FIRinG Line - - FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL.

Transcription

1 ""0 Q) C: Q) en ~ 2..c Ol.::::.. Q)..c 0 ro en ~ c ~ ro en Q) c._ 0 0 ""0 ~..c _co 0..- ' (0 -~ t.h co.q ~ ::;m,q<(.;:;o en i5"e.. 0..c w c t2,2(!) -a>; c~ ro ~ en QJ C.;::: c c O..::J ~-a -.. CllJ2 c c.q ro : U5 ""0 - ro :(l en.2:: Q)_c en u 0.. e-<( ::::l""o o._c - ro ~ ~.Q ~ ro~ U_J ::::l c ""0 0 Q):..j::i ""0 ::::l c:-!::::::: ro(j) - roc u G:i Q) 6 E o EI ' 0 U c ~ Q)- 0 rou > ro c C u - - -~ ro~ -~ E ros E c en.. - Q)..C_c ::::-e 0.2 Q).. en o ::JLL...: -:> "2.2 c ro U5 ""0 c ~ Q) _J Q) :5-0 en Q) Q) Ul ::::l ~ -0 "2 ro 0 FIRinG Line HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. GUESTS: SUBJECT: ELIZABETH FOX-GENOVESE, ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, HELEN ALVARE, BETTY FRIEDAN, KAREN BURSTEIN, CAMILLE PAGLIA, KATHRYN KOLBERT "HAS THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT GONE TOO FAR?" PART II FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL. This is a transcript of the Fidng Line program (~422) taped at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., on December 7, 1994 and telecast later on public television stations. copyright 1994 NATIONAL REVIEW

2 We are here at George Washington University for the second hour to discuss the women's movement and to inquire specifically whether it is going or has gone too far. And we're going to start off by asking directly whether the Republican landslide of November 8th tells us anything about it. We have seven very distinguished guests who, for that reason, will be very cursorily introduced. Professor Elizabeth Fox Genovese is with Emory University, a prolific author. Arianna Huffington is well-known, also a distinguished author. Helen Alvare is with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, engaged in legislation having to do with abortion. Kathryn Kolbert is in more or less the counterpart of that, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. Professor Camille Paglia's most recent book is Vamps & Tramps. Betty Friedan is the woman who started it all, the author of The Feminine Mystique. And Judge Karen Burstein from Brooklyn is with us. As always, you are most welcome. Now I want to ask: Is there anything about what happened on November 8th that points to the women's question? Because if so, I missed it. [laughter] Ms. Friedan. There is no question there was a backlash against women; it was evident in the vote. The men voted overwhelmingly for Republicans and they voted-- Well,\ why does that act against women? --against Democratic women. And the women voted in great majority for the Democrats. But there was a backlash against women. And I think that we can't look at that and fight it in the old strategies of women against men--because I think we have to look at what the situation of men is today. As I started to say in the last program, white college-educated men--not just high school dropouts or minority men--have in the last five years suffered significant loss of income and status as a result of corporate restructure and job downsizing. And they have become more dependent on women's wages in the family, and I think there is a backlash against women here. Because when nothing is done to point to the real cause of the situation, then you know, it is being turned and manipulated into a backlash against women, a backlash on race-- Now wait a minute. --and that led to this--it's one of the things that led to this great sweep. Isn't that what they call a fallacy of the compound? As you say, most women actively engaged in politics 1

