My Book of Gutsy Women

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea have collaborated on a book, scheduled for release in October, called “The Book of Gutsy Women.” The book supposedly highlights more than 100 women who had “the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.” I don’t disagree with every single one of their picks, which include Harriet Tubman, Marie Curie, and Amelia Earhart but if I find out that Margaret Sanger made the list, I might actually throw up. I feel quite confident that the “Book of Gutsy Women” does not include Linda Tripp, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick. While Hillary and Chelsea may have correctly identified some women in American and world history as “gutsy women,” surely they left a few out. Fortunately, I took the liberty of creating my own list of “gutsy women” that most certainly does not overlap with any of the women on Hillary and Chelsea’s list.

In theory, all conservative women deserve a spot in my “book of gutsy women.” After all, it takes a lot of courage to stand up to the Sisterhood of the Travelling P***y Hats who see themselves as the guardians of all women. For examples of the vitriol espoused by the self-professed guardians of femininity, take a look at Twitter the day after Election Day 2018. Liberals certainly had a lot to brag about, after all the Democrats took back the House of Representatives. But that did not stop liberal Hollywood celebrities from treating white women, whom exit polls showed supported Republican Senate candidates, to a barrage of verbal abuse. Actress Heather Matarazzo, who I had not even heard of before writing this blog, asked “what the f*** is wrong with you fellow white ladies???!!!!! May you choke to death on the white supremacist patriarchal c***.” Feminist writer Jill Filipovic, who recently urged pro-life men to cut a half-inch off of their copulatory organ, complained that in the Georgia gubernatorial race, “white women didn’t just support (Republican) Kemp over (Democrat) Abrams; according to this poll (which I know may be imperfect) they were stronger Kemp supporters than white men. Despicable.” Chelsea Handler took to Twitter to express her outrage that “59% of white women voted for Ted Cruz. I don’t know what it is going to take for us to be sisters to other women, but we need to do better than this. We need to vote for the best interests of others, and stop thinking about only ourselves.”

Any conservative woman outspoken about her beliefs will no doubt face the wrath of the SJW mob at one point or another and an ability to withstand the wrath of the abortion enthusiasts alone qualifies as “gutsy.” However, the following women deserve special shout-outs:  

Lila Rose: It takes a lot of courage to start your own business. It takes even more courage to start your own business at the age of 15 when your business touches the third rail of American politics: abortion. San Jose native Lila Rose did just that by founding the pro-life group Live Action back in 2003. For the 30 years between the legalization of abortion and the founding of Live Action, conservatives had made little progress when it came to creating a culture of life in America. While Republican Presidents had appointed five of the seven newest additions to the Supreme Court since the 1980s, conservatives’ efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade had fallen flat because two of the five Republican-appointed justices voted with liberals in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Stenberg v. Carhart, two Supreme Court decisions that struck down state laws deemed “restrictive” on abortion.

However, the pro-life movement began to experience legal victories when Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court in 2006. Just seven years after the Supreme Court struck down Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban as unconstitutional, the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortion thanks to Alito’s replacement of O’Connor. In recent years, a number of states have enacted pro-life legislation; most recently in the form of “heartbeat bills” that ban abortions after about six weeks gestation.

Rose’s activism, combined with modern technology, helped to put wind in the sails of the pro-life movement. Rose has done a lot of undercover work exposing Planned Parenthood’s support of sex-selective abortions and cover-ups of sexual abuse and child sex trafficking. Undercover work by Rose, in addition to the footage captured by the Center for Medical Progress, ultimately led several states to defund the abortion giant. Unfortunately, the federal government has failed to deprive Planned Parenthood of taxpayer funding multiple times.

Not surprisingly, the forces of the pro-abortion left, specifically social media, have done their best to silence this “gutsy woman,” who has a platform that reaches millions of Americans. Pinterest “permanently suspended” Live Action’s account while Twitter has banned the group from doing any advertising until it agrees to “stop calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood and stop sharing…pro-life content,” according to Rose. Don’t expect social media censorship to prevent this “gutsy woman” from continuing to promote the pro-life message and expose the truth about Planned Parenthood.

