be published in a magazine about why some women call themselves feminists. Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree with nonfeminist women denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves? Of course not! Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree that nonfeminist women had the right to speak for feminist women without their permission? Of course not!

hooks, Steinem Vaid, and Wolf could have created equality between women. They could have provided a platform for women who choose not to call themselves feminist to explain their choice in their own words.

My feminist leader blog posts provide evidence that feminist leaders still create glory for themselves while relegating supporters to “secondary importance”. Dr. Vanderford used the words “relegated” and “secondary importance” in her dissertation. Eoin Harnett of University College Cork in Ireland used the same “secondary importance” phrase:

“Throughout the ages, women were frequently characterised
and treated as inferior and of secondary importance to men.”

NOW leaders even relegated two of their supporters to secondary importance. The supporters responded to my last two comments on National NOW’s Facebook page with comments supporting NOW. NOW leaders silenced those supporters by removing their comments along with my comments. Instead of creating equality, NOW leaders treat other women the same way patriarchal men treat women, as inferior and of secondary importance.

In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Groups in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
(Now Marsha Vanderford)
Quoted words on page 350.

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“Multitext Project in Irish History: Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870-1914”
Eoin Hartnett
University College Cork, Ireland
No date
This project is no longer available online.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Soft Skill Power Strategies For Attracting Unimagined Success

softskillstrategycourses.com

Facebook Page

Women Speaking Equality

Standards For Success Posters

Girl Grit

Girl Goodwill

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

Married To Share Life, Or Married To Satisfy Needs?

For thousands of years, people have married each other for all kinds of unromantic reasons — political alliance, financial gain, social climbing, escape from abusive parents, the legal right to stay in a country, etc. Another reason people marry is to satisfy behavior style needs. People who have already found healthy ways to satisfy their own behavior style needs marry to share their lives — their feelings, experiences, and dreams. People who do not know how to satisfy their own behavior style needs often do not know how to share feelings, experiences, and dreams. Three types of marriages are possible:

Both spouses marry to share feelings, experiences, and dreams (sharing life marriage)

One spouse marries to share feelings, experiences, and dreams; one spouse marries to satisfy needs (sharing life/seeking satisfaction marriage)

Both spouses marry to satisfy needs (seeking satisfaction marriage)

Only a sharing life marriage will be good for both spouses. Each spouse wants to share in the other spouse’s feelings, experiences, and dreams. Because they want to share, they pay attention to what matters to each other and make what matters happen. By making what matters happen, they keep each other’s needs satisfied. These spouses marry to share life and benefit from keeping their needs satisfied as well.

In a sharing life/seeking satisfaction marriage, both spouses will be disappointed. The sharing life spouse will feel unloved while the seeking satisfaction spouse will feel unsatisfied.

In a seeking satisfaction marriage, both spouses will feel unsatisfied. Their unsatisfied needs plus the inability to share feelings, experiences, and dreams will damage their marriage.

The following examples illustrate the differences between the three types of marriage. All three couples are real couples who used to be part of my life.

Sharing Life Marriage

The spouses in this marriage are from different racial groups. They shared their feelings, experiences, and dreams through all of their ups and downs. The wife helped the husband cope with the discrimination he endured for their interracial marriage before the Civil Rights era. The wife had been unable to get her driver’s license when she was young, so her husband helped her overcome her fears and learn to drive in her forties. When the husband had to get up at 3:00 a.m. to work long hours an hour’s drive away, the wife got up with him so they could have time together. If one of them did something for the other, the other one responded with the same, as in trading back rubs.

In later years after their finances improved, they shared their dream of traveling far and wide. After decades of the wife having to make do with a very tight budget, the husband made sure to buy her a piece of her favorite jewelry on every trip. As the wife’s health worsened, the husband did more and more of the housework and cooking. He also changed his work schedule to make daily life easier for his wife. This couple will share anything life brings them as long as they have each other. Along the way, they have kept each other’s needs satisfied.

Sharing Life/Seeking Satisfaction Marriage

The husband had dated little when he married to share his feelings, experiences, and dreams. The wife had been far more sociable, but married to satisfy her need to improve her social and financial status. For a time, the wife enjoyed being married to her husband. His career gave her a better social status, though his salary would never be high. After the babies started coming, the husband had to choose a profession that paid enough to support his family. His new profession lowered the wife’s social status, but there was little she could do about it. The one thing she could do was to make him work extra hours to earn even more money. The husband had expected to share the feelings, experiences, and dreams of his children. Instead, he found himself spending time away from his children in order to satisfy his wife’s need for more and more money.

