Concerned Women For America sent out a press release today with the headline “The Real War on Women: Iraq Introduces Law Legalizing Spousal Rape and Child Brides as American Feminists try to 'Ban Bossy,'" which uses Iraq’s move toward legalizing spousal rape and child marriage to attack feminists in the United States.
In the press release, CWA president Penny Nance rightly condemns the proposed Iraqi measure, but the whole thing quickly takes a bizarre turn when she adds a dig at liberals: “This is the real war on women, and the Left would be wise to wake up to it.”
The press release then quotes CWA senior fellow Janice Shaw Crouse, who similarly uses the Iraqi situation to attack American women’s rights advocates, especially Sheryl Sandberg's "Ban Bossy" campaign:
Such rulings highlight how incredibly out of touch with reality those women are who want free contraception and talk about banning words like ‘bossy.’ Women around the world are dealing with basic human rights issues and the lack of fundamental necessities like good sanitation and pure water, while elite American women are fretting about supposed ‘wars’ on women.
The press release seems to be inspired by a Washington Examiner piece along the same lines by Ashe Schow. Nance previously attacked the “Ban Bossy” campaign in a Fox News op-ed in which she used Jay-Z and Beyonce lyrics to claim that the campaign was hypocritical.
Putting aside the serious lapses in logic behind CWA’s argument, we’re left with a few questions. For instance, does the group think that fellow anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly is also waging a war on women when she argues that there is no such thing as spousal rape? And will it praise Planned Parenthood for working to stop violence against women, including marital rape, across the world?
