Dangerous Excess Against the XX

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With all of the recent “War on Women” rhetoric, I’d like to sound off on this subject.  “Polls show Obama ahead with women by 19 points”.  “Romney is trailing with female voters”.  “Women have historically voted more for Democrats”.  “The real way to appeal to female voters is…”  Stop.  Women are human beings.  Depersonalizing the existence of more than half of the population is a sure way to alienate a group so seemingly important to politicians.  You’d think their strategists would realize this.

I’m not part of a monolithic voting bloc, and I’m not an interest group.  President Obama made this very “not an interest group” point at his recent summit on American women and girls.  Sure, he was pandering, but at least he actually has such a summit.  This was not the first time the summit convened.  It is not merely an election year tactic. 

Yes, I’m voting for President Barack Obama.  I’m sincerely hoping he gets reelected—not because I think of myself as a female voter, and women’s issues are at the top of the list for me.  Quite the contrary.  I wouldn’t have even been thinking about so called “women’s issues” very much had it not been for the recent onslaught against women’s rights.  I’m talking beyond issues of birth control, which, itself, is an unbelievably backward thing to even be bringing up this campaign cycle.  I’m talking about things such as fair pay for women, protection of health benefits, a sense of self worth and privacy, dignity, and pride in oneself.

President Obama is taking advantage of the current political climate in which a great deal of Republicans have been toxic to women.  I’m aware that he hopes to score political points, but I’m not terribly cynical as I accept the fact that such political point scoring on his part might be necessary in order to get reelected.  If he’s talking about actual accomplishments—concrete steps toward advancing and protecting the rights of women—I’m ok with the president reminding the public, and garnering the recognition.

The president has lauded the fact that the first bill he signed into law after being elected was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.  When I heard about this initially, at the beginning of Obama’s first term, I was extremely surprised that such an act was not already in place.  The president’s signing of this bill, the contents of which protect a woman seeking retribution for unfair pay even after her employer has paid her less than her male colleagues for years, is a big deal.  Contrast this with the recent undoing of Wisconsin’s fair pay law by Governor Walk All Over Workers (Governor Walker).  Walker has a history of abusing his power and fervently attacking workers and unions in the short time he has been governor.  Now that he is set to be recalled, he has kicked into overdrive, much like the especially active 111^th Congress in late 2010 during the “lame duck” session.  The “quiet” action he took on women’s pay is one of several bills the governor has recently passed in such a fashion.  The New York Daily News elaborates: “The wage bill was one of several items Walker, a controversial union-defying GOPer, signed off on this month.  Other pieces of legislation included barring abortion coverage through health insurance exchanges, mandating doctors to consult privately with women seeking abortions, and requiring sex ed teachers to stress abstinence.”

Add to this the recent comments by  Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman, claiming that women don’t need to be paid equally to men and that more money was more important to a man because his ego is very important and he might want to be the breadwinner.  In a recent article, The newspaper explains, “Under the old law, employees who win discrimination lawsuits can collect between $50,000 and $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.  The GOP bill bars anyone from collecting such funds in employment discrimination suits.

Democrats argue the bill negatively affects women who suffer discrimination in the workplace.

According to the recent Shriver Report, women are the primary or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of American families — but continue to make 23 cents less than men for every dollar earned.”

The entire article can be found here: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-04-11/news/31326804_1_wage-gap-wage-bill-discrimination

Grothman thinks “workplace bias” is bullshit.  Not only is this terribly ignorant and out of step with modernity; it is unbelievably offensive.

Speaking of the shockingly offensive, the Violence Against Women Act is up for a reauthorization vote in Congress.  This should be a no-brainer.  It should not be a partisan vote, and it hasn’t been a partisan vote in the past.  It is worth noting that Vice President Biden is responsible for the original Violence Against Women Act.  This particular piece of legislation is facing significant opposition for the first time.  Whether this is some subtle way of trying to score points against the president’s reelection bid (because it is Biden’s legislation) at the expense of women or for some other nefarious reason, it is a disgusting display of disregard for their fellow human beings.  The Violence Against Women Act protects women in particularly vulnerable positions, and for a party that claims to be so chivalrous and value “the fairer sex”, you’d think Republicans would do all that’s in their power to reauthorize such a bill.      

