https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/andrew-cuomo-and-the-tragedy-of-politicized-feminism/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fifth
The new report from New York State’s attorney general confirms what many have known for a long time: Andrew Cuomo is a man abusing his position of power to harass women.
Looking at this story from a feminist perspective, one would be completely unsurprised by it. In fact, it’s exactly what one would expect. Men have power and treat women unjustly; that’s the problem that feminism diagnoses and wants to solve.
Yet feminist groups don’t have a lot of credibility to speak out against Cuomo because many of them have endorsed him for public office over the years. The National Organization for Women–New York (NOW-NY) endorsed him for governor in 2018, and their president said, “This was an easy decision. . . . Year in and year out Governor Cuomo has put women’s rights front and center.” The organization’s endorsement says:
Governor Cuomo is building a legacy of real change for the women and girls of New York: raising the minimum wage of which women make up two-thirds of earners; enacting paid family leave; making it harder to discriminate against pregnant workers; and paving a path for young New Yorkers to earn tuition-free four-year degrees.
See the sleight of hand there? Cuomo’s “legacy of real change for the women and girls of New York” is really just progressivism. The minimum wage, paid family leave, and tuition-free college aren’t specific to women (and if you believe men can get pregnant too, as some progressives argue, neither is discriminating against pregnant workers).
There is reasoning behind feminists’ casting their lots with progressivism. They point to disparate-impact issues (such as the “women make up two-thirds of earners” part about the minimum wage) and say that since many progressive policies would benefit women more than men, they are feminist issues.
Conservatives, pretty generally, have been opposed to institutional feminism. Conservative hostility probably played a role in feminists’ believing that adopting progressivism was the best move for the success of their movement. It was enemy-of-my-enemy thinking combined with the simple fact that many feminists were sympathetic to the progressive agenda to begin with.