When their children were older, the wife took a job at a company that allowed her to advance further than her husband had been able to advance. After several years, her salary was greater than his. She had improved her own social and financial status. The husband had to bury his feelings and set aside his dreams because his wife didn’t care about his dreams. She only wanted her husband to work long hours to make as much money as he could. The wife considered herself superior to her husband and felt that he had failed her. The wife did not share in her husband’s feelings, experiences, and dreams. Instead, she punished him by treating him like a servant, expecting him to do whatever she wanted. In this sharing life/satisfying need marriage, the unloved husband became an alcoholic and the unsatisfied wife became an abuser.

This was my parents’ marriage.

Seeking Satisfaction Marriage

The man felt his father had never given him approval. He filled that emotional hole with drugs and alcohol. He lived across the street from his father and parked a fancy car in his driveway, hoping to prove himself as a man to his father. The woman had an artistic profession that she lost because of a crippling illness. She became depressed and turned to alcohol.

This couple met when the man’s friend started dating the woman. Her dating relationship was a long distance, rocky relationship and both were alcoholics. When the boyfriend’s drinking led to his sudden death at age 50, the woman threw herself into the man’s arms. Less than three week’s after the death of the friend/boyfriend, the man and woman were sleeping together. Within months, they were engaged.

This couple married a year after the friend/boyfriend’s death. The husband married the woman to satisfy his need for his father’s approval. He thought if he married an alcoholic woman and made her happy enough to quit drinking, his father would have to see he was a good husband and give him approval as a man. The wife married the man to satisfy her need to have someone take care of her while she drank herself to death. She thought that if she acted helpless the husband would have to take care of her.

The husband had stopped drinking and doing drugs years before he met his wife. The wife sweet-talked her husband into drinking again so she could continue drinking herself to death. The husband became abusive to his wife, laughed about the abuse to a friend, and talked about suicide to a friend. Both husband and wife felt unloved.

Neither spouse married to share feelings, experiences, and dreams. The husband stayed focused on his relationship with his father, using his wife as a prop to improve that relationship. The wife stayed focused on herself, using her husband as a caregiver while she drank herself to death. Their use of alcohol and drugs further prevented them from sharing feelings, experiences, and dreams.

What to Do

If you are married and concerned about your marriage after reading this, there is something you can do. Look through the information at smilessparksuccess.com to help you identify and learn how to satisfy your behavior style needs and your spouse’s behavior style needs. If you feel your spouse married you to satisfy his or her needs, your marriage may never give you the sharing you want. But do not immediately decide to end the marriage. Use what you learn about satisfying each of your needs. Identify activities you could do with your spouse that would satisfy both of your needs. You will then be able to make an informed decision about how much your spouse is willing to share or not share feelings, experiences, and dreams with you.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

Give Yourself A Success Advantage

If you ever vote for a winning candidate with the expectation that your candidate would ignore particular groups of people, you may want to change your Us versus Them expectations. You’ll be disappointed if you don’t. Two examples. President Bush ignored a wide variety of people in making his decision to invade Iraq. We all know how that turned out. President Obama ignored homeowners having trouble paying their mortgages and gave money to banks. We all know how that turned out.

The problem with ignoring Them is that the success of any resident in a country is connected to the success of every other resident, or Us with Them. Another two examples.

In Brazil, the government makes small monthly payments (under $100 to a little over $100) to low income families who keep their children in school and get them vaccinated. Pregnant women must get prenatal care. Although the program has been more effective in rural areas (poverty from lack of food and basic services) than in urban areas (poverty from drug addiction, violence, family breakdown and environmental degradation), it has had a recognized effect in reducing poverty. Known as Bolsa Familia*, the program is credited by Funda’ao Getulio Vargas, a university, with one sixth of Brazil’s reduction in poverty. As the poverty level fell, Brazil’s domestic economy improved.

During the 1960s in this country, Newark, New Jersey refused to recognize its connection to its black residents, holding onto a strong Us versus Them attitude. The 1967 race riots led to poverty and a 2009 estimated per capita income of $17,396. Wanting to avoid race riots, Charlotte, North Carolina decided to recognize its Us with Them connection to its black residents. Charlotte became home to several Fortune 500 companies with a 2009 estimated per capita income of $31,270.

