Women who continue to see themselves as victims of a patriarchal society should consider how women patronize and stereotype themselves. Consider “A Woman's Day,” a “professional conference and exposition” slated for California's state capital in late September.
“A Woman's Day” is sponsored by the Sacramento Bee, which like virtually all major dailies no longer publishes a women's page. These pages implied that women were only interested in trivial matters, not news, opinion, finance, and sports. The women's page disappeared long ago with few regrets. A “men's page” would have brought derision, as would a conference billed as “A Man's Day.”
From the lineup, one could easily conclude that there is no diversity among women. Given the sponsorship, it comes as no surprise that one of the speakers is Janis Besler Heaphy, the paper’s publisher and president. Last year Heaphy gave the commencement address at California State University, Sacramento, and exploited the occasion to deliver a shrill, partisan harangue about the sins of the Bush administration. She assumed that everyone thinks just like her, or ought to. She was shocked when the audience, male and female, parents and students alike, many of them Democrats, booed. Heaphy then concluded the performance by refusing to take questions.
Novelist and former columnist Anna Quindlen, also in the lineup, is a capable writer but a predictable liberal. Another speaker is Helen Grieco, California executive director of NOW and chair of something called the Napa Commission on the Status of Women. I was recently in Napa and the status of women did not appear to be threatened there nor in need of a commission. One of the workshops is “wine appreciation,” so perhaps that has something to do with it. Likewise, there can be little mystery about a speech by Sue Ellen Miller, Ph.D., the deputy director of the “Women’s Global Health Imperative.” Note the imperative voice. Why, there are just no two ways about it.
Notably absent are prominent women of divergent views such as Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal, authors Linda Chavez, Christina Hoff Sommers, or Virginia Postrel, or even Jeanne Kirkpatrick. All women, after all, are not liberal Democrats.
Conference workshops will include “Celebrating Ourselves,” “All About Style, Tips, and Tidbits,” and “Breaking Barriers: Women in Male-Dominated Fields.” Most interesting is “Feng Shui as a Tool for Life: The Next Step.”
I'm not sure what Feng Shui is, but I do know that I earned an economics degree and my present job without it. Today’s American women, the most successful in history, can surely do without conferences like “A Woman’s Day.”
Sally Pipes is the President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank. She can be reached via email at spipes@pacificresearch.org.