3 are Democrats. This was a campaign in which the Republicans prevailed over the Democrats; therefore, the vote was antiwomen. Right. See, I disagree. I don't think that vote was anti-woman. There were women that were-- It was clear there was a backlash against women, and I think the backlash against women was also indicated in the voting against the Democratic candidates, you know, or the fury at Clinton. No, If I understand you to be saying this, then I would agree: If the average voter thought that government was getting into the hair of people and that one aspect of supergovernment is exorbitant demands by women's lobbies, then I would say that's correct. But I don't think of that as antiwomen so much as anti-exorbitance. I don't think the last election can be characterized that way at all. I think the last election showed-- So you disagree with Betty. I disagree with Betty. I think the last election showed two things. One is, I think that it did show a gender breakdown in voting--that is, men overwhelmingly voted Republican, which they hadn't done in the past. But I also think what happened was, the issues that women care about were not high enough on the list of priorities for people to focus on those in the election. And therefore, the question of abortion, for example, which was very, very important in the Clinton election and in the election of the great numbers of women in '92, was not a primary issue. When it was we saw that pro-choice voters-- Actually that would be incorrect. --came out to vote. --let me disagree with Kathryn on that. On the other hand-- The Susan B. Anthony list, which is a new political action committee, reported that six new pro-life women came in. When the very straightforward question was asked by the w:t:~nm'\\ut&. poll I "Was abortion a factor in your voting?"--was '''Tt = a: 'f'ii"ctor?--27 percent said it was a factor. Of those, 18 percent were pro-life. So this did reflect something about pro-life women, to put that many-- I mean, you 2

4 usually see the stereotypes of the C-Span debates on say, the Hyde Amendment, with regard to Medicaid abortions, you know, it's a bunch of women on one side and Henry Hyde and 10 guys and one woman on his side. He is now going to have six prolife women. That is not an accident. That is not a little blip. Yes, but what it means, though, Helen-- The fact that pro-lifers turned out and put their people in is the opposite of -- happened-- Yes, but something more fundamental has --the trend you were reporting. --that really you cannot ignore, and I find it amazing that Betty Friedan analyzes the election in those terms. I mean really, please wake up, Betty. You know, something very fundamental is happening, and you don't have a clue. There is a fundamental revolution happening that is about people recognizing that in the last 30 years we have spent $5 trillion on welfare and every single indicator is worse than it was and therefore we need a fundamental change in direction. You know that welfare-- There is something else happening-- Welfare is three percent, only three percent-- Just listen-- --of the national budget. --because really, for your sake, you need to understand what's happening. You know-- Otherwise you'll keep talking about-- --you have no use for women that are not rich like yourself-- Now, Betty. --you have no concern for women that are poor or that are on welfare. 3

5 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. Oh, Betty. Oh, really, it's just amazing. an election. I am the only one here who actually ran and lost Let me just-- I'm sorry, Karen, I really do need to complete this point. to you. Arianna, it was only your husband. Yes, let her complete the point and then we'll go The other point, Betty, that you really do not understand at all, and this kind of anger that you are expressing here today is really indicative of how total your misunderstanding of what's happening is, that this has been a real election about values, and the place of values in our culture, in our country, in the political debate, in our schools. There has been a debate that has introduced the possibility of bringing nondenominational prayer at schools. This has been a major evolution and you are still talking as though we are living in the 1960s. You know, this is not Okay, Judge Burstein. I would like to say something, since in fact, as I say, I have the direct experience of, you know, having run in a state that was for a very long time Democratic and having lost. And I would like to say that I do not believe that there are simple explanations for what happened. I do believe there has been a secular change in American politics; I think that we saw some of that in this last election. Does it involve the women, what's happened? I think that it has to do with people's-- it involves women, and it's not that it's tangential, but it isn't anger at women so much as anger at the way the world has changed and the insufficiency of our responses to problems that have been so intractable, like welfare, and the sense that maybe people aren't safe in the way they fully expect to be safe. Well, the answer is they are not, yes. And the notion that the answers being given by those who have been in power are insufficient. Now I want to tell you something. I think that in some measure it's true that the answers have been insufficient. I happen to think that the answers offered--arianna, I must tell you--by Newt Gingrich and people like him, are equally insufficient and they 4

6 will be exposed in their poverty over time. But I think that what you need to do is you need to go all the way to the point that we are with Newt Gingrich before you can come to some reasonable place. And I must tell you one other thing. I am fascinated by what I think of as cognitive dissidence here. There is Newt Gingrich. You talk about values. I really must say this. Here is Newt Gingrich, who says that what he wants to do is restore the primacy of the American family--a man who marries a woman considerably older than him, has children by her and then decides to discard her because she is insufficiently attractive to allow him to become-- Now, now-- Karen, how do you know that? In the first place, we are not going to do that. How do you know that? Wait, wait, wait. We're not going to-- Have you been in his heart? Hold it. We're not going to do that. Do you know his own reasoning? Well, we do know one fact. One fact-- Karen, we are not going to do that kind of thing on this program. --that we can't avoid. Well, then let's just talk about this much. MS. PAGLIA: Let's talk about the election. Can I say something about the-- Yes. I am sorry, Camille. I really need to answer this because-- No, don't-- How do I know this? 5

