SISTERHOOD - FOR SOME

Leave it to the modern feminist movement to prove its irrelevance to the 21st century.

Ms. Magazine - yes, it still exists - has turned down an ad from the American Jewish Congress, celebrating the fact that three of Israel's highest-ranking officials are women - the foreign minister, the president of the supreme court, and the speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
Apparently, the photos of the three, over the words, "This is Israel," has proved upsetting to some of the darlings of the movement.  Why, this is worse than Larry Summers!

Harriet Kurlander, of AJC, says she was told by Ms. that the ad was "too controversial."  A Ms. editor later said that the ad was biased, since two of the three women are from one political party.  Ms. has never won awards for the quality of its excuses.

"These excuses insult the intelligence of their readers," said Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School, who promises to keep the issue alive.  A firestorm is building.

Look, what is this about?  The Middle East?  Iraq?  Big bad Bush?  "Fiddler on the Roof"?

No it's about a basic fact.  Feminism isn't a movement.  It's a sub-movement of the political left, a branch office, and the branch office doesn't run the corporation.  For years what remains of American feminism has drifted further and further to the left, regardless of the impact on women.  On the left, there is a pecking order.  At the top is anti-Americanism, next is anti-capitalism, third is race, fourth is sexual preference, and way down the list is gender.  Gender hasn't been high priority on the left in a very long time.  Notice the deep interest of American feminists in the oppression of Muslim women.  Emphasizing that crime, after all,might help American foreign policy, a sin on the left.

It'll be fun to watch the firestorm build.  I can't wait for someone to charge that this is just another attempt by the Israel lobby to intimidate the press.  I just can't wait.

Posted on January 14, 2008.