soft war against women

doing the rounds on facebook lately was this piece from salon:

In the run-up to the midterm elections, a bevy of conservative female candidates invoked feminism in one way or another, but all backed policies harmful to women. In the process, they became media darlings. Palin, who wasn’t running herself but helped get a number of candidates on the ballot across the country, opposes abortion and sex education. Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell called masturbation adultery and promoted abstinence. Sharron Angle in Nevada opposed abortion in all cases, even when children were raped and impregnated. In California, Senate candidate Carly Fiorina was antiabortion. She was a speaker at the evangelical megachurch Willow Creek, which requires any gay or lesbian members to practice celibacy. None of these candidates won, but except for O’Donnell, they ran very competitive races.

[...]

At first glance, it may seem like a wonderful time to be female -- a time of empowerment and achievement: the "You Go, Girl!" era.

But there is another, even stronger current running beneath the surface of society that carries a very different message. The warning today is far more subtle than it was in the early "Backlash" days, when the argument was that women simply could not and should not do what men could do. Now, the message is, "Yes, indeed, you can do it all, and often better than men. But beware!"

Women, you’ve come too far too fast, and because of your success, men are faltering, leading to, as the Atlantic Monthly put it, "The End of Men." A 2010 cover article bearing this title claimed that women were fast taking over the important jobs in society.

Women, you’ve paid too high a price for achieving; you will probably end up alone and miserable. Men do not like high-achieving women. (As a Forbes.com article put it, men who marry career women will be unhappy.)

the writer goes on to write about the effects of increasing sexualisation of women. it does feel frustrating to see so many gains that have been made over many years being gradually eroded away. and it's especially frustrating to see women proclaiming themselves feminists when they aren't interested in improving the lives of women.