7 MS. BUFFINGTON: --this is typical of what is happening. This is typical of the character assassination of liberals who are not-- don't know-- We are not going to go into private life. We MS. BUFFINGTON: MS. BUFFINGTON: --equipped to look at what's happening- Arianna-- You have lost the war-- You have the floor-- MS. BUFFINGTON: You have lost the war of policy and now you are doing character assassination. Now wait a minute. No, no, no, Arianna, what I am saying is- Please let me just say this one thing, because it isn't about Newt Gingrich. What I am saying is that it is very-- I am just trying to demonstrate how complicated these matters are. What I am saying to you is, no matter what you say is your view of things, the truth is that people live inside of their views. They also live their lives, and their lives are frequently in some kind of conflict. MS. PAGLIA: Can we get back to politics? Just a minute. Just a minute. MS. PAGLIA: I mean, I think you are on a rant right now, and you are proving to everybody what is wrong with the feminist movement right now. Camille, let me just say-- Let me please-- MS. PAGLIA: You are really-- You are-- MS. PAGLIA: Camille, can I just finish this one sentence? It's like stream of consciousness-- One sentence. One sentence. MS. PAGLIA: --you're exposing yourself terribly right now. All I want to say-- One sentence. 6

8 Thank you. MS. PAGLIA: You are wounding feminism with every word you speak right now. All right, let me say something. For years-- I have been given one sentence. Can I say it? MS. PAGLIA: You have been saying a lot of things. For years I have been warning that there is going to be a movement to the right in this country, okay, because of the failure of progressive politics. I speak as a Clinton Democrat, I speak as someone committed to progressive '60s principles. But there has been a collapse in the last 20 years of liberalism in America; there is a spiritual poverty, okay, at the heart of progressive values. Leftism should be about the people. That's how it began 150 years ago. But what has happened in this country is there is now a white, upper-middle-class elite, okay, which claims to speak for leftist politics, which is completely removed, okay, from the everyday life of women. Betty Friedan began by speaking about the problems of ordinary women. We must move back in that direction and get out of this kind of master-race mentality of so many of these career politicians-- MS. PAGLIA: principles. Well, do-- --of the cultural elite who espouse feminist But do the women that Betty Friedan set out to liberate still suffer from the problems that she pointed to? Or is-- MS. PAGLIA: MS. PAGLIA: Well, the feminist movement has ceased-- --that last year's war? --to speak for them, okay? Oh, please. MS. PAGLIA: The ordinary woman, okay, has no sense of identification, okay, when Patricia Ireland speaks or Gloria Steinem speaks any longer, all right? And I believe that all people who espouse progressive values must go back to looking at the ordinary lives of women who love men, okay, and-- I want to say something-- MS. PAGLIA: --I speak as a lesbian, okay? Most women love men. Most women are religious, okay, and it appears-- And I speak as an atheist, okay? I think there has been too much 7

9 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. neglect--there has been a kind of stereotyping of religious belief in this country, there is a pernicious anti-catholic--! speak as an ex-catholic--pernicious anti-catholicism, and a lot of the-- Hear, hear. MS. PAGLIA: --pro-abortion rhetoric that goes on--again, I speak from the position of abortion advocacy, okay? And so I am saying that the left has a lot of atone for. It is the left and the failures of the left that produced this election. I think I wanted to offer-- Okay, one at a time. --what to my way of thinking is--it's not in the same words, but it's a similar concept. I referred to it once before--which is, I think that although there are some empirical results of feminism, the reason I criticize it is in part because of all it could have been and was not, but also because of some very substantial problem at its core, which is what Camille is talking about, which is a notion of freedom that is out of control, freedom without responsibility, freedom that does not address the average woman who is working, with children. It is a notion of freedom that in the end, when it has no limits and it has no discipline, is out of control. And it hurts the person who exercises it, it's an individualism, as Professor Genovese has referred to before, that eventually hurts the person and lets the common good go to hell. Kathryn has the floor. The original question of this show is: Has the women's movement gone too far? And I think the answer is we haven't gone far enough. There is real injustice continuing to exist in this nation as a result of gender discrimination. There are women who suffer because they do not have equal opportunity with men-- Give us an example of that. --in a variety-- Give us an example, when 55 percent of the college population is female-- earn, okay? Women on average earn 75 percent of what men No, we heard that-- 8

