Is Political Feminism Finished?

Political feminism is the push to elect women to high office, such as the U.S. Senate and the Presidency. Two out of the last three Democrat nominees for president have been women, and their campaigns ended in crushing failures.

In Maine, the very formidable two-term Governor Janet Mills appeared to be a shoo-in for the Democrat nomination to run against the incumbent Republican Susan Collins. Kamala Harris won this deep-blue state by 7 points in 2024, and traditionally that margin increases in the midterm elections in favor of the party not in control of the White House.

Mills faced off against Trump himself at an event held for governors at the White House early last year, when Trump called out Maine on the transgender issue. Mills told Trump that she would see him in court, to the thrill of liberals nationwide.

EMILYs List, the preeminent group supporting feminist candidates, praised Mills as “the first woman to be elected as a district attorney in New England,” and the only female attorney general and governor in Maine history. She won her last election in 2022 by 13 points, which was the largest margin for a statewide Democrat there since 1988.

Her opponent is a political newbie named Graham Platner, who is an oyster farmer with a checkered past that includes a Nazi-linked tattoo and posts unsympathetic to women on Reddit. EMILYs List says that “Graham Platner’s comments blaming victims of sexual assault are unacceptable and disqualifying.”

But Platner is a progressive endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the senator for nearby Vermont. Progressives seem to be taking control of the Democrat Party away from liberal feminists.

The latest polling shows Platner with a phenomenal 33-point lead over Mills. Platner is so far ahead for the June 9th primary that he is starting to steer his campaign ads to target his November opponent, Susan Collins, rather than focus on Mills.

Meanwhile, after just a few months on the job the approval rating of Virginia’s new Democrat Governor, Abigail Spanberger, has plummeted below 50%. The pollster State Navigate observes that she is the “most historically unpopular governor at this point in the most recent Virginia governors’ terms.”

The feminist wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is not helping his presidential ambitions. She insists on being called “First Partner” rather than the traditional title of “First Lady,” in order to push the DEI mindset.

She’s accused some Christians of “living in this silo, this evangelical, conservative silo that, ultimately, is just pulling us back as a country to a time and a place where we don’t deserve to be, and we’re not going to be.” Her husband tried to shut churches down in California during Covid, while allowing some businesses to remain open, and the Supreme Court ruled against that.

Jennifer Newsom added, “young women and fathers of daughters are awake now, and they’re woke, and they’re not going to let us go back.” Gavin Newsom and his woke wife are struggling in early polling among contenders for the 2028 Democrat presidential nomination, trailing behind Kamala Harris who lost last time.

Meanwhile, there is backlash by young men against feminists in South Korea, where birth rates have plummeted to the lowest in the world, thereby endangering the long-term survival of the country. A survey last year found that roughly 50% of men in their 20s and 30s agreed with the statement that “There needs to be a movement that honors masculinity and advocates for men’s rights.”

Over the last half-century feminists have passed many laws that continue to cause harm today. These include programs that profit from turning women against men, and family court procedures that deprive men of their rights of fatherhood.

In 2015 the Obama Administration fully placed women in combat roles in our military. Our ground troops and warships, which are now in harm’s way near Iran, are coed with women and men.

Phyllis Schlafly warned 50 years ago that ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment would result in court-ordered taxpayer-funded abortions, and she successfully blocked that terrible idea from ever becoming part of the U.S. Constitution. Feminists pretended that Phyllis did not know what she was talking about, but time has proven her correct.

On Monday, a 4-3 decision by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ordered taxpayers of our fifth-largest state to start funding abortions there, based on its state ERA. The court used the same contorted logic that Phyllis predicted would be used by feminists to force the public, against the conscience of many, to pay for abortions.

As a state court decision grounded in state law, the U.S. Supreme Court cannot overturn this on appeal. Advocates for ERA back in the 1970s insisted this would not happen, and yet it just did.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.