I made a documentary about the most successful and longest running renewable energy fair in the world because I wanted to understand its spectacular success. I discovered twenty-six situational, organizational, financial, emotional, and relationship ingredients for spectacular success. Every spectacular success in the world uses most if not all of these ingredients. One ingredient focuses on self. Two ingredients focus on task. Nine ingredients focus on working with others. Fourteen ingredients focus on satisfying others. Spectacular success comes from working with others and satisfying others because We are connected to Them. My definition of spectacular success is:

The unforeseen success other people intentionally create for you
because you intentionally create success for them.

Even wealthy people need to recognize Us with Them and their connection to every other U.S resident. When a human body has broken bones or a disease, the broken bones and the disease affect the ability of the healthy parts of the body to function effectively. Imagine you have a broken little toe or little finger. That small broken bone would limit your ability to function effectively throughout your daily life. Wealthy people may be financially healthy, but the broken and diseased finances around the U.S. affect their ability to function effectively. Income inequality hurts economic growth for all U.S. citizens.

Our success is connected to Their success because They live where We live. An Economist magazine article points this out. Israel is currently considered an economic miracle because it has become a high tech superpower. But all the new high tech miracles are coming from start up companies that employ only 10% of the population. Long term economic success depends on Israel’s ability to take Us with Them strategies to include Arab Israelis and ultra orthodox Jews by hiring them. Those two groups live where the miracle start ups live, and they will increase to one third of the population by 2025.

Towns, cities, counties, states, and countries that use Us with Them strategies will give themselves a success advantage, just like Charlotte, North Carolina did in the 1960s. Towns, cities, counties, states, and countries that use Us versus Them strategies will give themselves a failure disadvantage, just like Newark, New Jersey did in the 1960s.

Use Us versus Them strategies and you will give yourself a failure disadvantage. Use Us with Them strategies and you will give yourself a success advantage.  That much is your choice.

* The first anti-poverty program using conditional cash transfers was Progresa-Oportunidades, created mainly by Santiago Levy, former deputy minister of finance in Mexico. As of this posting, Brazil’s program is the largest program of its kind.

References

Brazil

“How to get children out of jobs and into school: The limits of Brazils much admired and emulated anti-poverty programme”
The Economist
July 29, 2010
economist.com/node/16690887

60 Minutes

December 12, 2010

Israel

“Beyond the start-up nation”
Schumpeter blog
The Economist 
January 1st-7th, 2011
http://www.economist.com/node/17796932

Newark, New Jersey and Charlotte, North Carolina

http://www.city-data.com/city/Newark-New-Jersey.html

http://www.city-data.com/city/Charlotte-North-Carolina.html

Yeoman, Barry
“A Taste for Tolerance”
AARP Magazine
May/June 2004
http://barryyeoman.com/articles/charlotte.html

Midwest Renewable Energy Fair

https://www.midwestrenew.org/energyfair

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

 

If Feminist Leaders Want Equality, Why Do They Create Inequality?

I want to start by establishing that I have a background in feminism and women’s issues. I considered myself a feminist for approximately twenty years. I have a B.A. in Women’s Studies/Writing (an individually planned major). I read books about women’s history for a decade or more. Then, of course, I have my own life experience.

For thousands of years, men who felt superior to women decided their superiority entitled them to privileges women should not have. These men kept women silent and passive to keep them inferior and unequal. Feminist leaders also have a history of creating inequality. I first experienced inequality created by feminist leaders in the 1980s. I included examples of my own experiences plus examples that other women experienced.

1st Inequality Experience

During my college years, I worked at a women’s resource center. A woman who considered herself a feminist became the director. The new director did not work all of the hours she was scheduled to work. She claimed more time on her time card than she was scheduled to work. She gave her work to staff members and volunteers instead of doing it herself. She lied to the public, lied to the staff, lied to the board of directors. She verbally abused a number of staff members. After she left two more directors who considered themselves feminist behaved in all of the same ways. They did not work all the hours they were scheduled to work, claimed more time on their time cards than they were scheduled to work, gave their work to other staff members, lied to everyone, and verbally abused a number of staff members.

Creating equality would mean that all of the directors worked the hours they were scheduled to work, claimed only they time they actually worked, did their work themselves, were honest with the public, staff, and board, and treated staff members with respect. Instead, all three of the directors acted as if the title of director bestowed them with superiority and privilege.

2nd Inequality Experience

Around 1990, I received a letter from Eleanor Smeal. In exchange for completing an Abortion Rights Questionnaire and sending a “generous contribution”, Smeal promised that “at least four times a year we’ll notify you of pending actions nationally and locally and let you know what action steps you can take.”

