The Washington Post is trumpeting that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts is anti-womyn. He "resisted" women's rights, and wanted to keep them barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen alludes the Post.

In internal memos, Roberts urged President Ronald Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women the same as men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."

As I remember it there was quite a bit of opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment (or ERA as it was called then). It is basically a holdover from the 1920s, a time in which women had just earned the right to vote.

Passage of the Amendment would have many consequences. First of all, women would have to register with the Selective Service System and be eligible for the draft (should there ever be another one). Wikipedia notes:

Other critics have argued that the courts could rule that the ERA would mandate the recognition of same-sex marriage. Critics also maintain that the ERA would require the integration of single-sex schools or sports teams�they point to a decision by a court in the State of Washington which ordered a fraternal civic organization to admit women, based upon the ERA within its state constitution. Finally, some opponents of the ERA contended that the amendment simply was not necessary, and that other provisions of the Constitution provide sufficient support for equal rights for both genders.

Then there are those people who are "outcome" based. They view equal rights not as equal opportunity, but as using unequal opportunity to create equal outcomes. These are the people who would demand that women be paid more (or men paid less) to reduce the "wage gap". Nevermind that women are naturally more family oriented, while men are more career oriented. This sort of affirmative action for women is indeed anti-capitalist and "staggeringly pernicious" as Roberts alleges. And forcing men to admit women into their fraternal organizations (ala Martha Burk and the Augusta National Golf Club) is anti-American.

But to the Washington Post, opposition is blasphemy. You can almost hear the astonishment in their writing:

Covering a period from 1982 to 1986 -- during his tenure as associate counsel to Reagan -- the memos, letters and other writings show that Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done, and argued that promotions and firings in the workplace should be based entirely on merit, not affirmative action programs.

GASP! He endorsed a speech by that no good monster Ronald Reagan!

His remark on whether homemakers should become lawyers came in 1985 in reply to a suggestion from Linda Chavez, then the White House's director of public liaison. Chavez had proposed entering her deputy, Linda Arey, in a contest sponsored by the Clairol shampoo company to honor women who had changed their lives after age 30. Arey had been a schoolteacher who decided to change careers and went to law school.

In a July 31, 1985, memo, Roberts noted that, as an assistant dean at the University of Richmond law school before she joined the Reagan administration, Arey had "encouraged many former homemakers to enter law school and become lawyers." Roberts said in his memo that he saw no legal objection to her taking part in the Clairol contest. Then he added a personal aside: "Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good, but I suppose that is for the judges to decide." [...]

Kim Gandy, president of the liberal National Organization for Women, which already has opposed Roberts, reacted more harshly. "Oh. Wow. Good heavens," she said. "I find it quite shocking that a young lawyer, as he was at the time, had such Neanderthal ideas about women's place."

Personally I don't think anyone should become a lawyer (but that's just me). But sometimes a shampoo contest is just a shampoo contest and a bad lawyer joke is just a joke. Unless of course you're a feminazi, in which case Roberts is just another useless knuckle-dragger. God help us when these women figure out asexual reproduction.