Selina Soule: A talented high school track athlete from the liberal town of Glastonbury, Connecticut, this gutsy woman would have come in sixth place at the Connecticut State Track Championships if not for the presence of two biological males who identify as female’s presence in the race. A sixth-place finish would have enabled Soule to “compete in front of college coaches,” as a Daily Signal article profiling the Equality Act pointed out. Simple biology explains why the two “females” who still have Y chromosomes could smoke the competition. As Laura Ingraham pointed out when interviewing Soule on her Fox News show earlier this year, “females are, on average, nine percent shorter than males; male bones are bigger in both size and density; females have shorter arms and legs relative to body size; females are around 30-35 percent muscle by weight while males are 40-50 percent muscle; females’ ligaments are thinner and softer than males’; the internal organs of…men tend to be bigger, broader, more capable of taking in oxygen; shoulder size…the structure of the anatomy is different period.”

Since her story became well-known in conservative circles, Soule has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of “Equality Act,” supported by nearly all House Democrats and a handful of Republicans. One of the provisions of the Equality Act would “create a civil right for male athletes to self-identify as females at any time, critics say, without any evidence of physical changes to their bodies,” as explained in a Daily Signal documentary profiling Soule. According to Soule, “no one thinks it’s fair but everyone is afraid of retaliation from the media, from kids around their school, from other athletes, coaches, school administrators.” Not Selina Soule.  This “gutsy woman” has bravely agreed to take the heat from the left as a representative for the future of female sports, set up specifically because of the biological differences between males and females that the supposedly “pro-science” liberals have no interest in acknowledging.

As Soule herself has explained, the teenager hasn’t exactly received a warm reception at the local level: “We’ve tried to talk to the Connecticut Athletic Association, and we’ve tried to talk to my schools’ officials, and no one wants to hear us.” As a result of the failure of local officials to address her concerns, Soule has decided to seek help from the federal government by filing a complaint before the U.S. Department of Education; with her counsel arguing that the Connecticut Athletic Association’s policy allowing men who identify as women to compete in women’s sports violates Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.

A Facebook group exists with the title “Natural Marriage: Not Bigotry, but Biology!” The same phrase definitely applies to the Equality Act; opposition to it comes not as a result of bigotry but biology. Don’t expect the left to ever admit that.

Carrie Prejean Boller: A decade ago, Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller stood a very good chance at becoming the next Miss USA. In order to become Miss USA or to become popular in show business, it definitely helps to subscribe to liberal orthodoxy. Openly gay judge Perez Hilton asked for her thoughts on same-sex marriage. While a majority of Americans opposed same-sex marriage in 2009 and Californians had just voted to ban same-sex marriage by voting in favor of Proposition 8, supporting same-sex marriage had basically become an unwritten rule in Hollywood. As for Miss California, she responded to Perez’s inquiry by declaring, “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that, I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there.”  Prejean Boller, simply Prejean at the time, ultimately did not win the Miss USA crown and Hilton called her a “dumb b***h.” As I have explained before, “Prejean later argued that her politically incorrect answer may have cost her the crown but she didn’t seem to care, telling Fox News that ‘This happened for a reason.  By having to answer that question in front of a national audience, God was testing my character and faith.  I’m glad I stayed true to myself.’”  For more information on the backlash this “gutsy woman” faced as a result of her belief in traditional marriage, consult the article “Liberal Taliban Issues Fatwah Against Miss California” by Ann Coulter.

Phyllis Schlafly: The late Phyllis Schlafly served as a trailblazer, opening the door for other “gutsy women” on the right to follow her lead. It took a lot of guts for Schlafly to go up against the Equal Rights Amendment, especially after it had passed the Senate with more than 80 votes and the House with more than 350 votes. In addition to receiving the support of far more than two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, 30 states had ratified the ERA by the time Schlafly set her sights on defeating it. It only needed the support of eight more states before it officially became part of the Constitution. As Ann Coulter pointed out in an obituary for Schlafly, “Beginning in 1972 and over the next eight years, thanks to Schlafly and her magnificently patriotic organization, the Eagle Forum, only five more states ratified it.” In other words, thanks to Schlafly, the ERA failed to make it into the Constitution.  In addition to stopping the ERA in its tracks, Schlafly authored A Choice, Not an Echo, one of many books that planted the seeds for the renaissance of conservatism in the United States. While Schlafly died three years ago, her legacy lives on in the form of the Eagle Forum, a conservative think tank she founded nearly 50 years ago, that has challenged the conventional wisdom stating that Proposition 187 doomed the California Republican Party in addition to highlighting that “Mass (Legal) Immigration Dooms the Republican Party.” Schlafly would have celebrated her 95^th birthday this week. All conservative women, especially the other “gutsy women” I mentioned in this article, should pay her homage. 

I recognize that I have barely scratched the surface when it comes to identifying the “gutsy conservative women” in America, past and present, but I think my aforementioned list certainly qualifies as a good start.