February 11, Franklin ¾ Dr. Mildred F. Jefferson, the multi-credentialed former US Senatorial candidate, surgeon and Massachusetts resident, was the featured speaker at the inaugural meeting of CPF - The Fatherhood Coalition's newest chapter serving the southwest metro Boston region.
Earl Henry Sholley, CPF Southwest Metro's chairman, opened the meeting with the pledge of allegiance, urging the audience to "pay attention to the last six words."
Jefferson gave an engaging talk that began with a dissertation on the roots of modern-day feminism and ended with advice on how advocacy groups can successfully navigate the political process.
According to Jefferson, who stated unequivocally the she was "not a feminist," to understand how feminism became a victim-rights movement that seeks ultimately to control men, one must go back to what is considered the birth of the feminist movement, the Seneca Falls, NY, convention of 1848.
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The other strategy unsuccessfully argued for at the convention held that women's empowerment would follow from the control of men, as opposed to the control of fertility. According to Jefferson, this female supremacist point of view lay largely dormant during the subsequent decades when women's rights advanced through suffragism and the birth control movement. It is only now that the goals of the Seneca Falls convention have been fully realized, through the nineteenth amendment and Roe v. Wade, etc., that this philosophy has reemerged. |
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At the convention, two opposing strategies for obtaining female empowerment were debated. It was ultimately resolved that female empowerment depended upon control of the reproductive process. In the nineteenth century, women and children were to a great extent considered merely property of the male head of the household, legally speaking.
The other strategy unsuccessfully argued for at the convention held that women's empowerment would follow from the control of men, as opposed to the control of fertility. According to Jefferson, this female supremacist point of view lay largely dormant during the subsequent decades when women's rights advanced through suffragism and the birth control movement. It is only now that the goals of the Seneca Falls convention have been fully realized, through the nineteenth amendment and Roe v. Wade, etc., that this philosophy has reemerged.
The present phase of feminism is characterized by sexual harassment shakedowns and laws and policies that protect women from endemic male predatory behavior in accordance with successful propaganda campaigns by victim-feminist advocates.
Jefferson's engrossing talk was well received by the fathers' rights supporters present. Though such audiences are often over-solicitous to sympathizing women who speak out on their behalf, in the case of Ms. Jefferson the outpouring of admiration and approval was entirely appropriate.
Also speaking at the meeting were Andrea Haynes, Editor-in-Chief of the Middlesex News, and Dan Edmonds, the state coordinator of the national organization Fully Informed Jury Association (FIJA).
Haynes was accompanied by other staffers from the Middlesex News. She made a convincing case for the evenhanded approach that the paper strives to take on controversial issues, and also took pains to inform the audience of the accessibility of the staff to The Fatherhood Coalition.
Dan Edmonds reminded the audience of the real meaning of jury nullification, the power invested in juries to render verdicts that judge the law itself rather than simply whether or not an accused defendant is guilty of violating the law. Edmonds has introduced legislation (SB 763) that permits defendants to notify the jury of this right.