Former US Treasurer Bay Buchanan critiques feminism

Former U.S. Treasurer Bay Buchanan, who served in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, spoke to students Tuesday about what she called the failures of modern feminism and the need for strong leadership in America today.

Buchanan, who is now a conservative political commentator, listed reasons she believes the modern feminist movement has failed, talked about leadership and then opened the floor for questions.

But Buchanan first gave the feminist movement credit, saying it broke barriers and opened up doors for women.

She then said the movement failed because it advocated a narrow path for women that focused only on careers as a means of fulfillment.

She also emphasized the failure to address men and women’s different priorities in equal pay arguments and what she called the idea of “victimhood.”

Buchanan was a single mother for 20 years, but she said she never felt like a victim — the way she believes single mothers are often portrayed in feminist arguments.

Buchanan said the second wave of feminism started with a book called “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan.

Buchanan said one of the main tenets of Friedan’s book was the idea that women cannot be fulfilled unless they have a career.

But Buchanan said the number of women leaving their careers and coming home to care for their children is increasing dramatically.

“It’s clear — not all women believe the career is the best path,” she said.

Buchanan also said women typically chose lower-paying but often more fulfilling jobs than men do, such as staying home and taking care of children — implying that the national difference in pay has a reason.

“If you have two employees, guy and girl, and they’re moving straight up the ladder, and she decides to go home and be with her children for four or five years, you’re not going to expect that when she goes back that she’ll have the same pay level,” Buchanan said.

She said if one compares equal education, number of years of experience and similar fields, the pay equity number is at 96 percent.

Although the event was sponsored by the College Republicans, liberal-minded students attended Buchanan’s talk, too — and they asked plenty of questions when she opened the floor.

“Her arguments were well-formed, but she didn’t address our questions directly,” said Matthew Krause, a UNC freshman who attended the talk.

But Sundus Alfe, another UNC freshman, said she is a strong liberal-leaning Democrat and that she expected to hate Buchanan’s talk and disagree with her viewpoints.

“Though I disagree with her portrayal of feminism, I did like some of her points and happened to agree with them,” she said. “I think it’s important to get both sides of the picture.”

That was one of Buchanan’s goals — “that the left, liberal students recognize there are other points of view, and they should hear them,” she said.

UNC College Republicans chairwoman Kathryn Walker said the questions at the end were thought-provoking.

“(The questions) were obviously from a different viewpoint,” Walker said.

“That, again, goes into Ms. Buchanan’s ideas about debate.”

No matter their political stances, most of the students in the Carroll Hall auditorium Tuesday evening nodded their heads in agreement when Buchanan said the U.S. does not have true leadership in Washington.

“You cannot be a leader if you don’t let people know what you believe,” she said.

“Start the debate.”

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