Culture

Feminists' Hatred Of Amy Coney Barrett Exposes Their Hypocrisy And Anti-Femininity

Highly successful in both her professional and personal life, it would seem that any genuine proponent of women’s equality would at least to some extent be pleased with the selection of Amy Coney Barrett.

By Hayley Lewis5 min read
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Stephanie Kenner/Shutterstock

However, the hatred and disdain directed towards her only expose the hypocrisy of the American Left and liberal feminists who aren’t really for the empowerment they espouse.

Who She Is

Barrett’s credentials are undeniably impressive. She attended Rhodes College on a full scholarship and graduated magna cum laude, received the award for most outstanding English department graduate, and then went on to graduate first in her class from Notre Dame Law School.

Barrett then clerked for two judges, including former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She served as a lawyer for several years before becoming a professor, spending most of her career at Notre Dame, where she received the award for “Distinguished Professor of the Year” on three separate occasions. Her high level of intellect and reasonability created a reputation apart from the rest. Former students noted that her popularity was due largely to the fact that she “included everyone in discussions” and that she was “collegial, civil, fair-minded, intellectually sharp, and devoted to the rule of law secured by our Constitution.”

Her high level of intellect and reasonability created a reputation apart from the rest. 

BBC cites Barrett’s fellow professor Paolo Carozza, who “has watched Barrett go from student to teacher to leading judge, and speaks about her effusively. ‘It's a small, tight-knit community, so I know her socially too. She is ordinary, warm, kind.’” 

Barrett was appointed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals by President Trump in 2017 and was put in the spotlight when Diane Feinstein grilled her on her Catholic beliefs during the confirmation hearing, making the accusation that “the dogma lives loudly within you.

Barrett has a successful family life too.

Beyond her impeccable professional resume, her personal life is perhaps an even bigger testament to her character. Barrett has been married to fellow lawyer Jesse since 1999, and the two have seven children together. Their youngest child has Down's syndrome, and two of their children are adopted from Haiti, the oldest of which was so sick at the time of her adoption at 14 months old that doctors were unsure if she would ever walk or speak. They now call the perfectly healthy, 16-year-old track star “their miracle.” 

During the process of adopting their second child, John Peter, the Barretts found out they were expecting a biological child. They were faced with the decision of whether or not to proceed in what they described as an intense three hour period. Selflessly abandoning any fears or preconceived ideas of what their family might have looked like, the Barretts proceeded with the adoption of their son, who was orphaned after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The Barretts intentionally sought adoption of a second Haitian child so their adopted daughter would have a sibling of the same descent. 

The Barretts sought adoption of a second Haitian child so their adopted daughter would have a sibling like her. 

Pro-life proponents are frequently criticized for being more “pro-birth” than they are pro-life, and Christian families like the Barretts (who adopt twice as frequently as non-Christians) turn this narrative on its head.

SCOTUS as a Legislature

Despite an impressive academic and professional career, Barrett has clearly managed to simultaneously be a generous and loving wife and mother. So with such outstanding credentials, why does the Left hate ACB? 

Well, she is both an Originalist and a Textualist, holding the belief that the Constitution is not a living, perpetually changing document with alternate interpretations based on given periods of history, but rather that the law should be interpreted as it is written, without political bias playing a role. 

In her acceptance speech, Barrett was greeted with much applause as she said, “I love the United States, and I love the United States Constitution.” She continued to say that “a judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers and must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.” This is the underlying point that makes a justice like Barrett so terrifying to the Left. The system of checks and balances so brilliantly designed by the Founding Fathers is only useful to the Left insofar as it allows them to maintain the control they desire. 

Judges are not policymakers and must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.

For years, leftists have successfully pushed away from these founding principles, from the Constitution, and from the idea of using legislators to legislate and judges to judge. The court system, and the Supreme Court specifically, have become another arm of the legislature, employed to push policies that the people don’t vote for and that the legislature can’t agree upon. Major policies like healthcare, immigration, gay rights, and abortion haven’t been decided by the votes of the people or by the proceedings of the legislature, but by the Supreme Court. 

Barbara Lagoa, the other potential SCOTUS pick, knows from her parents’ experience in Cuba just how important it is to uphold the Constitution. During her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lagoa said, "If we are not bound by what the Constitution means and it is ever-changing, then we are no different than the country that my parents fled from, which is Cuba. Because Cuba has a constitution and a bill of rights and it means nothing, because there is no one to hold it and to say this is what the definition of this constitution means, it is always ever-changing." 

Lagoa added, "The principles that were articulated in the [US] Constitution at the time of ratification have a meaning — that meaning is constant. What changes is the application of that meaning to new things." 

