“What happened to Democrats supporting women?” demanded the title of a recent column in The Hill.
“You would normally have left-wing feminists lined up to defend it,” Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) Said at a press conference. “So we ask, where are these women?”
McSally was attending an event hosted by several female Republican senators that had been marketed online as: “Talk[ing] on the Democrats’ double standard for coverage of women in public service.
The argument they advance is based on the following understanding of identity politics: Feminists, claiming to be for the empowerment of women, are required to support all female revolutionaries. President Trump, by appointing a woman, has therefore removed sexism from the discussion, and now feminists are just whining hypocrites.
A more nuanced exploration of identity politics: sexism exists, and women are better placed to notice it, be hurt by it and build their politics around combating it.
Feminism does not mean, “I am a woman, Amy Coney Barrett is a woman, no other questions.” It means, “As a woman, I want to support people who reliably support anti-sexist laws, and although Barrett is a woman, I don’t know if she can be trusted to do that.”
Barrett’s other sex-related questions are irrelevant distractions. Forget if she’s Catholic. It doesn’t matter that she – like Joe Biden or five current Supreme Court justices – is Catholic. Forget if she belonged to a group calling women “servants”; it wouldn’t matter if they were called Merry Maids.
If we are really playing identity politics, the question is not whether Barrett is a woman. It’s not even if she supports women. The question is whether the judge, as a member of the highest court in the land, will interpret the law in a way that will allow women to support themselves.
Coney Barrett seems to be a remarkable person. Loved by his colleagues and students, praised by his fellow lawyers and former professors. At the GOP press conference, senators repeatedly referred to her role as a mother: she has seven children, raised in a marriage she described as egalitarian nationally. The entire Barrett family arrived in Washington orderly, punctual, and smiling, and it was hard not to admire them with a I-don’t-know-how-she-does it perplexity.
Conservative women, in particular, described feeling seen and represented by Barrett. “It shows that it is possible for a woman to rise to the top of her profession while having many children,” one of them told The New York Times. Another woman in the same article said she appreciated that Barrett “represents the fact that not all women need to think the same way about child rearing and family planning.
In Politico, anti-abortion scholar Erika Bachiochi praised Barrett for representing what she called a “new kind of feminism,” based on evolving cultural discussions around parenthood and family responsibility. (This, I feel compelled to add, is also a big part of the old type of feminism: work flexibility and equal co-parenting are cornerstones of liberal arguments.)
If a judge’s job was to be a role model – living a good life that young women might see as an option for their own lives – then, yes, without a doubt, put Barrett on the Supreme Court. But that is of course not the job. The job of a judge is to judge.
And the job of feminism is to ask: does this judgment make the country a more equal place? Does this decision support all the sexes to make decisions for their own lives without being hampered by discrimination? Does this judge agree that women should have the same control over their bodies that men always have over theirs? That members of the LGBTQ community should have the same rights to marriage, adoption or employment as straight people?
On at least some of these topics, we can make reasonable assumptions. We can assume that Barrett will support the overthrow or weakening Roe vs. Wade and other laws relating to abortion; Trump has promised any of his judges will. “I’m putting pro-life judges in court,” he said in 2016. Prominent anti-abortion groups, like Susan B. Anthony List, have warmly applauded his appointment. Recently a newspaper ad surfaced from 2006 – an open letter demanding “an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade, ”which Barrett had signed. Another 2013 announcement, written by the faculty and staff of Notre Dame and also containing her name as a signer, called for “the unborn child to be protected by law.” She was a member of the University’s Faculty for Life group until 2016.
Meanwhile, progressive groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ civil rights organization and the National Organization for Women have issued alarm statements, expressing concern over Barrett’s previous statements on the law. on affordable care – which had codified free birth control – and the Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.
Many scholars have now devoted many columns to calling Liberals hysterical or saying they have nothing to fear from the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett. I guess it’s technically possible that Barrett, during his confirmation hearings, could make a convincing case that his take on Roe vs. Wade have changed since 2006. Or since 2013. Or 2016.
It seems more likely, however, that after years of promising to suppress reproductive freedom or curtail the rights of transgender people, and after lobbying publicly for a Supreme Court that lends itself to these goals, the Conservatives have found someone they think will do it.
And hallelujah, it’s a woman.
How could this strong, capable and admirable woman be bad for women?
This appears to be the rhetorical failure the Conservatives believe they achieved with this appointment. It reflects an understanding of feminist thought that believes in empowerment a women and women’s empowerment are the same thing.
In fact, the rhetorical question – “How can you be a feminist if you don’t support this woman?” – has a simple answer: “We do not have to support giving one of the most powerful jobs in the country to a woman who would use that job to take away the rights of other women.”
It has been fascinating throughout these two weeks of polishing Barrett’s credentials to see how many times his supporters talk about “choices.” More precisely, the choices Barrett made for his own family, the choices she made her own career.
This only highlights the error of confusing what a woman would choose for herself and what she would mandate for others. Women should feel free to plan their own family. Women should be able to have one, three or eight children. They should also be able to have none.
A feminist on the Supreme Court would support all of these possibilities; an anti-abortion justice that happens to be a woman would reduce them.
At the GOP Senators’ press conference, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (RW.Va.) – seemingly without irony – invoked Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “Judge Barrett’s journey, his journey, a. . . benefited from the trip and Judge Ginsburg’s decisions.
Ginsburg was loved by liberal women because her work opened doors for the women who came after her. How disheartening it is to fear that the next woman to walk through them will lock them behind her. There’s a reason why Ginsburg’s last wish would have been for his successor to be appointed by the next president, not for the successor to be a woman.
“When we look at Judge Barrett, we see an accomplished woman,” said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.). “We see a brilliant lawyer. We see a nice person. We see a person who has managed to balance their family life with a husband and seven children.
Fischer is right. We see all of these things. What we don’t see is a feminist hero, and we shouldn’t have to pretend we do.
Monica Hesse is a columnist who writes about gender and its impact on society. For more information, visit wapo.st/hesse.
