Conservatives try to claim the term feminist as their own

Grabenhofer continued, saying that in order to be a feminist, a woman must support abortion rights.

“If you cannot control your reproductive rights, you cannot fully participate in society,” she explained.

The conservative attempt to usurp the word feminist has arisen in response to the idea that only women who believe that the right to an abortion is a legitimate right can be considered liberated.

“We actually never claimed the word feminist for ourselves until recently, only because we plan to keep it to defeat them on their own ground. Liberation should not come from killing your future baby, continual grievances and pushing men down,” Dannenfelser said. “Those women that put abortion at their center have ignored legitimate concerns we might have and instead have spent all their time on things which have hurt women.”

Dannenfelser continued, “The women’s movement has ignored us conservative women for many election cycles, but they cannot ignore this tidal wave of pro-life conservative women that are running and that are not just running—anyone can put their name on a ballot—but are viable candidates.”

Lukas attributed the wave of Republican women running for political office this cycle not just to Sarah Palin, but to what she sees as the overall pain the country has felt under President Obama.

“A lot of the leaders of the Tea Party are women and people who have not been in politics or wanted to be in politics before,” she said. “They have been out living their lives. But the country is at a crossroads and many feel compelled to stand up against the radical change and the problems our country faces.”

Lukas continued by noting that the upsurge in conservative feminists in political life is making liberal women’s rights groups “furious.” But Lukas doesn’t see anything wrong with ruffling their feathers.

“We are pushing against them, saying, ‘women are not victims, limited government benefits women, conservative principles are good for us,’” she said. “The larger threat from conservative women is not just ending abortion, but also undermining the idea of women as victims.”

Speaking of this conservative women uprising to take back the term feminist, NOW’s Grabenhofer said, “Many of the women with that point of view take the stance of the early suffragists and they think the work is done. It’s not. They’re not feminists.”

But to Dannenfelser, it’s people like Grabenhofer who’ve got it wrong.

“There is a moment when ladies need to stand up to the women who compose groups like NOW and say, no, this is not liberation for me,” she said. “This will be the year of the real woman. For the first time, real women are actually going to be represented and have their voices heard.”

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