Creating equality would mean giving women who support abortion rights opportunities to decide which actions they want to take and when they want to take action. Instead, Smeal creates inequality by keeping pro-choice supporters passive.

3rd Inequality Experience

The September/October 1993 issue of Ms. Magazine published a discussion between four feminists — bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf — about the myths of the feminist movement, the backlash to the feminist movement, and the movement itself. These four feminists also discussed why many women do not call themselves feminist.

Creating equality would mean feminists asking other women why they choose not to call themselves feminist. Instead, hooks, Steinem, Vaid, and Wolf created inequality by denying other women the right to speak for themselves.

After reading that article, I chose to stop calling myself feminist.

4th Inequality Experience

About this same time, an acquaintance told me she had found a feminist network in her field. She called the phone number listed and said she would like information about the network. The feminist on the other end of the line said, “We know who we are.” A couple of years after my acquaintance told me that story, I asked her about it again. I wanted to make sure I had heard her correctly. I had.

Creating equality would mean feminists in the network would welcome every other feminist in that profession. Instead, the feminist on the phone created inequality for my acquaintance by treating her as inferior. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that the network no longer exists.

5th Inequality Experience

In the early 1990s, I started working on my thesis. I asked a feminist professor to be my advisor. My thesis was about women as television talk show hosts. I had chosen my topic in 1988 after watching Oprah Winfrey betray a female guest on her show. Wanting to understand why Oprah would betray another woman, I watched every talk show hosted by a woman for several years. From the list I compiled of topics and guests, I identified four cultural themes women use to betray each other:

Women as mothers

Women and their appearance

Women as deviants

Teenage girls as threats to society

Females grow up in this society learning to betray each other according to these four cultural themes. I added historical patterns to my thesis with examples of women using these themes to betray each other. Six weeks before I was supposed to publicly talk about my thesis to other grad students, my advisor told me to base my thesis on the theories of feminist writers I had never heard of. She told me I could put only two paragraphs of history into my thesis. She verbally abused me in an attempt to get me to agree to being silenced. Then she insisted that I say “Thank you” for her “advice” to use someone else’s research instead of my own.

Creating equality would mean respecting what I wanted to say through my research. Instead, my advisor attempted to create inequality for me by silencing me.

6th Inequality Experience

In 2008, I started regularly visiting the National Organization for Women web site (now.org). I did not join but I did sign up for emails. Some of the emails I receive are from the NOW National Action Center. In the emails, NOW leaders ask supporters to take action by sending an already written email labeled “Your letter”.

Creating equality would mean NOW leaders encouraging supporters to use their own words to write letters and emails that are meaningful to them. Instead, NOW creates inequality by silencing their supporters.

7th Inequality Experience

In the October 2010 issue of Harper’s Magazine, Susan Faludi wrote about a feminist conclave she attended. The feminists at the conclave discussed intergenerational issues without a single younger woman being present. When one of the feminists suggested inviting younger women to the next meeting, she was “promptly shot down”.

Creating equality would mean inviting younger woman to meetings on intergenerational issues so they could speak for themselves. Instead, feminist leaders silence younger women by denying them opportunities to speak for themselves.

8th Inequality Experience

In a number of interviews both in print and on television, Gloria Steinem has repeatedly used a version of the statement below:

“Women have two choices: Either she’s a feminist or a masochist.”

“You’re a feminist or a masochist.”

“It is not at all an exaggeration to say that feminism-the belief in the full social, economic and political equality of women-is mental health, and that the only alternative is masochism,”

“You know in my heart, I think the only alternative to being a feminist is being a masochist.”

Creating equality would mean supporting every woman’s right to define herself. Instead, Steinem silences every woman who chooses to define herself as something other than feminist.

What These Experiences Reveal

The above examples expose feelings of superiority in feminist leaders. Feelings of superiority mean expectations of privilege. Expectations of privilege require inequality. Feminist leaders create inequality for other women so they can maintain their superiority and privilege. By keeping other women passive and silent, feminist leaders are able to give themselves glory.

