In Defense of EMILY's List

LONDON -- Well, ladies, it would appear that I need to don my wetsuit one more time and swim across the pond to defend the honor of EMILY's list.

The last time I did this was earlier this summer, when EMILYs List -- a national political group dedicated to electing pro-choice progressive women -- launched a campaign, "Sarah Doesn't Speak For Me." The group ran an ad openly mocking Sarah Palin's whole "mama grizzly" trope for conservative women. In the ad, women dressed in bear costumes voiced their concerns over such issues as health care policy and federal support for education to explain why Palin does not speak for them. While many feminist bloggers pilloried the ad, I was quite sympathetic. I thought it was funny, clever and appropriately outrageous.

Now, EMILY's list would appear to be in hot water once again. This time, it concerns the Smart Girl Summit that took place in Arlington, Va., last week. Smart Girl Summit is an outgrowth of Smart Girl Politics, which bills itself as "the home on the Internet for conservative women and grassroots activism."

The controversy concerns an EMILY's list intern named Jamie who attended the conference incognito (which is to say, she didn't actually pay) to listen and report on what the conservative ladies had to say. Apparently, during a speech by Princella Smith -- a 26-year-old former congressional Republican candidate from Arkansas -- at the Susan B. Anthony List panel, Jamie's jaw hit the ground.

In her speech, Smith laid into liberal women who support abortion rights as "freaks of nature" who adhere to the "neo-Nazi feminist way" of going to an Ivy League school, starting a career, and putting off having children. Horrified, Jamie reported this back to her superiors. EMILY's List blogger Jess McIntosh then quickly fired off the following reaction:

"So, smart girls, I have a question for you. Were there any of you in the audience who cringed a little when panelist and congressional candidate Princella Smith said that? Any of you who made the choice to wait a while before having children and never thought that made you a freak of a woman? Any of you who went to an Ivy League school and never thought that meant someone would think you were somehow unfeminine?"

McIntosh was then sharply rebuked by conservative blogger Jenny Erikson who responded: "Listen up liberals, because I am sick to death of saying it. We conservatives don't believe it's freakish and against the laws of nature to decide not to have children, to attend an Ivy League school, or to have a career. ... What is against the laws of nature? For a woman to kill her unborn child for no reason other than being pregnant is inconvenient."

My colleague Luisita Lopez Torregrosa thinks that this whole incident only underscores how tone deaf EMILYs List has been in its response to the conservative feminist movement. She writes: " As with the misguided ad parodying Palin's mama grizzlies' video, Emily's List excursion into enemy territory is a bit of an embarrassment. Why send an intern on the sly to report on a conference that was open to anyone willing to pay for a ticket? Why spy on conservative women? Why so shocked and appalled at the speeches?"

Really, Luisita? I couldn't disagree more.

I agree that it was probably not a wise move for Emily's List to send an intern to this event rather than someone more senior. That's not because I disagree with anything Jamie expressed. It's only because when stuff like this blows up, it can easily become a case of "Let's blame the intern."

Having said that, I was an intern in Washington, D.C., myself once upon a time and was regularly sent to report on events well above my pay grade. That's why it's called an internship. And bravo to EMILY's List for actually giving their interns something worthwhile to do, rather than just grabbing coffee.

But the more important point here is that I find both Jamie's horrified reaction at Smith's unseemly remarks -- as well as McIntosh's impassioned attack on Smith -- to be completely kosher. (And I say this not only because I am a (cough) pro-choice Ivy League liberal feminist who put off having kids to further my career.)

I say it because when someone starts using the terms "genocide" and "neo-Nazi"to refer to someone else's reproductive choices, them's fightin' words. So of course intern Jamie was going to register her quite appropriate shock and outrage when she heard them come out of Smith's mouth. What else was she to do?

I'm glad to hear from Erikson that not all conservative women are against Ivy League educations or careers or women who choose not to have children at all. I'm sure that's true. I was also heartened to hear from Slate's Hanna Rosin that the conference as a whole was light on abortion and Christianity and heavy on female empowerment. Bring it on.

But that's not really what this is about, is it? It's about whether or not what one conservative feminist said about liberal feminists -- and, heck, let's just quote her words back one more time, shall we? -- being "Neo-Nazis" and "freaks of nature" who commit "genocide" is OK. Ever.

And, of course, it's not just one person's language we're talking about here. As Bill Prendergast over at Daily Kos points out: "The fact that the "Smart Girl" politicians are willing to countenance language and charges like Smith's (in the context of a featured public discussion) at their conservative "Summit" event tells how American feminists and supporters of choice can expect to be treated, once the present generation of Republican conservatives comes to power."

It seems like it's becoming fashionable these days to pile on EMILY's List as the people there devise a message and a strategy with which to combat the successful branding that Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell and other conservative feminists have carved out for themselves.

But I think that EMILY's List is right on the money, both with their message and with their messengers.

And I really hope that they keep on fighting the good fight.

Someone has to.

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