Karin Lips has noticed a “special kind of vitriol reserved for conservative young women” in society today.
The president and founder of Network of Enlightened Women, Lips told the Wall Street Journal that progressives often treat these young women as traitors of their sex.
“Feminism has become a word that’s been co-opted largely by the left,” Lips said in the interview, published Monday. “The best example of this is the Women’s March. The left used women to try to advance all kinds of progressive causes.”
“One of the biggest failures of modern feminism is that there seems to be a monolithic view of what women want. And if you don’t march in lock step, then you’re insulted or you don’t count as a woman,” she said.
Lips noticed this for the first time when she was a college student in at the University of Virginia in 2004.
When she pitched the idea for a conservative young women’s group on campus, the Women’s Center laughed at her, Lips remembered.
“That was very frustrating,” she said. “But I thought, ‘I bet there are more women who feel like I do.’ So I decided to start a book club at UVA for conservative and more open-minded women.”
That grew into the Network of Enlightened Women, which now has dozens of student-led chapters on college campuses across the U.S.
Much like she did 20 years ago, Lips said young conservative women are still battling their peers and campus leaders for recognition.
“At a few schools where students are on the governing committee for deciding what organizations get recognized, we’ve had a number of chapters that have faced increased obstacles to being recognized, most recently, at Texas Lutheran. When you get recognized, you get access to sometimes student funding and classroom space. So it’s almost as if the students are now becoming the censors on campus, which I think is deeply concerning for the future of our country.”
She told the Wall Street Journal, “There’s still this sort of gender traitor vibe promoted by the left that’s harmful.
“I want to dispel this myth. And that goes back to opportunity feminism. Not all women need to think the same. If you think differently, you shouldn’t be considered a gender traitor by the left,” she said.