Major policies like healthcare and abortion haven’t been decided by the people’s votes, but by the Supreme Court. 

Originalists like Barrett and Lagoa are met with such disdain by the Left because they know that judges like them are unwilling to push policy through the courts. And this isn’t just an issue of bias on both sides; look at the ideological divide of the records of liberal and conservative justices on the current Supreme Court. Far more often it’s conservative justices who rule in favor of what are typically viewed as Left-leaning decisions, whereas justices on the Left have consistent records of supporting only Leftist policies and agendas. 

Our Culture's Anti-Religious Bias

The inability to push policy through is certainly part of the reason for the Leftist alarm over ACB, but it doesn’t end there. Her nomination thrust the subtle, religious bias that has been present for years into the national spotlight. Conservatives have been losing the culture war for years, knowing that their religions are considered fanatic, extreme, and unacceptable by modern society. 

Her nomination thrust the subtle, religious bias that has been present for years into the national spotlight. 

Part of the reason the Left was so stunned by Trump’s win in 2016 was because they couldn’t conceptualize how on earth so many people could support a man like him. The apparent hypocrisy of conservative Christians supporting someone who appeared to be anything but moral and upstanding shocked many. What the Left was, and still is apparently unaware of, is that for many Christians, President Trump has brought to center stage the bias against conservatives long-held by virtually every dominant aspect of culture and society. 

For years, the media, Hollywood, and politics have perpetuated a narrative that has painted religious conservatives as intolerant and outdated. For the Judeo-Christians and conservatives who have been the subject of these attacks, these accusations and biases are no secret. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro was part of a group of 10 journalists who were the target of 83% of anti-Semitic tweets in 2016. BBC published an article in 2019 stating that the persecution of Christians worldwide was at near-genocidal levels, and a 2016 study conducted by Pew Research Center found that Christians experienced the largest number of incidences of harassment by governments or social groups worldwide.

Christians experience the largest number of incidences of harassment by governments worldwide.

The Judeo-Christian principles that have served as the foundation for Western civilization are openly rejected by the Left. AOC mocked a statue of Fr. Damien, who ministered to lepers in Hawaii, and stated that he was part of “white supremacist culture,” and former President Obama once said that midwestern Christians “get bitter and cling to guns or religion.” The Left has been slowly and methodically targeting religion, and Trump has been one of the first conservatives to successfully fight back in the culture war. People like Amy Coney Barrett only help to advance that fight. 

Not Actually Pro-Woman

While all of the aforementioned are reasons the Left can’t stand ACB, the real reason remains that women like Amy Coney Barrett disprove the liberal, feminist narrative. The Left purports to be about building up and empowering women, but the reality is they’re only interested in doing so for women who think like them and agree with them. 

Hillary Clinton addressed young girls, saying, “You are valuable and powerful, and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that “women belong in all places where decisions are being made,” and Michelle Obama stated that “there is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.” These statements, however, clearly don’t apply to conservative women. 

If the Left really believed in female empowerment, they wouldn’t be so quick to tear down conservative women. 

Former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the first mother to ever hold that job, was mocked for her weight and was made fun of repeatedly on late-night television. The current female press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is called inexperienced and ineffective, while youthful Leftist women like AOC are celebrated for their historically young positions. Candace Owens is blamed for “sowing division amongst the Black community,” simply because she’s a prominent Trump supporter who doesn’t fit the media’s narrative. If the Left really believed in female empowerment, they wouldn’t be so quick to tear down these and nearly all other prominent conservative women. They aren’t for the equality they promote, but rather just the empowerment of those who believe in their agenda. 

The Women’s March is a perfect example of this, as they intend to march in protest during the hearings for Barrett. According to their website, their mission statement “is to harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change.” Unless, of course, those diverse women disagree with them, in which case, the march which was originally used to empower “all” women becomes one used to protest “some” women. 

Families Don’t Kill Dreams

At a Gates Foundation event in New York, French President Emmanuel Macron said “present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight, or nine children.” Michelle Williams stated in her Golden Globes acceptance speech that she tried her “very best to make a life of my own making...and I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a women’s right to choose.”  

ACB proves that being a strong, successful woman doesn’t have to come at the expense of children or religion.

The Left wants you to believe that babies kill dreams and that conservative women are unsuccessful, submissive perpetuations of the patriarchy. Amy Coney Barrett proves that being a strong, successful woman contributing to society doesn’t have to come at the expense of children, family, or religion. In fact, those are the driving forces behind her success, and I can imagine, a constant motivation for everything she does. 

Closing Thoughts

In a world in such desperate need of truth and goodness, I think it’s quite clear that we could use more women with the strength and love of Amy Coney Barrett, and future generations of little girls who look up to women like Barrett.