Crofton Online: Election Coverage
Women Stand Behind Clinton

'Puritanical Fundamentalist Sex Police' Feared

A number of the nation's top women held a press conference in Washington, DC yesterday [September 24, 1998] to remind the news media what the rest of us already know, that women have a vested interest in fighting the right wing attacks on the President of the United States.

Since opinion polls clearly show that an overwhelming of women continue to support the President, the tabloid media has been reduced to having its pundits announce that "obviously women are upset that Mr. Clinton cheated on his wife" or that "women everywhere are wondering what to tell their children."

We know otherwise. Women, like men everywhere, are furious about the outrageous invasion of privacy of the private life of the President and the First Lady being orchestrated by Republican tobacco lobbyist Kenneth Starr and supported by the tabloid media.

But women have a special concern. As Eleanor Smeal, the president of the Feminist Majority put it, "We have years of progress at stake if the President is hounded out of office. But worse yet, we risk the ushering into power of a puritanical or fundamentalist sex police which speaks of freedom but allows government to destroy the right of privacy."

Among the other participants in the press conference were Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, head of the Black Leadership Forum, noted feminist Betty Friedan, and Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women.

"Some of those leading the charge against Mr. Clinton are among the worst foes of women's rights," said their statement. "The opponents of the President have a political agenda that will harm women long after the scandal has faded from the front pages."

"Women should write, call, telefax, e-mail, shout and tell Congress, 'Do not impeach this president and don't force him to resign," they added.

Others are furious that the right wing continues to imply that an adult woman, Monica Lewinsky, is incapable of deciding for herself whom to have sex with, and that another adult woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton is similarly incapable of making her own decisions about her private life. These Republicans would have us return to the "bad old days" when men attempted to make all the decisions for their wives, mothers, and adult daughters, believing women incapable of intelligent thought.


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