feminiwho?

While visiting What She Said this morning, I was surprised--no, shocked--to see an ad touting Mother Teresa as the "Feminist of the Day." If modern feminism is defined largely by its support of full reproductive rights, then Teresa was the arch-antifeminist.

Christopher Hitchens dissects the Teresa myth briefly here and here and more fully here. Most Hitchenesque quote:

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.