As a woman, I am always heartened at the sight of seemingly heroic advocacy groups battling on behalf of women against injustice at the hands of unscrupulous men, whether in the world of business, Hollywood, or politics. Sadly, however, the reality that such valor has nothing to do with truth or standing up for women checks my initial optimism. Too often it is a cynical charade employed as a political tactic to promote one party and damage the other.

Before you dismiss me as a Republican and a Trump supporter: I am neither. I am a registered Independent who did not vote for Trump. My views vary issue-to-issue -- some are more conservative and some are liberal. But hypocrisy and exploitation are intolerable, regardless of the perpetrator.

In this era of Women’s Marches and #MeToo, women are rightly encouraged by the recent interest in changing a culture that for decades largely ignored assault, abuse, harassment, catcalling. Such empowerment is inspiring, until you realize that some of the advocates standing up for the victims are out there only conditionally. Such fair-weather activists only lead the parade against a man associated with the opposing party.

Kathleen Willey, who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, said that supposed activists such as liberals and feminists refused to believe her and other victims at the time. “They’re hypocrites … They worship at the altar of all things Clinton. They’re all over Roy Moore, but they had nothing to say about Bill Clinton when he was accused of doing what he was accused of doing.” Paula Jones has a similar story of being shut down by the same people who label themselves as activists. “It’s like me and Juanita and Kathleen have been screaming for years for someone to pay attention to us on the liberal side, and it’s like no one would hear us…They made fun of me. They didn’t believe me. They said I was making it up.” In the same vein, those who accuse Republicans are called “absurd” because assault attempts “never went anywhere.” When the accusations are against someone who happens to be aligned with the faux advocate's political party, survivors of assault are constantly questioned and prodded by those who had feigned support.

The same people who now pretentiously wave the banner of women’s issues or attend women’s marches or donate to organizations that support women hope that no one will notice the decades many of them spent supporting those who violate the very principles they claim to support wholeheartedly. And it was not just the feigned ignorance in exchange for political donations, or the victim-shaming. It was the oleaginous snuggling some of these phonies engaged in at social events that was particularly revolting, as documented by pictures readily available on the Internet.

Americans should be similarly concerned about the increasing number of professional protesters on the payroll of George Soros, whose bottomless supply of cash enables the pursuit of a clear agenda. These people claim to fight for female victims when ambushing people in elevators and at restaurants. This insincere activism actually ends up setting back the very cause they supposedly advocate and perpetuates victim blaming and rape culture.

I salute anyone genuinely fighting for a woman’s right to be treated with dignity and respect. But I have no stomach for those who are cynically and disingenuously hiding behind such a pretext while exploiting the very souls they pretend to care about in order to advance their personal political agendas.