Women's Forum Challenges Feminists, Gains Influence.

[Michael Pugliese]

Paula J. Dobriansky of the IWF, was a name I remembered from Iran-Contra.
(One of the founders of IWF was Barbara Ledeen, wife of leading Iran-Contra
figure, Michael Ledeen. Had not known she split from IWF.) Clinton appointed
her to an advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. (Remember the Office of
Public Diplomacy in the Reagan White
House and Faith Whittlesey, during the period of Conta aid?)
   The PIR intelligence website links
http://www.pir.org/
http://www.pir.org/cgi-bin/nbonlin1.cgi?PEARSON_ROGER_
http://www.pir.org/cgi-bin/nbonlin6.cgi?DOBRIANSKY_PAULA_J
her to the odious eugenicist, Roger Pearson. (Mankind Quarterly editor, for
more on Pearson see the Anderson's book on the World Anti-Communist League.)
  I'd imagine she will work with Otto Reich and Richard Armitage.
  Michael Pugliese



Women's Forum Challenges Feminists, Gains Influence

By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 1, 2001; Page A06
Third in an occasional series
A loose association of successful, politically prominent women has found its
way to the highest levels of the Bush administration carrying a distinctly
different view of women and women's issues.
The group, the Independent Women's Forum, champions a laissez-faire brand of
conservatism that stresses limited government, free-market capitalism and
personal responsibility, but with a gendered twist.
It is one of the few women's groups willing to challenge the central beliefs
of feminist organizations, arguing that contemporary feminism is too willing
to cast women as victims. This has resulted, the group believes, in an angry
and intellectually rigid feminist viewpoint that believes affirmative action
and other government programs are the only way to obtain true equality
between the sexes.
"It would be political suicide for lots of groups and organizations to get
up and say the emperor has no clothes," said Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer, the
forum's new president and a protégé of economist Wendy Lee Gramm, an
influential board member and wife of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.). But as women,
members of the forum can take positions that are "politically radioactive,"
Pfotenhauer said, giving the group exposure far out of proportion to its
$1.3 million annual budget and roughly 1,600 dues-paying members.
The Women's Forum opposes the Violence Against Women Act and Take Our
Daughters to Work Day. Members argue that it is boys, not girls, who are
being shortchanged in schools. And they claim that federal bureaucrats are
forcing colleges to fund athletic programs for women at the expense of
existing programs for men.
The group was formed in 1992 by Republican women angered by the testimony of
Anita Hill at confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas, and the prominent role played by the National Organization for Women
and other feminist groups. Today, the Women's Forum has become a favored
venue for conservative scholars, writers and policymakers to trade ideas and
showcase their latest work on women's issues. The forum's reach inside the
new administration exceeds the group's modest size.
Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao is on its national advisory board. Linda
Chavez, President Bush's first nominee for the Labor job, also is on the
advisory board. Lynne V. Cheney, wife of the vice president, is a former
member of its board of directors who is now listed as a member-emerita.
Wade Horn, who heads the National Fatherhood Initiative, served on the
forum's advisory board before he was tapped to be assistant secretary for
family support at the Department of Health and Human Services. Diana
Furchtgott-Roth, who has advised the group on economic issues, is chief of
staff for the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Furchtgott-Roth and
advisory board member Christine Stolba wrote a book, "Women's Figures,"
which highlighted the economic advancements of women in recent decades. They
argue that the pay gap between men and women disappears when other
variables, including age, education, experience and choice of occupation are
taken into account.
Paula J. Dobriansky was on the advisory board before Bush tapped her to be
undersecretary of state for global affairs; forum adviser Eileen J. O'Connor
is the administration's choice for assistant attorney general for the
Justice Department's Tax Division. Author and commentator Barbara Olson is a
founding member; she also is the wife of Bush's solicitor general, Theodore
B. Olson, who in 1993 prepared the first friend-of-the-court brief filed by
the forum with the Supreme Court. It was a defense of the Virginia Military
Institute's admissions policy barring women.
More forum members may soon find places within the administration. Sally
Satel, a psychiatrist who lectures at the Yale Medical School and serves as
the group's science adviser, has been interviewed for key posts at Heath and
