Want some straw, man?

bethje and I were talking the other day about how Pat Robertson has pledged his support for Giuliani, and his infamous comment that feminism is "a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians" came up. It's hard to believe that there are still people who take him seriously after that, and that was fifteen years ago. But he's not the only one I've heard talk about how feminism "encourages" women to do this or that. But the dictionary definition simply says it's "the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men." So how does that encourage anything? It's simply saying that, as far as the law is concerned, women have the right to raise children, have careers, sit around and do nothing, have sex with members of the same gender and worship the horned god Cernunnos, or do all or none of those things, just as men do. It reminds me of how Creationists (including everyone's favorite tax evader, low-budget theme park operator, and jailbird Kent Hovind) insist that the theory of evolution tells people what to do. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but it just baffles me how people can swallow these ideas, regardless of what they think of women's rights and the origins of life. But I guess it's much easier to make straw man arguments than to argue against what things actually are.