Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway gave an interesting interview this weekend where she objected to criticism of her performance in the White House as “gender-based.” The suggestion that sexism drives her critics has unleashed a new round of criticism that she is “playing the gender card.” I thought it would be an interesting question to debate on the blog.
Conway was speaking to Bob Vander Plaats, president of social conservative group The Family Leader, at a conference in Des Moines, Iowa. She stated “I understand that we’re a nation of charged opinions and partisan rancor, but I do find that most of the vitriol comes from people who don’t know me, and who are very brave on social media.” She insisted that “so much of the criticism of me is so gender-based.” Conway added, while encouraging increased civility in policy debates. She added “I pray for my country and I pray for my critics.”
At the outset, I should note that Conway is a former student of mine at George Washington Law School. However, I have previously objected that conservative women are often excluded from celebration of leading feminists and that feminism is often treated as by definition advancing liberal views. Conway is right that she should be viewed as a feminist and a female leader given her accomplishments, particularly in being the first women to head a Republican Presidential campaign.
However, Conway has been slammed for a variety of reasons from defending Sean Spicer in his use of “alternative facts” to dismissing the importance of presidential tweets (when the same day the White House was calling them “official statements”) to her recent use of word cards that has unleashed memes and ridicule.
What do you think about the charge of sexism from Conway?
Conway is a lawyer and is a mouthpiece for her client. She makes almost $180,000 to make up excuses for her client/boss. Considering that she and Spicer have trouble with the truth and both are heavily criticized, I don’t see the criticism of her as being gender-based. Consider that before she joined the Trump campaign she had all kinds of very nasty things to say about him. She joined the team and all of a sudden Trump’s a hero. She is a chameleon who makes up “alternative facts” for her paymaster.
Betty, most people can say things about their friends that are not flattering so I wonder how out of context you have spun your “chameleon” claims in your own mind about Conway. There is no question she spins things, like all people in the political world, to promote the vision she is presently involved with. If you don’t recognize that to be how politics works on both sides then you ought to give up discussing politics.
No. The left seeks to destroy the culture of America. The eventual end of their quest is the American people on their knees praying to the state.
Balderdash, all of it.
Hi Prof. Turley, I have to agree with the roach oppressor that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of feminism. Accomplishments do not make a woman a feminist- and while perhaps a leader of sorts, probably not considered a leader of any sort of woman´s right etc. I think beyond learning more about feminist thought before positing on who is a feminist, you are also exhibiting blind spots with respect to intersectionality as DT and his administration clearly fail on issues of race, sexual orientation, etc, which are considered in the purview of feminism.
Of course CJ, what makes feminists are the vagina hats they wear and the misogyny of their leaders like Linda Sonsour.
Conway is a part of the alternate universe of CCCP, Corporate controlled conservative press. And the conservative entertainment complex to make sure the GOP, “Gods Own Psychopaths” stay in line.
Kellyanne can self identify any way she pleases and I can identify her as an American citizen — the way the Constitution does it. That solves a lot of problems for me since I could not care less about her predicament or the whiny rationalizations she gives for them. That said, I think women should be treated with respect in a way differently than I would treat similarly situated men, but, then again, that would make me a sexist in today’s world or a gentlemen in another one. Since the sensibilities of society are ever changing and mine really do not since they are grounded in my view of history and politics (in the classic sense), I’ll opt for following my own star and letting everyone else catch up later.
Useless statement, glad you do not think too highly of yourself.
Useless statement,
And you fancy your remarks are ever anything non-useless?
“…I can identify her as an American citizen – the way the Constitution does it.”
Kellyanne and women “identify” ontologically as beneficiaries of affirmative action.
The premise is false, artificial, contrived and unconstitutional.
Sexism, racism and all the other pejoritive isms are tools of the left. A woman wearing vagina hat is part of the feminist movement. A woman that wears the style of the day is not if she is related to Trump is an anti-feminist. A woman is a sexist if she doesn’t believe in abortion on demand, but if one supports Linda Sarsour’s misogynistic and racist demands one if a feminist. God forbid a person respond that all lives matter and he will be called a racist because apparently only black lives matter to those of the progressive persuasion.
These advocates of the pejoritive isms are the worst form of sexists, racists and anti-American biggots.
Correction: these “isms” all developed from forms of legal discrimination that whites imposed upon non-whites and women throughout U.S. history: This is a fact. So put your “leftist tool” back in its imaginary box and recognize that the millions of people subject to this rampant discrimination could only rely these words to fight for their equality.
The misuse of these isms by the left demeans all those who suffered in the past and will suffer in the future. They are tools of the left demonstrating severe racism by those that use them.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Democratic Party was known for its anti-black attitude. Earlier at the DNC the KKK was a very important institution.
White people in the country elected a President with an open and documented history of racism unrivaled in modern history, even to the point where Trump can call Obama a terrorist, a spy, and a traitor and all you can do is blame the Dems and the Left?? That’s what you don’t get Allan: Obama represented the apex of American democracy to people of color in the U.S.! He was concrete proof that nation was fulfilling its principle ideas of freedom, equality, and democracy! And then whites elected this manifest bigot who tore that all down, spit in the faces of people of color, and told us that Obama was really a Muslim born in Kenya who founded ISIS and wiretapped him!! That’s the man you now want us to respect as President!
