Feminist attacks PolitiChicks for defending women's rights

Monday morning I received multiple tweets regarding a "hit piece" about PolitiChicks on Salon.com written by Amanda Marcotte. The article, titled "7 women working tirelessly to attack equal rights for women,"begins:

"A lot of people assume the term 'female misogynist' is an oxymoron. How can a woman be opposed to the fight to help women achieve equality? The sad fact of the matter is, as long as there has been feminism, there have been women who find it personally advantageous to reject feminism and instead argue for continuing social systems that perpetuate women's inequality, male dominance and even violence against women. (There were even plenty of women who were willing to argue against women's suffrage back in the day.) Here is a list of nine women who have made a career out of opposing women's struggle for social, political and economic equality."

(By the way, among many other mistakes, the writer says there are "nine women," but there are actually seven.)

Get "What Women Really Want," a call to women across this great land to wake up and take a stand against the cultural forces that are fighting tooth-and-nail to destroy their spirit and their families – at the WND Superstore!

The "attacking women" listed are, in order are:

1) Christina Hoff Sommers, author of the 2001 book, "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men."One of the reasons Sommers is on the list is because she "accuses feminists of ruining young men's lives by oppressing them through the educational system."

2) Cathy Young is on the list because her work "focuses on minimizing the problems of sexual abuse and harassment of women."

3) Jill Stanek because she blogs that "pregnancy prevention is a uniquely modern evil," and because she "celebrated domestic violence, arguing that men should hit women who have abortions."

4) The Politichicks. Marcotte writes, "Ann-Marie Murrell, Morgan Brittany and Dr. Gina Loudon are Internet video hosts who run a show called Politichicks and have a new book out arguing that women don't actually want the equality feminists are fighting for. They laid out their philosophy recently on Fox & Friends. 'Beyoncé's argument,' complained the host, 'is that it's OK for women to be sexual beings just like men are sexual beings.' The Politichicks agreed that this was absolutely outrageous, arguing that feminists are actually 'sexualists' and that feminist insistence that women like sex just like men do encourages violence against women."

5) Janet Bloomfield is the PR representative for the "anti-feminist website A Voice for Men," which, according to Marcotte, was created "in order to make it look like feminists hate men."

6) Lila Rose. Marcotte writes, "Rose concentrates most of her energies on demonizing Planned Parenthood in hopes of cutting off state and federal funding, so that low-income women lose access to affordable contraception and reproductive health-care services. Rose's strategy is to do 'undercover' videos, which are usually deceptively edited, to build the claim that Planned Parenthood's services are evil and need to be terminated."

7) Phyllis Schlafly. From Marcotte: "Phyllis Schlafly is the OG (original gangster) of women who hate other women, spearheading the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment and helping invent the modern conservative movement in the process."

While I am honored to be listed among such brave, strong women and would love to break down each of Marcotte's arguments against each of them, I'll focus on what I know best: PolitiChicks, and my book, "What Women Really Want," written with my PolitiChicks co-anchors Dr. Gina Loudon and Morgan Brittany.

"Ann-Marie Murrell, Morgan Brittany and Dr. Gina Loudon are Internet video hosts who run a show called PolitiChicks …"

Marcotte's research skills are a little outdated. We haven't hosted a PolitiChicks webTV show since 2012. PolitiChicks.com, recently relaunched, includes writers from across the United States and focuses on everything from politics to fashion. But no Internet video show. (Yet.)

"[They] have a new book out arguing that women don't actually want the equality feminists are fighting for."

Yes and no. We believe there was a time and place for the feminist movement, including helping women win the right to vote and the right to apply for employment in any type of workplace. But today's feminist movement is relegated mainly to First-World issues, such as free birth control, free abortions and free everything. Much of their fight isn't based on merit but is instead focused on forcing employers to give them anything they want simply because they exist. We disagree with that fight.

We also defend a woman's right to stay home and raise her family, if that's what she chooses and is able to do. Since the 1970s, the feminist movement has ridiculed and denigrated stay-at-home moms and non-working women. We're telling women who want to stay in their kitchens to ignore the slings and arrows hurled at them from feminists.

And finally …

"They laid out their philosophy recently on Fox & Friends. 'Beyoncé's argument,' complained the host, 'is that it's 'OK for women to be sexual beings just like men are sexual beings.' The Politichicks agreed that this was absolutely outrageous, arguing that feminists are actually 'sexualists' and that feminist insistence that women like sex just like men do encourages violence against women."

My response to the host's question about "women being sexual beings like men" was:

"They claim that we've put women back into the 1950s, where women stayed home and took care of their children and their families. I say that what they're doing, they are like cave women waiting for a cave man to bonk them on the head and drag them into the caves by the hair. That's who they are – they're the ones putting us back into the stone ages."

Because the feminist movement has made its entire fight about sex – sex products, sex contraception, reproductive organs, abortion (to help "clean up" their sex) – they, and not we, are the ones objectifying women. Or as I recently wrote in a WND column titled, "Feminists drag women by hair back into caves," the feminist movement has "relegated women to nothing more than mindless, needy piles of sexual mush."

So speaking for PolitiChicks and my co-authors: Thank you, Amanda Marcotte, for including us in your debate. We are in wonderful company.

Media wishing to interview Ann-Marie Murrell, please contact [email protected].