Introducing her husband on Super Tuesday night, Ann Romney said women this election season are interested in jobs, the economy and the debt.
Translation: So could we shut up already about contraception?
Republicans might wish nothing more than to stuff birth control pills back into the bottle, but Democrats aren’t about to let them. The narrative already has a title: “The Republican War on Women.” Cue theme from “Psycho.”
One can hardly blame Democrats for taking advantage of a perfect storm of stupefying proportions. The only thing Republicans failed to do was put a bow on this mess. Consider the headline-grabbing events that came together almost at once:
Virginia’s pre-abortion sonogram law that could have included a transvaginal probe; the religious liberty versus contraception mandate prompted by health care reform; Rush Limbaugh’s commentary about a female law student in which he called her a slut, a prostitute and, in a final flourish, suggested she provide him sex tapes so he could watch her in the activities precipitating the need for birth control.
Individually, these anecdotes would have been problematic, but combined they’ve had the effect on women voters of a Tyrannosaurus rex approaching a Gallimimus herd. (Picture the stampede scene in “Jurassic Park.”)
War has been declared, and there’s hardly any way to change the impression among a growing percentage of women that the GOP is the party of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. It’s a smart move for Democrats to keep replaying the message, but is it fair — and is it true?
What say we relax the rhetoric and see what sanity lies beneath?
Not to tempt the gods of non sequitur, and contrary to what the White House insists, Rush Limbaugh is not the leader of the GOP. Even so, he does have a large audience and it is disconcerting that so many seem to share his obvious hostility toward women. Several of his cohorts in discourtesy are snorting and grunting in my inbox even now.
One who wrote in defense of Limbaugh informed me of my place in God’s hierarchy, slightly above goats, and gave me a tutorial about why women have been saddled with the monthly inconvenience and painful childbirth — for tempting men to do evil and failing to recognize their roles as “help meets” for men.
“Pagan women like yourself,” he patiently averred, “have no regard for the natural order of God’s plan and shamelessly promulgate the ‘we are goddesses’ bile that has infected the entire country and pretty much stopped it in its tracks from incurring God’s blessing.” I’m leaving out the best parts.
You don’t have to read many such letters to think that maybe Democrats have a point. Yet it is false to imagine that any objection to abortion is necessarily anti-woman. It may feel that way to women seeking an abortion. And it may look that way when those pushing anti-abortion measures are men whose experience in such matters is biologically irrelevant. As feminist Flo Kennedy once said, “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”
But Republicans are waging war on women only if you believe that the morality of abortion should never be questioned, or if you believe the federal government can order people to pay for something that violates their conscience. These issues are not so simple, nor are Republicans simpletons for trying to protect the unborn or challenging what they view as government overreach.
Unfortunately, the conservative governing principles that traditionally attracted level heads to the right side of the aisle have been incrementally subsumed by social issues — a bull’s-eye for Democrats and a black eye for Republicans. Inasmuch as women are the ones who most urgently require access to family planning, any opposition can be conflated to be anti-woman. Hence, Ann Romney’s well-placed remarks.
She is right, of course, but the problem she was implicitly trying to address is not short-term. The GOP long ago made its bed with social conservatives, a large percentage of them Southern evangelicals, and now must sleep with them. After marriage, of course. In Laurens County, S.C., where the local GOP recently tried to create a purity tribunal to screen and monitor aspiring Republican candidates, this is more than a punch line.
Although the state party ruled the county initiative inconsistent with state law, the Laurens mindset burbles just beneath the surface of the once-Grand Old Party. And that is a problem only Democrats could love.
Kathleen Parker’s email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com.
Somewhere around half of the 40+ million abortions in this country were females. Pretty misogynistic to protest against a policy that has resulted in about 500,000 girls being killed every year. But you re correct that the Democrats are winning – the argument is whether a Catholic organization (or federal tax payers) should be picking up the birth control tab for a law student whose earning potential upon graduation will put her near or in the top 1%.
Rush does not have hostility toward women. Just because he evidenced hostility toward one woman, does not make him a woman-hater. If it did, then everyone who hates Rush would have to be labeled man-haters.
The responses Ms. Parker is getting from self-described Rush fans are not typical of Rush listeners or of the Republican party.