“Trump can call Obama a terrorist, a spy, and a traitor and all you can do is blame the Dems and the Left”
How does this make President Trump a racist? So, a black president can’t be a terrorist, spy or a traitor? I’m not saying President Trump is right, but it doesn’t mean he is racist.
President Obama’s election was the most racist election we have ever had. All you need to do is look at the percentage of blacks that voted for him and the whites that voted for him purely because of skin color. That is the president that is gone.
“open and documented history of racism ”
That is a typical use of racism as a tool. He so happens not to be a racist. During his run he was called an anti-Semite until people recognized that his children married Jews and his grandchildren were Jewish. He’s called a sexist, but what other contractor in NYC has a better record than Trump for hiring women in high positions.
When a leftist doesn’t have the facts and can’t hold their own they accuse the opponent of racisim. That demeans all those that suffered under racism and is a racist attitude.
Obama played the race card over and over again and put race relations back in time.
I don’t want you to support Trump or anything of that nature. I just want you to use real arguments against him and not to play the racist card.
Sexism is constitutional.
Affirmative action is unconstitutional.
Opinions and positions on gender, race, ethnicity, etc. are freedoms that all Americans enjoy under the Constitution with emphasis on the 9th Amendment and shall not be dictated by law.
To wit,
9th Amendment –
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Every conceivable natural or god-given right and freedom which was overlooked by the Bill of Rights is provided by the literal words of the 9th Amendment, “interpretation” by so-called “jurists” and constitutional scholars notwithstanding.
Affirmative action, welfare, redistribution of wealth, social engineering and all other principles delineated in the Communist Manifesto are unconstitutional. The Communist Manifesto was written to obviate the Constitution. The Constitution and the Communist Manifesto are different and they are not the same – they are mutually exclusive.
Was racism constitutional for the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution?
Naturalization Act of 1790 –
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person,…may be admitted to become a citizen.”
Was racism constitutional for Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves?
Abraham Lincoln –
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” “…he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
Sexism was constitutional then and it is constitutional now.
Affirmative action and welfare redistribution were unconstitutional then and are unconstitutional now.
yessum massa….
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” right, comrade?
People must adapt to the outcome of freedom and their own characteristics.
Freedom does not adapt to people.
Charity is an industry conducted in the free markets of the private sector.
What do you think about the charge of sexism from Conway?
I believe it’s intended to change the narrative. It’s a tool that works regardless of party and regardless of the ism claimed. Are the ism’s real? My guess is probably not in percentages any different from 30 years ago. What else is the big government party going to use as bait to corral constituents, promise of jobs, national security, healthcare? Yeah, those party platforms only go so far. What the political class has learned is that ism’s sell.
https://youtu.be/mVh75ylAUXY?t=2
I am not sure what a feminist is anymore. In days of old when knights were bold and condoms weren’t invented, they tied a sock around the …. Anyway, one who practiced birth control was a feminist.
Jack Ruby – my mother was a feminist, had six children. Did not practice birth control.
“Conway is right that she should be viewed as a feminist ….”
Being viewed as a feminist is an insult. They are, and have always been, incessant whiny victim attention seekers. Meanwhile, normal women like Conway are busy living their lives working hard and accomplishing “stuff”.
It is white men who are now in desperate need of some outspoken testosterone driven activism………….
‘Sexist’ is a term used for rhetorical games. It never denoted a coherent concept. ‘Racist’ might aspire to do so, but it’s been used so loosely and promisculously over the years that all it means now is that a prog verbiage machine is losing the argument (see roach the oppressor’s remarks).
K. Conway is irritated that people take pot-shots at her for her feminine features. Regrettable, but it’s not as if others are not jabbed for their ascribed traits. Wouldn’t be if classiness was prized in our public discourse, but those adults left the room around about 1960.
Only Clinton is allowed to play any kind of cards , Sex , race , religion etc
Your overwhelming sense of guilt allows that.
In 1789, the Founders required “…free white person(s)…” as citizens.
They didn’t give a flying —- about any exogenous assignment of guilt.
“Conway is right that she should be viewed as a feminist and a female leader given her accomplishments, particularly in being the first women to head a Republican Presidential campaign.” — J. Turley.
JT’s astonishing ignorance of feminism and feminist theory nearly rivals his ignorance of his own racism that will forever brand his reputation by his refusal to call out Trump’s historic sexism and racism and its danger to our democracy.
Of course, since JT has no conception of the close and historic relationship/”intersection” between racism and sexism — long documented by leading feminist scholars (e.g., e. Ann Kaplan, bell hooks, Diana Fuss, etc., etc.,) — he would idiotically celebrate Kellyanne Conway as a feminist, despite the obvious fact she played a critical role in promoting Trump’s historic racism and sexism, which, again, JT completely ignores.
