Women's Get Togethers, Metastasizing

DEEP DOWN IN THE HEART OF TEXAS, in 1977, a big shindig called the National Women's Conference occurred, then, according to at least one modern modern American cultural historian, metastasized into a far greater phenomenon. Specifically, it morphed into our currently and for the foreseeable future severely polarized "divided we fall" culture, us versus them, left versus right, liberal versus conservative, all of it, the great Americas mess, which, if nothing else, gives us all something about which to argue contentiously. This NWC was righteously ordained by the right reverend James Deal Carter, better known at the rather bland ineffectual thirty ninth president of these here United States.its stated purpose was to chisel into stone a platform, agenda, and strategy for total and complete female equality among all genders and this it did right well. Congress actually subsidized it, which seems incredible by today's standards, and it had bipartisan, bipolar support, which seems even more remarkable in today's ho hum feminist environment, which wasn't so ho hum back in the flaming sixties and seventies, when the U.S.A. nearly, but not quite passed an equal right amendment to its constitutional amendments. The NWC spurred congressional action, on equal pay, and such. This got the right wing all in a tizzy, somewhat surprisingly, since therefore conservatives babes been known to congregate, organize, and activate. The sanctity of the bedroom and the kitchen had been quite enough, under the protective wings of their masculine breadwinners and masters. Never underestimate the power of a little progressive reform,from the "femminazis" as Rush Limbaugh idiotically puts it. to inspire reactionary outbursts within the kingdom of conservatism. So, in a nutshell, the two women's group went to war, the split tails having spread far apart, and the right elected Reagan, and the rest, as the cliche minded say, is history. The new approach here is that the fair sex has more influence culturally, politically, historically, than they are generally give credit for, but after all, that's what the women's progressive equality rights movement is all about.