Debates seem to be Carly Fiorina’s best moments. After the last one, her poll numbers shot up, and the Internet was buzzing with analyses of her strong performance.
Among the questions that came up in the wake of the debate was this one: Is Carly Fiorina a feminist? In a world where to be a feminist seems to signify that you are also a liberal, what does it mean when a conservative professes to be a feminist? Is it even possible?
Well, here’s your answer: Of course it is!
Fiorina might not be a feminist if the term is restricted to what LA Times columnist Meghan Daum has called the “liberal, abortion-rights supporting … reusable-eco-bag toting, dangling-earring-wearing” set. But, then, neither are most Americans. A recent Vox poll is typical: Only 18 percent of Americans identify as feminist.
Instead, Fiorina has offered us something better: a model of female power that is free of the whining and pandering that has for so long plagued modern feminism. It’s also a model a large number of Americans could embrace, regardless of party or gender—and one that could give the face of Republican Party politics a much needed makeover. While the media struggles to decide whether Fiorina is or isn’t a feminist, it’s possible they’re missing that her candidacy represents the beginning of a postfeminist era in politics, where what matters is a woman’s opportunity, not adherence to specific policies or a platform built on “women’s” issues.
This postfeminist approach is by no means anti-feminist. Rather, it draws on a model of women’s liberation that thrived in the past, lives in the hearts of most Americans and is ripe for resurgence: equity feminism. Equity feminism stands for the moral, social and legal equality of the sexes—and the freedom of women (and men) to employ their equal status to pursue happiness as they define it. It’s the feminism of anyone who has said, “I’m not a feminist, but ….” Equity feminism does not view men and women as opposing tribes. Theories of patriarchal oppression are not among its founding tablets. Put simply, equity feminism affirms for women what it affirms for everyone: dignity, opportunity and personal liberty.
What a refreshing change this would be for the feminist movement. Decades of squabbling over who is and isn’t a feminist, ideological policing by activist groups and demands for litmus tests on issues like abortion have created a collective cultural exhaustion around this particular f-word. Fiorina captured that divisiveness in one deft sentence: “Over the years feminism has devolved into a left-leaning political ideology where women are pitted against men and used as a political weapon to win elections.”
By contrast, Fiorina recently describes a feminist as “a woman who lives the life she chooses. … A woman may choose to have five children and home-school them. She may choose to become a CEO, or run for president.”
Of course, Republicans haven’t always been adept at promoting this form of feminism, despite their embrace of its values—especially in recent years: During the last presidential race we heard Mitt Romney awkwardly reference his “binders full of women.” And at the most recent of this year’s debates, Mike Huckabee had trouble finding a woman worthy of appearing on the $10 bill who wasn’t his wife (Ben Carson chose his mother).
But equity feminism has a rich history, even among Republicans. According to popular wisdom, the great victories of second-wave women’s liberation were won by bra-burning, street-protesting radicals in the late 1960s and 1970s. In fact, bras were never burned (though a few girdles were thrown into a “freedom trash can”). The second wave actually started in the early 1960s. Its landmark achievements were the work of a group of Republican and Democratic women—lawyers, commissioners and legislators. Aided by male colleagues, they garnered strong bipartisan support for women’s rights in America and won major victories in Congress and in the courts. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act. The Title IX equity law and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act were signed into law in 1972 by President Richard Nixon, a socially conservative Republican. Between 1971 and 1975, a Republican dominated Supreme Court struck down one discriminatory law after another.
Like that groundbreaking legislation, Fiorina-style feminism is focused on opportunity rather than grievance, and Fiorina’s own optimism about women’s progress fits well with it. Unlike previous female Republican presidential candidates like Elizabeth Dole, whose campaign slogan was “Let’s Make History” and who emphasized her experience not just as a senator but as a senator’s wife, Fiorina refuses to play either the traditionally conservative “wife-and-mother” card or the gender card. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton relentlessly references how she is poised to make history and can’t seem to stop reminding us that she is a grandmother.
