Who Is Carrying the Torch for Real Women of Courage in This Generation?

Women’s history month is a time to remember all of the heroic female forerunners willing to risk their very lives seeking justice, respect, and virtue. It is also a time when young women, like myself, look to the honorable women around us and applaud the empowering messages they are handing down to future female leaders. But as we recognize the women making today’s headlines, it is important to take a step back and review the legacies certain to influence our sisters, daughters, granddaughters, and future generations.

Reflect on the inspirational female role models that preceding generations have given us: Suffragists, champions like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; abolitionists, like Lucretia Mott and Harriet Tubman; Civil Rights pioneers like the celebrated Rosa Parks. Now think about the women of today, who garner public adoration and emulation. It is sad that we praise Kim Kardashian simply for her fame; Taylor Swift for a myriad of love songs based on a myriad of bad dating relationships; and actress-hopeful-politician Ashley Judd, who demands free birth control and tax-payer funded abortions.

Embarrassing as it is, the pursuit of fame is outweighing the pursuit of liberty and democracy.

A recent study by the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) found that most children ages 9 through 11 believe life’s most important value is fame. The pursuit of fame is distorting young girls’ perception of the real values that are important. And we have no one to blame but ourselves for elevating shallow celebrities to a god-like status.

Ashley Judd

Society has placed the Hollywood “aristocracy” on a pedestal. In return, they spew their liberal hyperbole and dictate their version of morality – or a lack thereof. And we actually listen. This must be why Ashley Judd is endeavoring to run for Senate in Kentucky against Sen. Mitch McConnell. She is a professional actress playing the part of an ill-informed Senate candidate. Take for example the speech she gave on March 1, 2013 at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services:

“Your soul cares about poverty in America. Your soul cares about food insecurity among our children. Your soul cares about the growing ‘um income gap. Your soul cares about our national security and the affect that improving global public health can have on securing our borders and creating markets for American goods. And I said yeah, ‘But I’m going to Scotland because we’re smart like that.”

Judd “winters in Scotland”? I am sure that will play well during her Kentucky campaign. But focus on Judd’s words, “Your soul cares about food insecurity among our children.” Judd, a Global Ambassador for YouthAIDES, and other Leftist Hollywood mouthpieces often speak about the welfare of children, yet in the same breath they support the killing of 55 million unborn babies – many of them helpless, victimized baby girls.

These are the same Leftist fembots who mock patriotic conservative women, like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) and Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-Washington), who reject the killing of the unborn, demand for freedom for women trapped in sex trafficking, uphold the value of purity and modesty, and defend God and nature’s model for marriage.

And it is Hollywood actresses like Judd who are responsible for bankrolling the Obama machine, which also gets it wrong when it comes to recognizing real women of courage. Last Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry and First Lady Michelle Obama were hours away from bestowing the prestigious International Women of Courage award to an anti-American, anti-Semitic, Egyptian woman, Samira Ibrahim. It wasn’t until they learned from the Hudson Institute that Samira posted hate-filled tweets such as: "Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning" that the award was withdrawn and the White House was saved from another embarrassment.

So, are these the legacies we want America’s daughters to emulate? Those of out-of-touch Hollywood celebrities and anti-American zealots? What do they offer us, besides a mouthpiece for the death and the destruction of a civilized society? Should our message to the next generation be that real womanhood comes in the form of having the “right” to kill your unborn baby? I think not.

Instead of immortalizing Hollywood, young women need to look to mature conservative women who are leading a charge against abortion – America’s largest genocide – the trampling of religious liberty and free market principles. Women such as Abby Johnson, Penny Nance, Charmaine Yoest and Marjorie Dannenfelsor, all women deemed by The Christian Postas America’s four most powerful pro-life voices, need to be the type of role-models that we hold up for the next generation. In addition, I would add to that list Mrs. Beverly LaHaye, Dr. Alveda King, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Wendy Wright, and Lila Rose. They too join the ranks of conservative female powerhouses who courageously speak out against the genocide of the unborn, defend a mother’s decision to work in the home, and toil to ensure that a prosperous nation will be left behind for future women. Their pictures need to be on the cover of People and Seventeen magazine.

So which group of women are we going to uphold as the standard-bearers for the next generation of Americans? Hollywood women or virtuous pro-family, pro-life, pro-women advocates? It is time to make a change.

Chelsen Vicari is the Online Communications Strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization. 

Related Contributions:

• Obama's War on Young Women by Celia Bigelow
• Forty Years of Abortion Attitudes by Karlyn Bowman, Andrew Rugg
• Young People AFter Four Years of President Obama by Karin Agness