10 We have closed the gap. It used to be 59 percent. Now it's somewhere between 71 and 75 percent. Women for the most part are in part-time work, have the primary childcare responsibilities in their family, and that means they work in their job and they go home and they work again without the support of the men in their lives. Now that is not necessarily a good thing, because women need support in the same way that men need support. But-- injustices. Well, but that's like pointing to biological The fact of the matter is that-- Just because women bear children-- --one expects that women are going to-- --doesn't mean they have to raise children. I think the point-- Wait a minute. We can't both talk at the same time. We could. We simply assume that women to the extent that they choose to be mothers are going to exercise corresponding responsibilities. No, no. What I am saying is-- But why is this gender abusive? Because what I am saying is, as Helen said, when women develop rights they also have responsibilities, and that's true for men as well, and I think what's happened is that there is a continual blame that as we obtained rights and were therefore also obligated to be responsible, men have not correspondingly borne the responsibility. But they have-- I want to say-- You-- Yes. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: On the points you are making, Kathryn, very, very directly, first of all, this varies tremendously by class and race, and the group in this country that is suffering the worst are non-affluent, poor, black males, who are dying at greater rates than any other segment of the population. As a result of what? 9

11 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. you-- I think poor black women would disagree with As a result of what? MS. FOX-GENOVESE: Drugs. --significantly on that. Violence, murder-- MS. FOX-GENOVESE: Violence. --homicides. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: They are killing one another largely. Because they have no future, no hope. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: Very little future or hope. But that is the most-- And I think, you know--i think the women's movement has something to say about the level of violence in this society and there is much too much. Now Betty, you're on. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: I didn't get a chance to finish. In a certain sense-- Oh, you didn't? I'm sorry. In a certain sense, gender warfare--the war between the sexes--any of this woman versus man stuff, is diversionary at this time. The women's movement has gone far enough that as I know I told some of you earlier, it is interesting that 30 years ago women's mental health peaked at 20 and went down every decade after 20 and drastically after 40 compared to men. And now women's mental health is as good in their 40s, their 50s and 60s as younger women, and that same improvement hasn't happened with men. It is because women have more control over their lives. But the threat to everybody today is this sort of growth of, I think, anxiety, impotent rage, because people are losing their sense of economic-- Oh, this is unbelievable. --security and status, and it is especially damaging for men and for white men and that is causing a backlash against women. 10

12 This is totally unbelievable. If you think that the reason for the free-floating anxiety that is predominant today is economic insecurity-- Yes. pathetic. --you are so out of touch, it's totally Read the papers. You'll see it. Betty, Betty, you really need to comprehend-- No, not you, darling. million trying to buy an election. You could spend $80 [laughter] The ad hominem attacks don't advance this at all. MS. PAGLIA: She didn't begin her life-- She wrote two books before she ever met Mr. Buffington. I hate to-- here. I don't have $80 million and I agree with Arianna Helen, you know, what is very interesting about this is the level of anger directed at me. I have worked all my life. I have worked harder since I've married a millionaire than.before. I've written six books. What are you angry about? What are you angry about? Let me tell you. Let's get back to the point here. Let me answer the question. I'm angry about what you are-- Let me answer the question. What you are angry about-- I'm glad that-- No, no, let her finish. What you are angry about is that you hate my views, you hate my beliefs. Yes. You hate the fact that I believe in God. Right. 11