Fiorina refuses to pander. When asked during the last debate which woman she would choose to put on the 10-dollar bill she politely refused to answer the question, noting, correctly, “It’s a gesture.” The subtext was classic equity feminism: Aren’t there more important things we should be discussing than a token female face on our currency?
Just because Fiorina doesn’t play the gender card, however, doesn’t mean she doesn’t hit back hard when the sexist card is played. Donald Trump’s worst moment in the first debate occurred when Fiorina coolly responded to his crude insults about her appearance: “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.” When someone suggested that women are not good leaders because emotions impair their judgment, she responded not with anger, but with humor: “Can we think of a single instance in which a man’s judgment might have been clouded by his hormones? Any at all?”
Indeed, Fiorina is not blind to the challenges women still face, but she comes to them with an understanding of the history of women’s progress as a bipartisan movement of expanding opportunity and often mentions solutions that are not ideologically driven. Doing so challenges traditional feminist shibboleths. For example, feminist writer Amanda Marcotte speaks for many in the movement when she declares, “Opponents of legal abortion can’t be feminists.” But women as a group are actually ambivalent about abortion. According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, only 24 percent believe it should be legal in all circumstances. Thirty-one percent believe it should be legal in most cases, and 40 percent say rarely or never. Even if you are pro-choice (which we both are) it is both un-sisterly and impractical to organize a “women’s” movement that excludes and often demonizes close to half or more of the adult female population.
And then there’s Fiorina’s idea that true gender equity is signaled more by equal opportunity than by statistically equal outcomes. One feminist writer in Salon recently called her “delusional” for daring to suggest (in good equity-feminist fashion) that the best thing for women is a meritocracy that rewards workers’ performance regardless of sex and doesn’t promote aggressive government intervention in the economy. “She isn’t promoting a redefinition of feminism,” the writer argued. “Fiorina is just peddling the same old right wing bullshit and calling it by a different name.”
Perhaps Fiorina’s feelings about meritocracy have something to do with her experience as a former female CEO and the only female Republican presidential candidate in the race. She has faced without complaint much stricter scrutiny of her abilities as a candidate than have her male peers. Donald Trump tosses off glib remarks about how he would “get along very well with Vladimir Putin” and people chuckle; Fiorina demonstrates an understanding and strong point of view about America’s complicated defense interests and foreign policy and critics claim she merely did a “weekend study of some Middle Eastern names.”
But she’s convinced even strong skeptics. “I never took Carly Fiorina seriously until I heard her on radio interviews over the summer,” prominent academic and social critic Camille Paglia told us. “Her quick, precise command of international and military affairs was eye-opening. It’s about time that women politicians get out of the pink ghetto of soft-focus social-welfare issues and tackle the high-testosterone arena of strategic geopolitics.” Paglia predicts: “Even if her presidential bid fails, Fiorina will surely play a leadership role in this long overdue gender shift.”
Voters should expect Fiorina to explain her record—both her successes and her failures—and she will have to make a persuasive case about how her private sector experience at companies like Hewlett-Packard will translate to leadership in the White House. It’s not enough for her to say that she’s more qualified than Barack Obama was when he ran for president. We set the bar higher when a candidate has never before held elective office. An equity feminist would have it no other way.
Fiorina has confused critics and a large swath of the Democratic left. “Carly Fiorina is an ice cold shade queen debate princess and I’m in love with and terrified of her,” tweeted Jezebel managing editor Erin Gloria Ryan. Elite liberal women found it easy to dismiss Republican candidates like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann—it’s hard to imagine either giving a TED lecture or moderating a panel at Davos. Fiorina is another matter. “It’s so weird,” the activist novelist Jennifer Weiner told the New York Times. “She looks like one of us, but she’s not."
If Fiorina’s postfeminist path to the White House continues to gain adherents, and her invocation of the values of equity feminism continues to resonate among voters, the Democrats’ “War on Women” meme collapses, as does the sanctimony and singularity of Hillary’s invocation that she is making history.
But Republicans should be thrilled, because Fiorina gives them something they haven’t had in recent memory: a candidate who isn’t clueless, tongue-tied, or just plain embarrassing when the subject of women comes up.
