From a month-old press release from the Independent Women’s Forum website:
The Independent Women’s Forum today announced an Affiliation with “Americans for Prosperity,” an organization that replaces the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation. The Affiliation agreement provides for staff and resource sharing between Americans for Prosperity and the Independent Women’s Forum. Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women’s Forum, will also be president of Americans for Prosperity.
“What made this so desirable,” Pfotenhauer said, “is that we have very similar missions. Each of us is dedicated to the spirit of free enterprise and self reliance and supports the principles of political freedom, economic liberty and personal responsibility. While IWF’s focus has been on a woman’s perspective on important issues, the partnership allows us to leverage each other’s strengths and build on each other’s successes.”
Brushing aside the happy spin of the IWF’s press release, it’s obvious this merger is bad news for nation’s leading anti-feminist think tank.
First of all, obviously the result of this will be to dilute the IWF’s message, and to leave the IWF’s management with less time for IWF-specific goals. There are only two reasons I can see for this. One, maybe the IWF management wants to “expand their portfolio” and put their fingers into more pies, which might be good for them but won’t be good for the IWF. (Kind of like the way that Joss Whedon’s decision to put more of his time into Angel and Firefly led to a noticeable decline in the quality of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Since IWF chief Nancy Pfotenhauer has a background in economics, an anti-tax group like CSEF will be a natural fit for her. The IWF, meanwhile, is going to be saddled with less-than-fully-engaged leadership.
Alternatively, maybe the IWF has failed to raise enough funds to keep itself going, and IWF management felt they had no choice but to economize by merging with another organization. (Similar to the way Ms Magazine had no choice but to merge with FMF). If so, that’s obviously bad news for the IWF and for anti-feminism in general.
I don’t really see a third possible reason to merge – despite what the press release claims, CSEF’s “grassroots mobilizing,” which has specialized in capturing anti-tax resentment and anger, won’t be transferable to the IWF’s mission. Even among Republicans, few Americans resent feminism nearly as much as they resent paying taxes.
So what’s in the IWF’s future? I think this is the key sentence in the press release: “While IWF’s focus has been on a woman’s perspective on important issues, the partnership allows us to leverage each other’s strengths and build on each other’s successes.” This merger locks the IWF into being about providing “a woman’s perspective on important issues.” In other words, the IWF’s job is to provide op-eds and talking heads who will explain why the policy choices Bush and the Republicans make are good for women – rather than deciding for themselves which policies they’ll support. That’s a very different animal from being an organization about women’s issues.
This “focus” effectively locks the IWF out of ever disagreeing with the libertarian/republican consensus; if the IWF’s mission (what’s left of it) ever conflicts with mainstream conservative thought, it’s the mission that will have to give way. That of intellectual independence is, I think, a real problem for a think tank. (Not that the IWF ever displayed much intellectual independence in the first place, imo).
Bad news for anti-feminism; good news for feminists. Now let’s hope the IWF lingers for a long, long time, sucking away resources and preventing a new focal point for anti-feminism from emerging..
A quibble, old man: I dare say it was Buffy’s slog long past viability into an ill-advised (no matter how lucrative) sixth and even seventh season that led Whedon to devote more time and energy to more (potentially) rewarding projects such as Angel and Firefly. Ahem, harrumph, and all that.
Come on… Angel has always had much more scope than Buffy… Program makers should realize that people grow up and when characters grow up it is very difficult to keep a program format that was designed around the characters being children! With Buffy they should have either changed the format completely or finished a good few series ago!
I disagree, Kip. The fifth season was, in my view, the second-best of the entire series. So any argument premised on the idea that the sixth season was “long past viability” is, for me, a non-starter.
And Emma, I guess if you think only the first three seasons (when Buffy was in high school) were good, then we’ll have to agree to disagree.
The fifth season was the natural climax, silly. Sixth was a priori past viability; my natural inclinations toward hyperbole led me to claim it as being “long past.” (Three months, I suppose, is a long time, sometimes.)
For me, the fifth season of ‘Buffy’ really ended half-way through the sixth season, at ‘Tabula Rasa’. (Yes, I know this sounds stupid, but bear with me.) ‘Buffy’ was originally a mid-season replacement, therefore ‘Tabula Rasa’ roughly marked the point where the show had been on the air for 5 years. After that, all the things which made the show worth watching in the first place (like good writing, decent acting, and characters actually acting .. well, in character) were present in such miniscule qualities that it was barely recognisable as the same show. Basically, the show had 5 years’ worth of good storylines and decent writing, and after that it just plunged off a cliff, creatively speaking. For the last season and a half, I was sitting on my sofa thinking ‘Who the hell ARE these people? They aren’t the characters I’ve known and loved for the last few years,’ Actually, I have the same feeling watching ‘The West Wing’ at the moment – but that’s a whole different rant.
Hey Ampersand: I completley agree with you. IWF is totally headed down the toliet. I am an ex IWF staffer who worked there for many years. I came upon your website by accident tonight and found myself agreeing with your perspective. You’re on the right track. In my opinion the IWF started going down hill the moment Nancy Pfotenhauer was named President and CEO.
She’s a fraud, plain and simple. The reason she is backing away from women’s issues, is due to the fact that she doesn’t understand them. She is a management nightmare, having purged the organization of any real talent. To wit: Anita Blair, Grace Terzian, Christine Stolba, Kate Kennedy, Ivy Stewart, Manon McKinnon. She got rid of all of those ladies. Everyone who had any real credentials or any history with the organization.
Also, did you notice, The Women’s Quarterly doesn’t exist anymore either? That was too intellectual for her.
She’s a disaster. You’re right about one thing. The IWF is sucking away resources from other causes. Rumor has it that she spent a small fortune decorating the IWF’s new offices in DC with furniture from Pottery Barn. Perfect illustration of IWF under Pfotenhauer’s reign. No substance, just fluff.
Nancy Pfotenhauer is a brillant individual, economist, and business woman. I do not support the organization she runs, nor do I support her appointment to the VAWA committee, but I do not feel it is right to bring her intelligence level into the situation. If you do not support her decisions or organization then be professional enough to deal with your concerns that way. To personally attack someone’s intelligence purely because you disagree with their politics is the lowest form of discrimination possible.
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