13 MS. BUFFINGTON: You hate the fact that. I believe in less government. That's what you hate. That's what all you liberals hate, and the women's movement-- Arianna, you're doing the same thing-- --is in the hands of those liberals. You just did the same thing that you've been complaining about Betty. But she accepted-- No, no, no, that may be Betty, but then you said, "All you liberals." Like a minute ago we got into trouble because I started talking about a particular individual. What I really wanted to say is this: It seems to me that there really are some--that there are real problems, and I think most of us can agree what the problems are. MS. BUFFINGTON: Yes. What there aren't, in my view at least, are fixed answers yet. What there are, there are a range of answers. What we tend to do is, we take--we decide, we get in, our head that there is one particular way to attack every single thing as opposed to understanding that in the real world some answer works but in another case you can get somebody who thinks of him or herself as conservative but who will say about some kinds of things, Yes, we ought to have government intervention. It isn't simply that we can't have government. Yes, we should downsize it, but there are places clearly I think you would agree where government would be significant. My worry is that most of our discourse is like this, which is basically everybody screaming at everybody else, and bringing up all kinds of-- MS. BUFFINGTON: But Karen-- There is-- MS. BUFFINGTON: --there are some fundamental differences. There are some very fundamental differences. Betty and I, we never agree about our view of the world. Camille and I have more agreement. There is no question that either one view of the world will prevail or another in terms of our culture. Individual differences will always exist, but our culture has to make some fundamental decisions. There is no such thing as a value-free culture. Arianna, that's where I disagree with you. 12

14 And at some point I believe feminism has to take responsibility for the advocacy positions of its leadership. Some of them have definitely been anti-god or at least not reaching out at all to the values of the woman who is religious. For instance, the notion of what freedom is. Feminism again has promoted the notion that freedom is from the other. The very heart of the Christian notion of freedom is that you have your freedom so that you can not only benefit yourself but others at the same time. But Helen-- --relationship. That is a core problem and it's a core difference that-- The feminists that I know-- --has to be pointed out and criticized. --have a very strong vision of community. They have a very strong sense of responsibility. Freedom of choice is the opposite, though. But Helen, you see, you-- It says any choice, no limits, no relationship. No, it doesn't. Let's-- What we do is, we talk about freedom of choice, feminists do, in the issue of abortion. It's infected the entire rhetoric. What you do is, you elevate it-- It's infected it all. Well, now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's-- more. You've elevated it-- I don't think abortion is the main issue any I'll tell you what. I'm glad you think that. 13

15 What's the issue of the show? I'll tell you what let's do. I'll tell you what let's do. Let's be concrete. It is true, is it not, that there are Democrats who are against very permissive abortion, is it not? Yes. It is true that the governor of Pennsylvania is a formidable figure and it is true that Governor Casey put in to address the Democratic Convention in Houston and was denied access to it. Now might this not understandably annoy some voters who think that the Democratic Party is sincerely engaged in multicultural inquisitive action? MS. PAGLIA: speech. Yes, but there has been tremendous suppression of There has been a lot of-- MS. PAGLIA: There has been tremendous suppression of free thought and free speech. It is one of the greatest failings of progressive politics of the last 20 years, because that is not how '60s progressive politics, you know, were founded. I think absolutely. Their refusal to allow Casey to speak, I think, was stupid. Okay, okay, okay. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: I think that sex education-- There is a lot of-- MS. FOX-GENOVESE: Betty, give me a chance. that? MS. PAGLIA: --just abolish the Women's Caucus, did you know Betty, hang on one second. The Black Caucus and the Women's Caucus. You pulled the plug on-- Professor Fox-Genovese. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: The whole problem of sex education, the idea that sex education will in some way solve the problem of younger and younger pregnancies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that this is just a simple, value-free, public health kind of measure--it is not. And it is not a reactionary backlash for parents to say, "No, I don't want my children taught that marriage can end in divorce, that people can live together without being married, that when you are very young you may have sex with your girlfriend or boyfriend, that people 14