~~NOW has changed its website since I started writing about feminist leaders. The indented paragraph below is from the original version of this blog post. Visit the new now.org and click on the NOW Leaders page. You’ll see that feminist leaders create inequality by keeping secrets from the mostly female NOW members who pay their salaries.~~

NOW has changed its website again. It removed the NOW Leaders page. This only means they are no longer announcing that NOW leaders keep secrets. NOW leaders still keep secrets. They keep their “activist” training secret from the women who pay for the training.~~

Visit now.org to see whose names appear on the site. Sign up for emails and see whose names are mentioned. Do searches at the website for “training” and “activist”. See how many names of ordinary women you can find. Then look for NOW giving glory to the words and actions of ordinary women — women who are not officers of NOW chapters or in the “dedicated network of grassroots activists”. In an article about “4,000 Massachusetts NOW activists and their supporters” (search for “4000”), the only NOW activists quoted were:

NOW National Board member Ellen Zucker (mentioned two times)

NOW President Patricia Ireland (mentioned four times)

Massachusetts NOW President Ellen Convisser (mentioned two times)

Attendees at a spring 2005 NOW activist training weekend included 11 “new state presidents, coordinators and executive directors” as well as “33 activists from 14 states” who “braved the chill of an extended Washington, D.C., winter” (search for “33 activists”).

 

Feminist Leaders Create Inequality To Feel Glory

NOW leaders keep the glory for themselves and exaggerate situations to give themselves glory. (Braving a chill where the average low winter temperature is around 30º F? I will refrain from laughing even though I have lived through average winter lows below 10º F for more than two decades.)

Feminist leaders obviously demonstrate superiority priority. Psychologist Marty Sapp gives one example of superiority priority in the article, “School Counseling for African American Adolescents: The Alfred Adler Approach”. Adolescents with superiority priority are “striving to be socially superior to others at any cost” and need to be “most competent” and “most right”. This need for superiority is a way to avoid feelings of unimportance and meaninglessness. Adolescents with superiority priority evoke feelings of inferiority in other people.

Feminist leaders avoid feeling unimportant and meaningless by evoking feelings of inferiority in other women. They make other women feel unimportant and meaningless. When I read in Eleanor Smeal’s letter that she would contact me “four times a year” to let me know what actions step I could take, I felt I would be unimportant 361 days a year. Every time I receive an email from the NOW Action Center asking me to sign “Your letter”, I feel describing my experiences in my own words would be meaningless. How can feminist leaders convince men to treat women as important and meaningful when they cannot do it themselves? Feminist leaders create inequality between women so they can feel most competent, most right, most brave, and most deserving of glory to feed their own endless needs for importance and meaningfulness.

Leading up to the 2012 presidential election I found an example of conservative women leaders creating equality between women. Smart Girl Politics put ordinary women on its website so they could use their own words to describe what actions they took in their own lives. College students, employed mothers, at home mothers, and grandmothers who joined Smart Girl Politics Action could take a free weekly SPG101 interactive webinar. Smart Girl Politics did all this because its founders saw ordinary women as important and meaningful.

Any woman could sign up to be a Smart Girl member without paying a cent. New members could immediately post blogs or organize events. Any Smart Girl member oculd contact any other Smart Girl member. Smart Girls found ways to work together solving problems in their communities.

No nonmember can even email NOW without being assaulted by an automated email response with NOW membership information (“Join NOW!”). Joining NOW means paying a membership fee. NOW members are unable to contact each other or say anything at the NOW website beyond commenting on a staff written blog. NOW members cannot work together to solve problems in their own communities. What NOW wants from its members is a continual flow of money so NOW leaders and their “dedicated network of grassroots activists” can travel around the country and socialize with each other while pretending to create equality.

I read a number of blog posts listed at the SGP website. I agreed with some of them. I disagreed with some of them. I was offended by some of them. I am offended by everything I read at the NOW website because all of it is written with a “We’re superior, you’re inferior” tone.

Since NOW leaders don’t get what equality means, I will explain it to them. Equality means that NOW members get to do anything NOW leaders get to do. Since NOW leaders do not allow NOW members to do anything NOW leaders do, NOW leaders are only pretending to create equality.

It is telling that a conservative organization like Smart Girl Politics created equality for its supporters while a feminist organization like the National Organization for Women creates inequality for its supporters. Why would women call themselves feminist when they enjoy more equality by not calling themselves feminist?

I am one of the women Gloria Steinem would define as a “masochist” for choosing not to call myself feminist. I would be a masochist if I had set aside years of research and allowed my thesis advisor to silence me. Instead, I switched to a male advisor who helped me speak my words through my research.

I would be a masochist if I allowed feminist leaders to keep me passive. Instead, I take action any time I see an opportunity to take action.

I would be a masochistic if I allowed feminist leaders to silence me. Instead, I write letters and emails with words that are meaningful to me.

I would be a masochist if I ignored my life experiences to remain the silent and passive wallet feminist leaders expect me to be. Instead, I use my life experiences to show how feminist leaders create inequality.

