Conservative women framed harassment claims as power-grabbing feminist posing

Evidence

Phyllis Schlafly scoffed at the very idea that Hill could be a victim of sexual harassment, or, as she put it, “some bad words in the workplace.” Hill was an EEOC lawyer, after all, and would know how to deal with sexual harassment if any such thing had occurred. Schlafly slandered Hill as the epitome of the “phony pose” feminists adopted when they wanted to grab power: “‘poor little me,’ the injured ingenue, the damsel in distress who cries for Big Brother Federal Government to defend her from the wolves in the workplace—not merely from what they might do, but even from what they might say.” Schlafly wasn’t buying it. Hill was smart, tough, and “perfectly capable of telling a man to button his lip, keep his hands off, get lost, bug off or just plain ‘no.’” To Schlafly, the whole thing was just a “last-minute smear” orchestrated by a “feminist mob” trying to lynch Thomas. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 338

Categorization

• SEED: Schlafly’s ‘damsel in distress’ line is a strong quote for a piece on how conservative women positioned victimhood as a feminist fabrication.
• XREF: Echoes the pattern in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — women policing other women’s claims in service of a masculine order.