16 of the same sex may live together and they are not yet permitted to be married," and so on and so on. That is when you are dealing with young children an intrusion into what is normally taken to be the prerogative of families. And-- But when families fail, the question is-- MS. FOX-GENOVESE: But interestingly enough-- But is the concept value-free? Of course it isn't-- But it is also-- --and that's, I think, exactly the point. the-- Interestingly enough, the very women, Kathryn, Just let me finish. --the very minority women, poor women, that Betty Friedan claims I do not understand, are the very women who are fighting the Rainbow curriculum-- Yes. --the very women who are fighting "Heather Has Two Mommies" and they are the very women who have totally nothing to do with the women's movement. They do not understand these women. Le~ me say something. I think sex education- HR. BUCKLEY: Kathryn. I advocate sex education. I think the only way that we are going to move to a society where women can make choices about their childbearing is that they have to have information, and they have to have a full range of information and that sex education has to include values-- Including abstinence? --because we have to give girls-- Are you in favor of including abstinence? Absolutely. MS. PAGLIA: Absolutely. 15

17 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. Because that is one option and we have to do more than that. We have to give girls the ability to say no, because they have other choices in their lives. Okay, I don't disagree with including values. The point is that most people oppose sex education because they think people ought not get information. They want to gag the information, they want to keep it away from young kids. I don't think that's why most people oppose it. We're not in a position, the Church, of opposing it, rather just wanting to make sure that sex is not sex as plumbing. It is sex that introduces values. I think a lot of people are concerned-- finish. But the question is-- Wait, let her finish, let her finish, let her --about putting it in the hands of the state and that it has been influenced by some of the perhaps some of the worst principles of the feminist movement, which again talk about sexual freedom as the core of all freedoms and freedom in sexuality as unlimited. I think people are very upset when that becomes an agenda of the state-- parents. But I don't think that's been a main note-- --and taking over that responsibility from the --of the women's movement at all. The women's movement has infected that rhetoric. That's what I've been trying to get at all along with the statement that the core problem of freedom as if there is no natural law, freedom as if there are no limits, freedom as if every action you make isn't making that bed you are going to have to sleep in is the kind of freedom that has unfortunately been promoted by feminism-- Helen, you know every time-- You talk about words-- --and it has infected these other debates. MS. PAGLIA: This is really true about-- As a teacher of 23 years I have to say it is really true, okay, that a lot of white, upper-middle-class activists have treated the schools as simply a place for them to-- What is she doing on our side? 16

18 MS. PAGLIA: --by acts of cultural imperialism to force their secular views down the throats of the working class. And again, I am speaking as someone whose family was an immigrant and so on. I believe that sex education should be optional and that the parents should have the right to choose whether the child goes to sex education or not. Well, do you-- You'd better not use the term "right to choose," however, because that will then infect the entire debate and we will get to the point where nobody believes in values again. That's the problem, Helen, again. You keep talking about the fact that what women have done in the women's movement is somehow or other diminish and devalue important things, important relationships. It's devalued good choices-- Okay. Good choices. --in favor of any choices. And I think that that is as equally irresponsible for you to say as it would be if your argument were in fact correct. That fact is empirically provable. [laughter] But Helen, if we made the same argument, I could say the Catholic Church has taken a very dogmatic, religious view that-- We're not discussing the Catholic Church. Well, wait a second. We're not discussing the Catholic Church. But let me just-- Let me explain. No, but she is free to bring it up. We're discussing the fact that-- She is free to bring it up if she wants to. Arianna, let me finish here. What I am saying is that there is diversity in the women's movement in the same way as there is diversity within the religious orders that exist in this country and different religions take different views. 17

19 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. But diversity by itself-- --on the very issues of-- --is not a virtue. I think it is. Individual people-- I think diversity is a virtue. --ought all to be tolerated. That diversity is good. I think the diversity you are talking about is-- Tolerated? --tolerated-- Yes, tolerated in the good sense. What about affirmed in their personhood? Absolutely. What I think that Kathryn is talking about, however, is that diversity of ideas is always good. Some ideas are bad. No. Ideas have-- Hitler's ideas were bad. Ideas, the freedom of ideas-- Diversity is good vis-a-vis people-- We have 15 seconds to go. MS. FOX-GENOVESE: --is the problem of choice, because in general I think most people are for a very wide range of choice for families, for individuals. But where abortion is different from everything else, whether you support its availability or not, because the moment taking a life becomes a matter of individual choice, we are in a completely different realm and that's-- Thank you very much, Elizabeth; thank you very much, ladies; and thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 18