Michelle Bachmann, in her opposition to appointing a bi-partisan commission to study the feasibility of creating a women’s museum on the national mall said it would “enshrine the radical feminist movement that stands against the pro-life movement, the pro-family movement and pro-traditional marriage movement.”

How dare we pay homage to the women’s movement that gave 51% of U.S. citizens the vote and allowed idiots like Michelle Bachmann to be elected to the United States Congress. Why should we enshrine the leadership and accomplishments of individual women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Amelia Bloomer, Alice Paul, Elizabeth Blackwell, Marie Curie, Madam C. J. Walker, Margaret Sanger, Barbara Chisholm, Sally Ride? Women who worked to abolish slavery, obtain suffrage, give women control over their own reproductive systems. Women who led the way in science, medicine, business, politics, space exploration. Women who dared to be first. Women whose lives demonstrated that females are not the weaker sex – that they can be anything and do anything.

What is Ms. Bachmann afraid of? That women might get ideas? That they might think they can change things? Bachmann’s statement, with all its “pros” is really just an anti-woman, anti-change screed. Anti-self-determination for women, anti-gay, anti-any lifestyle that doesn’t look like Father Knows Best.

And then there’s Phyllis Schlafly, who isn’t dead yet, who thinks that the gender pay gap is just fine because if women make as much money as men, they won’t be able to find husbands. I remind you that Phyllis Schlafly’s central argument against the Equal Rights Amendment was that women and men would have to use the same public restrooms. Both Schlafly and Bachmann have law degrees. Scary. Guess logic wasn’t a required subject.

Museums, if done properly, enshrine the truth of the past. A national women’s museum can and should document both feminist and anti-feminist history. The viewers can draw their own conclusions. But perhaps that’s what Bachmann and Schlafly are afraid of: that women might actually think for themselves.