 According to an article in The Huffington Post,  “Since the Violence Against Women Act was first enacted in 1994, reporting of domestic violence has increased by as much as 51 percent.  The legislation was aimed at improving the response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.  Yet according to national statistics, more than three women are, on average, murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day.” 

Terrible, right?  Strengthening protections for women through a reauthorization of this bill should be a bipartisan effort, right?  Wrong.  The article goes on to say “Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and a few conservative organizations, object not to the act as a whole, but to new protections for LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse and the authority of Native American tribes to prosecute crimes.”

For those interested in reading the entire article, it can be found here.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/violence-against-women-act-reauthorization-senate-vote_n_1429327.html

I could go on and on about Mitt Romney’s record on saying that poor women must have the “dignity of work”—meaning work outside the home—if they are to qualify for state aid, which is understandable, but less understandable when he and every other Republican, it seems, have  advocated cutting childcare and education programs like Head Start.  Most women do not have the luxury of raising children without working outside the home (unlike his wife, who has the “hardest job there is”, apparently), especially single mothers, and for the poorest women, outside work is increasingly difficult if they do not receive adequate government aid.  The much-celebrated Paul Ryan budget plan deals a disproportionately heavy blow to women as well.

From frighteningly restrictive abortion laws (such as the recent law that says that life begins two weeks after a woman’s period), women’s basic rights to their own bodies and their ability to make decisions are being trampled in the name of some warped, overbearing ideology.  President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is not aimed specifically toward women, but in many ways it advances women’s rights.  Nothing in this bill, not even the apparently terrifying contraception language, is as overarching as many recently proposed (and passed) bills limiting women’s rights.

While I do not want to be defined by my gender, I feel a duty to inform those who share it a bit about what is happening in America.  Every individual is free to vote for whomever she or he wants to, but I don’t understand how any woman who isn’t Ann Coulter or Phyllis Schlafly could ever—in good conscience—vote for a Republican this cycle.  If someone finds me a Republican who bucks this trend, I would be very happy.

In Defense of Mitt Romney (Sort of)

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To say that Mitt Romney is getting a lot of flak for a comment he made yesterday concerning the “very poor” is an understatement. Liberals have seized on this statement as the latest in a series of ever-worsening gaffes, gleeful that Romney is doing all the work for them as he paints himself as the “out of touch multimillionaire” and an unelectable candidate against President Obama during a time when public opinion is against America’s Rich Uncle Pennybagses. (At least Mr. Pennybags made his money buying properties. There is no mention of laying off workers, and I’m sure even he would scoff at a 13.9% tax rate.) Even conservatives have jumped ship on this comment, embarrassed that their candidate of choice has fumbled so definitively. After being given multiple opportunities to clarify his statement, he didn’t backpedal. This is the new Mitt Romney, flip flopper characterizations be damned!

I’d like to say a bit in Mitt Romney’s defense. This may come off more as an offense against the media than a defense of Romney, but I do feel like he’s getting unfairly beaten up over this statement, as well as some others made regarding interpretations of his wealth. If we are to criticize the candidate on anything he said, it shouldn’t be the fact that he said “I don’t care about the very poor” (or “the very rich”, as he qualified) or the fact that he said “We will hear about the plight of the poor from the Democrat Party”. (The fact that the perfectly polished Romney said Democrat, not Democratic, is probably a sign that he was tired and stressed, and maybe we should realize that no candidate is actually perfect.)