I now call myself an equality advocate — I advocate equality between women, between men, and between men and women.

I tried being feminist for approximately twenty years. The experience left me emotionally battered and continuously unequal. As I see it, Ms. Steinem, one alternative to feminism is equality for all women.

Read the letter I wrote NOW in January 2010.

 

Note

Seven months after posting this blog, I came across the November 2010 issue of More magazine. That issue included an article about young feminists. One of them was Jessica Valenti, who once worked for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. Valenti’s experience working for NOW provides evidence to support my claim that feminist leaders create inequality so they can feel important and meaningful.

Valenti told More,

“Whenever there was a photo opportunity, all the young women and
women of color would be ushered to the front. But when it came to
inviting us to important meetings, that just wasn’t happening. When
push came to shove, no one really cared what our opinions were.”

The feminist leaders of NOW purposefully create inequality within NOW so they can keep every opportunity to feel important and meaningful for themselves.

To read the opinions feminist leaders purposefully ignore, go to feministing.com.

“What the New Feminists Look Like”
More Magazine News & Politics Editors
November 2010

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As an American, I have freedom of speech.

As a woman, I have the right to express my opinion about anything the National Organization for Women claims to do for women.

In 2016, I started adding the section below to all of my new Feminist Leader blog posts. I also added it to all posts published before 2016.

The National Organization For Women
Silences Women

National NOW has blocked me on its Facebook page. I wrote comments based on my blog posts. All of my blog posts are based on a wide variety of evidence. Much of the evidence comes from National NOW’s website, emails and posts from NOW presidents, and emails from NOW staff members. I use no hostile language, no slurs, no profanity. I do use the phrase “glory addicts” in reference to NOW leaders. I also use “glory addiction”, “glory fixes”, and “a dedicated network of glory addicts”. Dr. Marsha Vanderford (Doyle) identified the glory needs of pro-choice leaders in her 1982 dissertation.

Feminist leaders have been silencing women for decades. bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf got together for a conversation that was published in Ms. Magazine in 1993. The discussion included why women choose not to call themselves feminists. Did these four feminist leaders working for women’s equality ask women who choose not to call themselves feminist to speak for themselves? Of course not! The four feminist leaders silenced millions of women by speaking for them without first requesting permission to speak for them.

Imagine a group of women who choose not to call themselves feminists getting together for a conversation to be published in a magazine about why some women call themselves feminists. Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree with nonfeminist women denying them the opportunity to speak for themselves? Of course not! Would hooks, Steinem, Vaid, Wolf, or Ms. Magazine agree that nonfeminist women had the right to speak for feminist women without their permission? Of course not!

hooks, Steinem Vaid, and Wolf could have created equality between women. They could have provided a platform for women who choose not to call themselves feminist to explain their choice in their own words.

My feminist leader blog posts provide evidence that feminist leaders still create glory for themselves while relegating supporters to “secondary importance”. Dr. Vanderford used the words “relegated” and “secondary importance” in her dissertation. Eoin Harnett of University College Cork in Ireland used the same “secondary importance” phrase:

“Throughout the ages, women were frequently characterised
and treated as inferior and of secondary importance to men.”

NOW leaders even relegated two of their supporters to secondary importance. The supporters responded to my last two comments on National NOW’s Facebook page with comments supporting NOW. NOW leaders silenced those supporters by removing their comments along with my comments. Instead of creating equality, NOW leaders treat other women the same way patriarchal men treat women, as inferior and of secondary importance.

In-House Rhetoric of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Special Interest Groups in Minnesota: Motivation and Alienation
Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982
Marsha Vanderford Doyle, Ph.D.
(Now Marsha Vanderford)
Quoted words on page 350.

“Let’s Get Real about Feminism: The Backlash, the Myths, the Movement.”
hooks, bell, Gloria Steinem, Urvashi Vaid, and Naomi Wolf.
Ms. Magazine.
Vol 4(2) September/October 1993: pages 34-43.

“Multitext Project in Irish History: Movements for Political & Social Reform, 1870-1914”
Eoin Hartnett
University College Cork, Ireland
No date
This project is no longer available online.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Soft Skill Power Strategies For Attracting Unimagined Success

softskillstrategycourses.com

Facebook Page

Women Speaking Equality

Standards For Success Posters

Girl Grit

Girl Goodwill

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

If John Lennon Wanted Peace, Why Did He Create Conflict?

