On Monday's CBS This Morning, Norah O'Donnell helped British author Frances Osborne advance discriminatory policy prescriptions from the left to get more women in high positions of political and economic power. Osborne stated that so-called "positive discrimination" is "necessary...to equal out the opportunity" for women. O'Donnell also reacted enthusiastically to a draft E.U. quota [1] that would require businesses to set aside 40 percent of their boards for women.
The best-selling writer also hyped the continuing political fight over federal funding for abortion giant Planned Parenthood as "women...beginning to lose their rights." [audio clips available here [2]; video below]
The anchor brought on Osborne to discuss her new novel, "Park Lane," which set during in the U.K. in the early 20th century as the country debated women's suffrage. Midway through the interview, O'Donnell bemoaned how "in 2012, that women...while they've made great progress, in terms of elected office - that we still have so few women in Congress. And, of course, here in the United States, we've not had a female leader. You have had one in England."
The author, who is the daughter of a former member of Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet and the wife of a member of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's Cabinet, replied with her own lament about the apparent lack of progress for women over the past 100 years or so, and continued with her spin about the debate over Planned Parenthood:
FRANCES OSBORNE: ...I sometimes wonder what those suffragettes would think if they looked at us now a hundred years on. And, you know, I think they would feel that...we should have come further. One of the things that's happened is, I think we've become complacent as women. We forget that even to stay still, we need to keep paddling forward. And look at what's happening in the Planned Parenthood debate. Women are beginning to lose their rights, and we've forgotten how hard women had to fight to create change.
The CBS journalist then followed up by asking, "Why isn't there more representation, do you think, in these political positions of power, and even in business positions?" Osborne answered, in part, by claiming that "there is still, I believe, a natural prejudice against women," and concluded with her leftist policy solution:
OSBORNE: ...The E.U. has, just this week, started saying that – this is going to be a recommendation throughout the E.U. - throughout Europe - that by 2020, it should be 40 percent women on a board to be a publically-listed company.
O'DONNELL: There are quotas....in the European Union, as you point out, and some other places. I don't know whether the United States would ever do that - or could do something like that - but it's interesting to see that Europe's doing that.
OSBORNE: It is. I mean, the great question is, is do you believe in positive discrimination or not? And – and I think it's necessary, because I do think that women have to be twice as good as men to reach the same level, and you need that positive discrimination to equal out the opportunity.
I don't know which term is more revoltingly Orwellian - "affirmative action," which is prevalent in the U.S., or the British "positive discrimination."
— Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here [3].