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Washington, Dec. 8 2011 (AVfM News) “Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) – For Gloria Steinem, the international conversation that the “Occupy Wall Street protests sparked about economic inequality is, at its heart, about gender,” opened an article published by Bloomberg, one of the most popular outlets for business and economic news as well as data early this week. The article exclusively featured Steinem, her thoughts about the movement and how gender inequality and injustice for women are at the heart of the matter even though the movement was started by its founders as adressing an entirely gender neutral problem.
Within the article are mentioned twenty three year old women who are saddling $95,000 in debt who complain that they cannot pay it off as if it were any easier for a 23 year old man. Also, as expected, is a diatribe about the wage gap and how women are especially affected by the current economic downturn. This despite the fact men have fared far worse in recent years as a group than have women and in fact, for the first time in history, women outnumber men in the workforce.
There is a broad effort amongst prominent feminists and well funded feminist groups to convince the American public that the whole banking crisis is, at its root, all about the “patriarchy.” Resulting is an Occupy Patriarchy movement budding up amongst the protesters who have been squatting on park squares in cities all over the world.
Starting their effort in September, they have been encouraged and supported heavily by an organization called The Woman’s Media Center, founded by Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda in in 2005. “The Women’s Media Center convenes panels, issues reports, organizes grassroots campaigns, and meets behind the scenes with members of the media to address issues of women’s representation and general diversity,” reads the description of it’s activities aimed at injecting gender politics and feminist ideology into the general media. Since its founding it has received well over $3.5 million in contributions according to IRS documents; hardly making it a grass roots operation.
Partnering up with The Woman’s Media Center is none other than the Radfem Hub. Distributed by the WMC is a flyer produced by Radfem stating “Occupy Wall street is a men’s movement, but it doesn’t have to be.” Along with references to radical feminist literature and common feminist memes there are also outlined on the flier shocking accusations of sexual misconduct by OWS protesters and the police:
“The conditions for women at OWS offer a glimpse of what “success” would look like, if OWS succeeded. It does not look good.
Women’s concerns are marginalized and we are expected to support men’s concerns first and foremost, and adopt them as our own.
Women are cooking, cleaning and serving men, as men claim all the leadership positions and positions of power and prestige for themselves.
Male-centric sexuality that poses known dangers to girls and women, specifically the risk of unwanted pregnancy is over-represented, and female-centric sexuality that is safe for girls and women is under-represented. Women have been groped and assaulted “
The homepage of the Occupy Patriarchy website features a link to a podcast in which members of OP in Houston are interviewed and a link to a Blogtalk radio show who’s debut program features prominent feminist Robin Morgan who speaks of the OP movement. In both programs the OCW protesters are described as mainly white males who are no different than the patriarchal oppressors that they are trying to overthrow. Accusations of sexual misconduct in both programs are abundant.
Many have noted that for decades feminists have co-opted many other movements in a parasitic manner in order to raise their profile and procure more funding as well as to gain more political influence. This has been readily apparent with the civil rights and anti war movements of the 1960’s and the environmental movement. All of these were never intended to have anything to do with gender but feminists, through dogged publicity, made these things synonymous with feminism.
However it is unclear whether Occupy Patriarchy wants to simply press OWS protesters to make the issue of crooked bankers a gender issue or simply discredit them altogether. In the case of the other movements mentioned above the parasitism was indeed more symbiotic but in this instance the relationship is much more hostile and doesn’t seem to be sustainable. For whatever reason though, it appears the feminist leadership is getting out the big guns and putting down some serious cash to both astroturf and discredit the OWS movement.
One can only speculate as to what their true motivation is.
http://womensmediacenter.com/blog/2011/11/exclusive-ows-where-does-feminism-fit/
http://radicalhub.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/brochurepdf2.pdf
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/index.php/about-wmc/about-us.html
http://occupypatriarchy.org/
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