John Lennon advocated peace, but did not live peace. John Lennon repeatedly created conflict with individuals in his own life. All of the following references come from the book, John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman.

Lennon’s first wife, Cynthia, described him as needing to “shock and disgust people” (page 158).

Lennon had a “sarcastic tongue” and an “impulse to pillory human weakness or frailty wherever they revealed themselves”. Lennon targeted people with “cruel, usually pointless” practical jokes (page 182).

Lennon repeatedly mocked Stu Sutcliffe’s “musicianship and appearance” and made sure Stu always sat on the least comfortable seat on the van, “the metal ledge over the rear wheel”. Lennon repeatedly told Sutcliffe “he couldn’t sit with us or eat with us” (page 183).

Lennon shoplifted “jewelry, handkerchiefs, guitar stings, and a harmonica” (page 195).

During a concert in Germany, Lennon taunted his audience with the words “fuckin’ Nazis” and Hitlerites” (page 202).

Lennon called Brian Epstein “Eppy”, a name he knew Epstein hated and “wouldn’t care what he said to deflate” Epstein (page 257). Lennon’s “public cruelties” towards Epstein included “jibes at his race if not his sexuality” (page 503).

While in Germany, Lennon drew a picture of Jesus on the cross “with this big prick”. Lennon held up his picture on a balcony for everyone on the street to see (pages 267-268).

Again in Germany, Lennon put a table knife into his pocket after a meal. During a concert that night, “the first thing he does is pull out the knife and throw it at someone in the audience” ( pages 291-292).

Paul McCartney felt “bitterness” that Lennon made sure the songs they wrote together after the Please Please Me album would always be credited to “Lennon-McCartney” (page 297).

At a party to celebrate Paul McCartney’s twenty-first birthday, Lennon “repeatedly” punched DJ Bob Wooler “around the face and body”. Wooler suffered “bruised ribs and a black eye”. Lennon apologized under pressure, “muttering that he wasn’t sorry at all” (pages 310 and 311).

Alcohol could turn Lennon “moody, bellicose, cruel”. Even when sober Lennon could be “thoughtlessly malicious” (page 331).

Lennon’s attitude towards people with physical disabilities was “unrepentant mockery and mimicry” (page 334).

Lennon described George Harrison’s massively successful All Things Must Pass album as “All right”. He described Paul McCartney’s McCartney album as “rubbish” and “so poor” (page 657).

In Paul McCartney’s Ram album, the song “Too Many People” suggested that Lennon had rejected the Beatles for Yoko Ono (page 668). On his Imagine album, Lennon included the song “How Do You Sleep?” in response to McCartney’s “Too Many People”. Biographer Philip Norman described McCartney’s attack as “mild and sidelong”. Norman described Lennon’s response as “violent and full-on, a nuclear missile answering a pinprick” (671-672).

In an interview Paul McCartney did with United Kingdom magazine Melody Maker, he said Lennon was the holdout to resolving their financial disputes. Lennon responded with a letter to the editor. Nine lines in the letter had to be removed “for fear of legal repercussions” (page 702).

Lennon spent time in Los Angeles where he wrote about his “gratuitous vandalism” in his diary (page 743).

John Lennon talked about peace but created conflict because he was in conflict with himself. He would have been able to create peace in his life only if he had been able to create peace with himself. If Lennon had understood his behavior style needs and how to satisfy them, he could have created some peace for himself.

Using the DISC behavior system, John Lennon was probably a High I Influence. He enjoyed the spotlight when it satisfied his needs. He liked to talk, talking to reporters for hours during his first bed-in with his new wife, Yoko Ono. He used words to attack people when he felt stressed.

High I behavior style people like Lennon need recognition, approval, and admiration. They need to feel prestige. They need to maintain their dignity. They need support for their ideas.

Lennon could have gained peace with himself in two ways. First, he could have acknowledged the conflict he created and apologized for creating it. He could have figured out ways to work with people without sarcasm or insults.

Second, other people could have satisfied his needs. Concert audiences could have shown respect for Lennon by listening while he played his music, waiting to scream while they applauded. Audience members unable to sit quietly could have sung along with Lennon. Listening to Lennon would have preserved his dignity. Singing along with him would have shown support for the ideas behind his songs. That dignity and support would have given him prestige. Instead, Lennon’s continuously screaming audiences stripped him of his dignity, ignored his ideas, and denied him prestige for his ideas.

Lennon had other issues that probably needed other solutions. He may have been able to find those solutions if his behavior style needs had been satisfied.

