There are sound reasons why IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn probably had no choice but to resign, given his predicament. Whether that predicament was self-created is something no one, except in all likelihood two people, knows for certain. Many responsible people called on him to resign simply because the IMF needs a chief who is neither behind bars nor distracted by a pending sexual assault trial that could send him to prison for much of the rest of his life. This is an issue apart from whether he is innocent or guilty of the present charges.
NOW, of course, called on him to resign for different reasons. NOW has prejudged him to be guilty of offenses against women even though he has never been adjudged guilty of any crime, and even before a scrap of evidence has been admitted in a trial on the present charges. That didn't stop NOW's president, Terry O'Neill, from proclaiming: “We’re calling for his resignation based on his pattern and practice of behaviors harming women.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/18/now-calls-for-imfs-strauss-kahn-to-resign/
As always, NOW cares not a whit about justice. NOW is looking for any excuse to promote a pro-woman agenda that has nothing to do with gender equity, and to reaffirm the stereotype that men are evil and women are good, the facts be damned. NOW is its own arbiter of truth, and make no mistake, it makes its decisions purely along gender lines.
Compare NOW's current stance with the one it once took when Wanda Brandstetter, a woman's activist, passed a note to former Illinois Rep. Nord L. Swanstrom, offering him $1,000 if he voted in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment. The incident led to a bribery conviction for Brandstetter. Following the conviction, the head of the local NOW chapter predictably pronounced it a "travesty" and a "gross miscarriage of justice." See here.
Get it? A conviction of a woman in accordance with due process is a "travesty"; rumors and undefended accusations against a man merit that he be booted from his job. (And by the way, when Wanda Brandstetter died last month, she was hailed not as a criminal who was convicted of bribery, but as "an ardent women’s rights, anti-war and civil rights activist whose passion for social justice was so strong she risked a criminal conviction." See here.)
In any event, a public figure's entitlement to continue on in his job is too important to leave to the politicized, and biased, whims of an organization like NOW. NOW has proven time and time again that its pronouncements are not to be taken seriously.
A NOW chapter once called on revered Penn State football coach Joe Paterno to resign over some off-hand, out-of-context remarks about an alleged sexual assault despite the fact that it was absurd to believe the legendary coach was condoning rape. See here.
NOW, predictably, gave Bill Clinton a pass for his purported offenses against women. See here. That was the right call, for the wrong, politicized, reasons.
NOW's New York chapter believes that "all crimes against women must be regarded as hate crimes . . .." Read it again. ALL crimes. If a husband and wife are robbed, the robber would face an additional charge for a "hate crime" -- but only for the robbery of the wife. http://goldenstatesociety.blogspot.com/2009/04/now-says-it-wants-all-crimes-against.html
It would be interesting to compile an exhaustive list of NOW's hateful inanities. Time does not permit it here. Suffice it to say that the epitome of justice is to allow disputed facts about an alleged offense to be aired and adjudicated in accordance with processes reasonably regarded as fair. And, no, fairness should not be confined to the courtroom. Based on NOW's pronouncement here, and in too many instances to recount, it does not believe in anything approaching fairness, or justice, or equity. At least not where men are concerned.
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