From Elle Magazine:
Last winter, fortysomething conservative activist Kate Obenshain came to Smith to give a speech titled “Kate Obenshain on the Failures of Feminism: What Does Kate O. have against Gloria Steinem?”
While roughly 50 people lined the walls in silence wearing placards that read “Feminist,” Obenshain left Smith convinced that her detractors had been edified, if not converted. “What surprised them was that I was willing to give some ground,” Obenshain says. “I used to think there was no such thing as sexism. Well, there is. But it comes from both sides. Sarah Palin has withstood tremendous sexism from flaming leftists. But I distinguish with students between offensive or irritating sexism, and illegal sexual harassment. There are times when we have to absolutely stand up, and other times when we have to blow past it.”
As an example of “an irritant,” Obenshain cites frat boys yelling out rude comments to girls. “The radical feminists say you have to make a big deal about every incident and sue the university; that’s ridiculous. Don’t walk by the frats when the boys are hanging out drunk!
“These young women are suffering,” continues Obenshain, who is on the college-lecture circuit under the auspices of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, a Virginia-based non-profit that promotes conservative women’s networking and leadership. “The feminists have told them they have the same needs and wants as men. They don’t get asked out on dates; guys just hook up with them, and they wake up the next day and realize they were used. I have girls coming up to me crying, saying, ‘Thank you so much for making it okay for me to have a different set of values than what I’m taught.’”
Read the rest here: *Elle*