But don’t take my word for it! Here’s the Wash. Post’s CONSERVATIVE feminist writer, Jennifer Rubin, on Kellyanne Conway, whom Rubin described as a key figure who “HELPED MAKE THE GOP THE MOST MISOGYNISTIC PARTY EVER.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/10/11/conway-loses-her-integrity-and-ends-gops-appeal-to-women/?utm_term=.8fd3fb7e75c1
…But please JT continue to trumpet your mass and embarrassing ignorance.
You are giving a reference from the filth called main stream media ? Talking about ignorance ….
MSM is critical to our democracy — Even major GOP leaders have HAD to say this because of Trump’s withering attacks on the Press and brainwashed uneducated idiots like you who refuse to the hard work of research and analysis required of democracy. You’re afraid of this: Thats’ why the only thing you can do is run away from credible debate under the false flag of ignorance and fake news. Grow-up and become an actual functioning citizen, please.
MSM is critical to our democracy —
They’ve spent several decades acting to beclown themselves and vulgarize that democracy. If they wish to be valued, they can behave better.
“MSM is critical to our democracy”……
MSM is critical to indoctrinating the masses.
There, fixed that for you, Chris.
Hear, hear!
We don’t have journalists in the msm, we have either grandiose pricks or useful idiots in the press , and none of that will get an ounce of respect from me .
If grown up like you considers Anderson Cooper and alikes as anything other than an idiot pretending to be a journalist then no thanks I would rather not be as highly grown up like you seem to consider yourself
Can you give us the prog meathead perspective with greater concision?
Ok, but J. Rubin’s article is quite concise. Turley’s claim that Ms. “Alternative Facts” Conway is a feminist is utterly false and nut supported by any credible university based scholarship: This is a fact. The reason this is so is that Kellyanne helped elect the most sexist and racist POTUS in modern history, a man who bragged about sexual assault on videotape and whose racism is so well documented it defies any contradiction. In terms of feminist theory and racism/sexism, which again is a widely studied in the field, a major area of this work has focused on how black males in the U.S. have been historically “feminized” especially during slavery/Jim Crow/legal segregation and later via Freud and “psycho-analysis”, wherein Freud infamously described women as “The DARK CONTINENT.”
Is that concise enough?
urley’s claim that Ms. “Alternative Facts” Conway is a feminist is utterly false and nut supported by any credible university based scholarship:
This is a weird, incoherent statement. Whether or not you’d slap the term ‘feminist’ on Kellyanne Conway does not require ‘credible, university based scholarship’ any more than me calling you a lout requires it.
That aside, Kellyanne Conway is a woman with a modicum of professional and personal accomplishment. She does not require a seal of quality from WaPoo nuisance Jennifer Rubin or any ‘credible, university based scholar’.
You’d never call someone you admired a ‘feminist’. There are a number of subsidiary points (as there are to the Peter Principle and Murphy’s Law), but you can capture it in one sentence: ‘feminism’ is the habit of looking at human relations carrying the assumption that women have options…and men have obligations.
You do know, for example, that “marital rape” was legal in some u.S. states until the mid 1990s? You do know this? A husband could FORCE sex on his wife with impunity. FEMINISM is what changed that crime.
You do know what ‘non sequitur’ means, don’t you?
chris marker – I do not think you should be the one to appropriate the thinking of feminist scholars.
Paul — I’m summarizing “feminism 101” here — nothing more. This is basic analysis taught at every major university in the nation. You study the social construction of “women’s identities and the effects of this within our democratic system (e.g., women couldn’t vote until 1920, had limited legal rights compared to men, etc.). You also study the substantial relationship between race and gender: these are simple facts, Paul.
chris marker – it is 100 years later, get with the times. You are not a post-modern feminist if you support conservative causes, they take your card away and harass you. I knew feminists long before there was a Women’s Studies at my university.
Paul, feminist theory pre-dates postmodern theory by several decades and is nowhere near abstruse or divided from actual politics: (there’s no common consensus of its theory). Yes, you’re correct, it’s more difficult to be a conservative feminist than a liberal one, but it is a fact that the movement is based on EQUALITY and not discrimination based on political view point.
There is no such thing as ‘feminist theory’.
Let me see if I can summarize your position: “Only ideologically pure women, as determined by our priest class, have the right to fully participate in society.”
This is the sort of things real feminists have fought against. Women are your equals, and entitled to their beliefs, period.
“Women are your equals,…”
Absolutely correct.
Can we be done with unconstitutional affirmative action now?
George – we are going to need one more justice on the SC before we can call it unConstitutional.
The impeachment process must be strengthened and accelerated.
Justices who support unconstitutional laws and programs must be impeached for corruption, abuse of power, usurpation, etc.
Justices have an obligation to impartially and objectively support the Constitution with fidelity and veracity.
Manifest ideological and political decisions are crimes of high office.
Example: Chief Justice Roberts quoted the Constitution and decided accurately when he found that Obamacare was unconstitutional as it compelled the purchase of a commercial product. Roberts committed a crime of high office when he arbitrarily and corruptly reversed and upheld Obamacare with no legal basis – when he obfuscated and circuitously rationalized his convoluted and patently erroneous “opinion.”
George – you are not the only one whose jaw dropped at the reading of that verdict.