One tragedy of John Lennon’s life is that he did not have what he needed to be able create what he wanted. Fame did not satisfy Lennon’s needs. Wealth did not satisfy Lennon’s needs. Screaming audiences did not satisfy Lennon’s needs. John Lennon did not have the behavior style satisfaction he needed to be able to create the peace he wanted.

You can avoid the same tragedy in your life. Give yourself what you need so you have the ability to create what you want. Give your loved ones what they need so they have the ability to create what they want.

Visit smilessparksuccess.com for pages of information about satisfying DISC behavior style needs as well Spranger guiding value passions. Take advantage of the free PDF files for sparking both personal and professional success.

We could all create more of the peace John Lennon imagined by satisfying our own needs.

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.smilessparksuccess.com

Resource Websites

speakingfromtriumph.com

smilessparksuccess.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

3 Things Oprah Could Learn from Scentsy Owners Heidi & Orville Thompson

Scentsy is a Meridien, Idaho company that hosts home parties to sell wickless candles. The year 2009 marked Scentsy’s fifth anniversary. Owners Heidi and Orville Thompson planned to spend $25,000 for a company celebration. While planning that well-deserved self-indulgence, the Thompsons developed some self-awareness. The nearby city of Boise had been hit hard by the recession. Orville and Heidi Thompson felt that spending $25,000 on a party for 350 employees would “strike the wrong note” for their struggling neighbors (Entrepreneur Magazine, February 2009).

The Thompsons decided to change the focus of their celebration. Scentsy’s 2009 sales had come close to $200 million. The Thompsons upped their celebration fund to $100,000. They gave $100 to each of 1000 employees and told them to spend the money at small family businesses on the same Saturday. Those employees chose forty businesses and spent $2,500 at each one. A number of the chosen business owners said that Scentsy’s gift of customers and cash meant survival for their businesses.

Scentsy hosted three more shopping days in the fall of 2009 through Contribute 2009. Sixty-seven thousand Scentsy home consultants pledged another $200,000 to spend at small family businesses. The consultants told friends and families about the shopping days. Many of the family and friends went along without pledging first. The total spending to support small business and help families was likely $400,000 to $500,000. Other businesses have followed Scentsy’s example in supporting U.S. families and their small businesses.

The success of those small businesses will create more success in their communities. More success in more communities means more success for the country. Eventually, Scentsy will be able to be self-indulgent again, and I hope they have a blow out party.

 

What Oprah Could Learn

1.  There is a Time for Self-Indulgence and a Time for Self-Awareness

Heidi and Orville Thompson became self-aware of how a self-indulgent party would affect their neighbors.

Oprah took more than 300 handpicked fans to Australia for a luxury vacation to promote Australia’s tourism industry. Australian taxpayers footed part of the $3 million Oprah received for the trip. Oprah celebrated the 25th anniversary of her talk show in a self-indulgent way while millions of U.S. citizens were going hungry and U.S. small businesses were struggling to stay alive.

2.  Giving Up Control Can Increase Effectiveness

Orville and Heidi Thompson gave their employees control of the money and which businesses to support. They told their employees to spend the money with no strings attached and to keep what they bought for themselves.

Oprah gives her audiences what she feels like giving them. Whether or not everyone in her audiences wants what she gives them seems unimportant. Oprah’s gifts come from corporations, not small businesses.

3.  Putting the Spotlight on Others by Creating Success for Them Brings an Admiring Spotlight Back to You.

Heidi and Orville Thompson put the spotlight on struggling family businesses. To celebrate Scentsy’s sixth anniversary in 2010, the Thompsons organized a “6 Pack Give Back”. They gave $50,000 toward helping twenty small family businesses. The spotlight has admiringly shone back on Scentsy and the Thompsons through numerous articles and this blog post. That kind of spotlight helped other businesses follow the Thompsons’ example. That kind of spotlight probably increased Scentsy’s sales.

Oprah self-indulgently kept the spotlight on herself in Australia. Journalists who went to Australia had to explain what they were going to write and where they would publish the stories. They had to be willing to have examples of their stories reviewed. An article in the December 7th, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald was not exactly admiring in its report about Oprah’s visit. It suggested that as a guest of the Australian government, Oprah needed to interact with the ordinary Australians who paid for her trip, not just with her “hosts, minders, and sponsors”.

How many small family U.S. businesses would be able to survive these hard times if Oprah became self-aware, gave up a little control, and took the spotlight off herself to shine on small family business owners?

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present.
All rights reserved.

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