I'm all in favor of sending Kate O'Beirne and Ann Coulter over there to 'train' Iraqi women.
Foe of 'Radical Feminism' to Train Iraqi Women
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (IPS) - A U.S. group opposed to government-provided childcare, equal pay for equal work and quotas for women in government service will train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy prior to the 2005 elections in that country.
The anti-feminist, Washington-based Independent Women's Forum (IWF) is one of a number of organisations chosen by the State Department to carry out its 10-million-dollar Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative.
But unlike the other groups, which include the Meridian International Centre, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), IWF has no experience in international exchange and democracy-promotion activities.
The organisation was founded in 1991 by a number of prominent right-wing Republican women to act as a counterpoint to what they called the "radical feminism" of the National Organisation for Women (NOW), a grassroots group with about 500,000 subscribing members nationwide.
Among the IWF's founders were Lynne Cheney, the spouse of Vice President Dick Cheney and former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities; Labour Secretary Elaine Chao; and Kate O'Beirne, Washington editor of the right-wing 'National Review' and a former senior vice president at the Heritage Foundation.
Another founder was Midge Decter, the former co-chair -- with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- of the Committee for the Free World and one of the founders of neo-conservatism along with her spouse, former 'Commentary' editor Norman Podhoretz.
Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, who announced the grant at a press briefing last week, has also served on IWF's board of advisers.
"Talk about an inside deal -- the IWF represents a small group of right wing, wheeler-dealers inside the (Washington) beltway," according to Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.
The IWF, which according to its mission statement was "established to combat the women-as-victim, pro-big-government ideology of radical feminism," has taken a number of controversial positions over the years in pursuit of that goal. <...> more at: http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=25735
"one of the lessons of 1964 that conservatives learned was that it was more important for voters to feel like they were informed than to actually be informed. conservatives now have several places where they can learn this lesson several times a year."
-- ac, the Politics list