To be sure, Romney’s statement was meant to emphasize his apparent commitment to the middle class in America. (This particular pandering might not actually be sincere, but for the sake of argument, let’s take Romney at his word.) This focus on the middle class is a popular stance for a presidential candidate to make, and is, in fact, the same one that President Obama has been making since 2007. While Obama’s policies—both in theory and in execution have done much more for America’s poor than any of the Republican candidates have ever pledged to do—Obama is still a mainly middle class-focused president. And why not? The middle class is how you win elections. It is politically expedient to aim your rhetoric toward those who believe in social mobility and who largely see themselves as having the desire and the ability to improve their station in life. One of the most enduring tenets of history is that revolutions are made by the middle class, not sustained by the peasantry or the lower classes. I’ve taken a lot of history classes; take that, Newt Gingrich! Basically, while the middle class is undeniably shrinking, it still consists of the majority of Americans and remains the largest voting bloc of the electorate. By all economic estimates, a thriving middle class is necessary to restore the country’s economy.

So there’s nothing wrong with speaking to the needs of the middle class. I think the issue at hand is that people are disturbed by Romney’s stated focus on the middle class seemingly at the exclusion—or to the detriment of—the “very poor”. He said that those who fall into this category have a social safety net, and if the safety net has holes in it, he will work to fix them. On its face, there is nothing wrong with this statement either. The real problem comes when one reads into this statement in context. Romney claimed that his statement was taken out of context. If you listen to all he says, and consider that the context, you are not really understanding the full scope. Republicans—Romney included—have made it their unequivocally stated goal to cut social programs for the poor and remove or tremendously weaken the social safety net, claiming that the United States government has bred an “entitlement society”. The kind of Ayn Rand, individualistic, I don’t give a shit about other people and I don’t live in a society where I’ve actually ever relied on anyone and I ignore the fact that there is undeniable historical evidence that cooperation equals prosperity, thinking is further qualified by the idea that “with the mounting debt, we can’t afford to spend this kind of money”. Translated into simple English without the spin, the Republican candidates are willing to kill poor people and doom them to suffering. Maybe that sounds like fear mongering, but it’s absolutely true.

Problem number one: Mitt Romney is disingenuous when he claims that he will fix the social safety net. Also, how about trying to help people out of poverty? Romney cares much more about his corporate donors and bigwig buddies than the poor. No one should be fooling themselves. But we knew all this before this statement, so the gasps and outrage are surprising. Suddenly everyone realizes?

Problem number two: Romney stated that 90-95% of American people are middle class. He had stated on a previous occasion that 80-90% of people are middle class. Neither of these figures is correct. This is why people get upset when Romney includes himself in these figures and when he jokes that he, too, is unemployed. Romney seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what middle class means. Taking this further, if he truly sees himself as middle class, then he has no idea how the vast majority of the country’s population lives. Those figures should have been the real focus of criticism, not the semi-tactless statements he made.

Problem number three: Liberals are hurt that Romney likened the poverty issue to a Democratic issue. While the “plight of the poor” should definitely not be a partisan issue, this is not the point. Hearing Cenk Uygur rail on about how he, as a Democrat, shouldn’t be marginalized and “this guy” (Romney) is ridiculous just makes him—and other media representatives like him—seem self absorbed and immature.

Who doesn’t love a talking point? The media has survived on them since at least last May, when the Republican candidates started taking the 2012 presidential race seriously. The problem with this is that the focus becomes things like Romney’s $10,000 bet moment, not actual analysis of any of the candidates’ policy proposals. I personally don’t think the $10,000 bet was that big of a deal. We know Romney’s rich. We know he wouldn’t actually bet. He’s said plenty of other incendiary things that actually have potential for application, things that would hurt the poor—and anyone who couldn’t afford a $10,000 bet—far more than that debate moment. I get it, though: All of these moments are heuristics used to judge a candidate’s “character”, and we should know who we’re voting for. How about we don’t hound Romney relentlessly for every slightly awkward statement he makes, and instead, hold him—as well as every other candidate—to account for their actual positions and demand concrete plans from our potential leaders? Then, feel free to tear them apart. At least that would be productive.