The Right Loves Women

3/31/07

The next time someone on the Right (FULL DISCLOSURE: I USED TO BE CONSIDERED AS PART OF “THE RIGHT” BEFORE THE LITMUS TEST FOR BEING SO CHANGED FROM A DEVOTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE PEOPLE AND FREE MARKETS AND AN ATTENDANT SUSPICION OF GOVERNMENT TO BLIND DEVOTION TO THE “BIG GOVERNMENT ON A GLOBAL SCALE” APPROACH OF THE BUSHMEN.) launches into one of his “We’re all for women’s rights, but…” dodges, consider these words of British conservative Theodore Dalrymple, commenting on the plight of British hostage in Iran Faye Turney on the editorial page of the 3/31-4/1/07 edition of The Wall Street Journal :

“Either she’s a soldier, or she isn’t. Being a soldier, at least one of the combatant variety, entails the danger of capture, death, mutilation; it isn’t just a matter of posing stylishly in (sic) camouflage uniform with an automatic weapon for a photo that one sends to one’s friends, in order to fulfill some dream of what is now known as gender equality.”

It’s not Mr. Dalrymple’s opposition to women in combat, which I share, that grates here. It is his smarmy, unctuous, condescending tone and cocksureness that women join the military to make a fashionable statement on gender equality.

Yes, sir, the Right really likes the gals!


The Pontificator