New Women's Org Offers Conservative Counterpoint to NOW
by Mary Rettig
March 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - The founder and president of a new women's group says she wants the organization to be a place where busy women can affect their world -- and to be known as the antithesis of the National Organization for Women.Kimberly Fletcher founded the group Homemakers for America (HFA) in November 2004 to act as a conduit of information to busy women for other pro-family groups like Concerned Women for America and the Eagle Forum. The group describes itself as a "corporation of liberal ideas and conservative values" -- liberal ideas being such things as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom to pursue happiness
The idea for the organization, she says, came as she was involved in last year's election. It was during that time she encountered many women who told her they did not have the information they needed to make a proper voting decision. She recalls one woman in particular who said she was not going to vote because the election was too important and she did not want to make the wrong choice.
"I just thought, 'Oh, my goodness,'" Fletcher remembers. "And I realized that the problem is that so many women are so busy with their families and their children, and we see all the things that are going on in the country, and we don't like what we see, and we want to make a difference -- but we're just trying to make dinner."
The concept of women making dinner is one of those gender roles that another women's group, the National Organization for Women (NOW), has been accused of trying to erase during its existence. Fletcher says for the past four decades, NOW has portrayed itself as the singular voice for women and a group that wants to create equal opportunities for women. But she encourages women to start asking themselves if NOW really speaks for them.
"When you read [NOW's] agenda, you realize that's not what they're about," she says. "They want to offer marriage to everyone, whether or not they're husband and wife, man and woman." And NOW also wants to encourage sexual promiscuity among the younger set, she says.
"They are promoting the distribution of birth-control in high school," she explains, "and they even promote abortion among young girls without having to tell their parents."
Fletcher says the HFA motto of "God, Freedom, and Family" flies in the face of what NOW believes. She says she is convinced NOW has had a stranglehold on American women, and a new women's opinion needs to be heard. Homemakers for America is currently in the midst of a "membership hyperdrive" in which they hope to gain a million members by the end of May.
Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
