As a mouthpiece for the "pro-life" movement and the anti-feminist right wing, Fox News loathes feminism. These themes were prominently on display during yesterday's Outnumbered which bashed feminism and attacked the upcoming Women's March on Washington.
Cohost Meghan McCain began the segment with news that the Women's March organizers have dropped a "pro-life feminist group as an official sponsor." Her voice rose as she read an official statement from the organizers which assured partners and participants that, in keeping with the March's "Unity Principals," the March is pro-choice and as such, the anti-choice group is no longer a partner. McCain assured us that the anti-choice group is still "vowing to march" in order to, as stated by the anti-choice group, "stand up to the haters."
In step with the Fox/right wing's loathing of feminism, McCain said she is "always hesitant to join anything labeled 'feminist' anymore because it's always sort of interpreted as pro-choice and liberal."
There was lots of laughter when cohost Harris Faulkner yielded her time to the guest, Fox host and politics editor Chris Stirewalt, who immediately started trashing the march with his comment: "We have watched this march eat itself before, or already." He alluded to a "discussion about intersectionality" and that "white women, participating in the march, needed to understand their privilege and that stuff." (Vox has an excellent analysis of the intersectionality issue)
He continued with the VERY IMPORTANT FOX MESSAGE: "Now they're kicking out pro-lifers. And what's interesting is, Democrats can not understand how they lost to Donald Trump, even as they're repeating the things in real time. Even as they're doing the things that caused their defeat." Assenting murmurs were heard during his spiel.
Totally ignoring the core pro-choice principals of the march, Stirewalt opined, "You would think that they'd say, 'Any ladies, any guys, anybody who wants to come out and join our march, get out here.'"
Faulkner provided right-wing validation when she added, "The word is 'Americans.'"
Cohost Sandra Smith noted that the excluded group has criticized Trump for being a misogynist and asked, "Why wouldn't they include them?"
Faux liberal Eboni Williams, the other cohost, opined that the march organizers were "getting in their own way." She also claimed that feminism is "just believing in the equal application of rights for women." Nobody challenged her on the notion that women do not have full equality when their reproductive rights are denied. She urged women who oppose Trump to unite.
Faulkner engaged in her patented liberal bashing: "But it's more politically advantageous for liberals to say, to divide the line down, for feminism to say that if you love women...you're on our side...and if you don't, then you're on the other side...so you can't be pro-life and also feel the way we do..." She quipped that America isn't a free country "if you want to march on Saturday."
McCain launched into an anti-choice diatribe against how feminism and the evil media, exclude "strong, pro-life women because it goes against their narrative of what it means to be a modern, empowered woman." She proclaimed that she is proudly pro-life and a career woman "and it doesn't go in with the narrative that the liberal media wants about what women are." She complained about the exclusion of pro-life women from the march.
Williams put a nice bow on the anti-feminist message with her comment that narrowly defining a cause is "a big disservice."
What is a "big disservice" is how a Fox News show turned what could have been an incisive and interesting discussion into a partisan "pro-life' attack. There has been and will continue to be a debate over whether feminism can include those who are opposed to women's reproductive rights. But yesterday's discussion was just another hate mongering, Fox partisan bashfest. Should I say, "sad?"
Check out the not so fair and balanced discussion from the January 17, 2017 Outnumbered above.
Crossposted at Newshounds,us