This editorial does make a couple great points. First of all–what women want are jobs and prosperity–not free contraception (although I expect they would take the free contraception if it didn’t come with strong-arm government mandates that trample an individuals right to conscience). What women want is the ability to be female, in all its manifestations, without being ridiculed, objectified or marginalized.
Second great point–opposition to abortion does not make one misogynistic. In my opinion, support of abortion is more hateful toward women then opposition to it.
Why do you continue to deliberately misrepresent the issue? No one is asking for “free” contraceptives. They’re asking to have them included in their health plans.
I will be specific. The Obama mandate calls for contraception to be covered under all health insurance plans without a co-payment. In other words, in some people’s mind, contraception will not cost them anything.
You could be even more specific and state that you apparently think premiums count for nothing.
So what, in their minds, would their health insurance premiums be paying for?
If their premium does not increase at all with the added coverage, then, effectively, it is no cost. I expect we will see premiums increase because nothing is ever free.
Premiums always increase no matter what, so that point is moot.
Too true.
Like Viagra?
Viagra is not male contraception. The Viagra, contraception connection is non-existent.
True, Viagra is not contraception. Viagra is for men, and men are 74% of the members of Congress, and most of the CEOs of insurance companies, and so of course Viagra is covered. The men make the rules, and so men’s products get covered.
If men got pregnant, contraception would be a sacrament.
Wandini you are just wrong here. He uses the slur Feminazi to debase women every chance he gets.
He uses the term Feminazi to refer to radical feminists only, not all women, and not even women who are feminists. He is very clear that the term refers to a branch of feminism that is militant in its demands.
I haven’t heard him use feminazi lately. Lately he has been talking about the women over at NOW–whom he refers to as NAGS= National Association of Gals.
This stuff is not insulting and hostile to women as a group–it is directed toward a political group with an agenda.
As Ms. Parker points out, opposition to the agenda of NOW, or of NARAL, does not make one anti-woman. I never elected NOW to speak for me as a woman, just as I am sure you have never wanted Phyllis Schlafly over at Concerned Women for America to speak for you.
The double standard seems to be rampant in the ranks of the left. If you insult a women’s advocacy group or individual from the left you are “waging war on women”. If you attack a women’s advocacy group or individual from the right then you are “opposing the war on women” and “standing up for women’s rights”.
It sounds like you listen to Rush often. Just to clarify the notion that he only uses the term to refer to radical feminists, initially he claimed only to use it in reference to women who are pro-choice, but more recently it seems he freely applies it to any woman who speaks out for womens rights. http://mediamatters.org/research/201203120004
Here also is additional information about the GOP’s very real war on women: http://emilyslist.org/blog/Top_10_Terrible_Horrible_No_Good_Very_Bad_Attacks_on_Womens_Rights/
No he does not use the term to refer to any woman who is pro-choice. And your links do not say he does. Rush has repeatedly defined who he thinks are feminazis. He has been upfront about the origin and his use of the term–and yet Media Matters wants to waste time and money analyzing every single time he used the term over a 20+year career? Because, if they can show one time that he may have used the term slightly outside of his normal usage–well, then he is a woman-hater!
There is no GOP war on women. The list cited in your link are silly and inaccurate:
1- The Blunt amendment did not in any way deny a woman access to health care from her doctor, unless you are willing to say that if insurance doesn’t cover it, the a woman CAN’T get it.
2-Ultrasounds, by the admission of an abortion doctor interviewed in the AP story on the Virginia statute, are now routinely used to date a pregnancy and to rule out the presence of an ectopic pregnancy before an abortion is performed. Nobody is trying to “rape” women with vaginal probes–unless you want to charge the abortion doctors and your typical OB/GYN.
3-Birth control is affordable. Without insurance, the Guttmacher Institute states that a birth control prescription costs up to $60 per month. Less than the average cell phone plan. Less than $15 per week. That’s less than a latte per day. And that was the upward cost of a pill prescription. Planned Parenthood will offer pills at a much lower cost, based on your ability to pay.
A feminist is someone who thinks women are people.
I know women are people, but I would not be called a feminist.
examples of the GOP war on women just keep piling up. what the GOP really wants is that only rich white men can vote. their wives can vote only if they follow their spouses instructions. the GOP has a lot in common with the taliban. and rush? a loud mouthed scumbag.