The Network of Enlightened Women and the American University Kennedy Political Union hosted Sabrina Schaeffer, a conservative feminist with a love for choice on Monday, February 8. She is the executive director at the Independent Women’s Forum and her credentials range from work at a PR consulting firm to working with Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. Schaeffer has a regular Fox TV news program focused on politics on Saturdays at 11 am.
She started the evening off by telling the audience a lesson she learned from Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick: choices have trade-offs. Trade-offs mean closing one avenue while opening another one. The ambassador directed her attention to the fact that, “You can do anything you want but not all at once.” Sabrina Schaeffer wanted to convey to the audience that we must give and take and that choice is inevitable. Schaeffer defined feminism as fundamentally pertaining to the freedom of choices.
The first topic she touched on was the wage gap between men and women. Her claim was that the wage gap between men and women is between 4 to 6 percent rather than the 79 cent per one dollar claim that liberal feminists make. She insists her claim is supported by the Department of Labor. Schaeffer acknowledges that wage gap is real, but that it isn’t as severe as others make it out to be. She believes that this wage gap is attributed to the biological differences among men and women. Stating that the wage gap is a major issue neglects all the factors that go into the wage gap. She stresses that some women want a job with flexible hours over a higher wage. Schaeffer acknowledges that every women must make tradeoffs, whether it is high salary and flexibility or being home with kids and making a lot of money.
Secondly, Schaeffer gave some statistics about education: 57% of Bachelor’s degrees are earned by women, 59% of Masters degrees are earned by women and half of PHD students are women. Women are dominating in the educational field. She is appalled by the government’s need to integrate women into the STEM fields and feels this is striping the freedom of women to choose their careers. She believes it is our biology to gravitate more towards the social sciences and humanities fields. However, she isn’t discrediting the women in STEM, rather she wanted to praise all women for their choices and acknowledge that each person chooses the path best for them.
Lastly, she took questions from the audience. When asked about paid leave, she expressed how both genders deserve paid leave. However, she doesn’t believe in a one size down solution for all because it wouldn’t be efficient on money or needs. When questioned further on wage gaps, she clarifies that not all fields are valued the same and make the same amount of money and that gets neglected when discussing wage gaps. Schaeffer was asked how transwomen fit into feminism and her only response was that people should be who they are and society should move toward acceptance.
The overall goal of Schaeffer’s talk was to applaud the freedom of women and accept the wide variety of choices each person may make. Not all women need to be scientists and not all women need to be stay at home moms. She began her speech by quoting JFK’s speech at AU saying, “If we can’t end our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity.” Her opening statement is what should be taken the most from this speech. We all may not agree with her, but we should embrace the differences among opinions and allow each person the right to form their own opinions. As women, we must embrace our ability to choose, embrace being women and educate ourselves as much as possible on anything and everything because the generations before us fought for this right.