Human Services.
"I have no idea what the job is -- and yes, I'm deliberately trying to be
coy," Satel said. In her book, "PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness is
Corrupting Medicine," Satel criticized the HHS office of civil rights and
office of women's health.
Anita Blair, the forum's executive vice president and general counsel, also
is under review by White House personnel staffers.
Bush appointees who are not Independent Women's Forum members but must face
Senate confirmation are dropping by its Arlington headquarters to be briefed
on gender issues, Pfotenhauer said. "They call us to say they want one of
our staffers to brief them and walk them through the issues," she said.
"That's somewhat illustrative that we've carved out a niche."
While the forum seems to delight in taking politically unpopular positions,
the group is officially silent on abortion. In part, this is a reflection of
its libertarian leanings, said Christina Hoff Sommers of the American
Enterprise Institute, who heads the group's national advisory board.
Besides, Sommers added, other conservative women's groups already are
fighting to restrict abortion and forum members themselves disagree on the
issue.
The forum continues its high-profile but so far ineffective opposition to
the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which was reauthorized by Congress last
year as an attempt to combat domestic violence. It argues that the law is
not helpful to assault victims, gives too much authority to the government,
is based on exaggerated claims of domestic violence and is being used by
feminists as part of an ideological war against men.
The Bush Department of Justice budget proposed an increase in funding for
programs authorized by the act, however, and in his confirmation hearing
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft pledged to use it. Forum members are now
focusing their opposition at the regulatory level. They have met with
Justice Department officials and White House staffers to discuss what they
said is a misallocation of resources directed through the department's
Violence Against Women Office.
Regulatory issues could be "corrected very quickly by having the right
person in that office," said Pfotenhauer, who added the group is not
"pushing a particular person for the job."
The forum has also led a campaign against gender equity in sports under
Title IX, a law approved by Congress in 1972 that prohibits sex
discrimination in "any education program or activity receiving federal
financial assistance."
Kimberly Schuld, who heads the forum's "Play Fair" initiative, said the
broad intent of Title IX to eliminate gender discrimination on campus was
laudable. But she said it also produced a "huge" unintended consequence:
Instead of boosting athletic opportunities for women, a number of
financially strapped schools cut men's sports teams to achieve parity in
athletic scholarships and teams among women and men.
The group supports a system that matches scholarships and teams to the
relative level of interest of men and women, Schuld said.
The forum also opposes reauthorization of the Women's Educational Equity
Act, which provides schools with materials and programs to combat sex
discrimination. They strongly dispute the underlying rationale for the
law -- that girls were being shortchanged by schools, pointing to data
showing that suggests it is boys who consistently underperform in school and
disproportionately suffer from low self-esteem. The legislation is nothing
more than a "feminist pork barrel," according to a forum policy summary.
The rapidly ascending Women's Forum touched down briefly on Earth last
summer when Barbara Ledeen, its co-founder, left in a bitter split with its
board of directors. The forum closed its Washington office, and many on the
left and right whispered that the group was dying, if not already dead.
Nine months later, it seems newly invigorated, in large part because of
Pfotenhauer. An economist by training, she has a telegenic smile, a flair
for fundraising and a mandate from the board to focus and professionalize
the organization.
Pfotenhauer is no stranger to Washington. She served as chief economist for
the Republican National Committee and worked as an economist in the first
Bush administration. In 1994, she was on the cover of National Journal,
which called her one of the "Best and the Rightest" thirtysomethings in
Washington. She is married and has five children, all under the age of 14.
The Women's Forum is a nonprofit foundation and gets the overwhelming
majority of its operating funds from other conservative foundations. It is
restricted by tax law from aggressively lobbying Congress, which,
Pfotenhauer admits, limits its effectiveness.
"But we can publish papers, we can do speakers, we can answer questions, we
can testify if we are invited," Pfotenhauer said. "We are hopeful that now
our time has come."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company