Thursday, 23 February 2012
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The GOP's "War On Women" (An Introduction)
Republicans have been doing bad in elections with women. Thus the war on women. This post is a quick overview just to see how the game is played.
Related Book: The Republican War Against Women: An Insider's Report from Behind the Lines
In 1980, Republicans used appeals to sexist and racist bigotry to win the Presidency. The party adopted an electoral strategy that included getting votes by playing on the fear and uncertainty engendered by the civil rights and women's political movements, and continued to use this strategy in the campaigns of 1984, 1988, and 1992. Under the Reagan and Bush administrations, this strategy became a crucial part of the party's governing policies. This book is not a political science treatise nor a description of political campaigns; it is a documented account of a grab for power that, as the years pass, continues to intensify antagonism between the sexes and to sow unnecessary division among the American people. As a longtime Republican activist and a delegate to the 1992 convention, Tanya Melich has observed these actions from within; and documents this takeover and the Party's ongoing practices (such as embracing the Christian right) in a devastating, factual, and often hair-raising report. A combination of history, exposÄ, reasoned polemic, and call to arms, this book has now been enriched by two completely new chapters that assesses the outcome of the 1996 election in terms of the book's thesis and realistically lays out the future: both in terms of what it will be if the right-wing elements of the Republican party continue to set the agenda, and how it can be changed if centrist women (and men) take charge of that agenda. The heart of such change lies with Independents, who now constitute a startling 39 percent of Americans (31 percent identify themselves as Democrats and 30 percent as Republicans). We are not a country of strong party loyalties, and the enormous growth of independents is the signal that change is not only possible but achievable. As a superb political pro, the author offers hardheaded strategies for such change.
As explained in my previous article, hunting cultures will often form into patriarchies. This doesn't mean that women didn't hunt. Just like I showed the Neanderthals were probably just humans, women were probably not just gatherers. Hunting is not that difficult. The pygmies often have women in their hunting groups. Also, to protect children why wouldn't you want strong men around? Obviously you would. If a big cat comes around you would want muscle. Throwing a spear with a group of people at a giraffe or buffalo doesn't require much muscle, so the 'women could not be hunters because they weren't strong enough' isn't a tenable hypothesis.
In short, our culture views ancient cave women like this...
When actually they were like this...
New Women of the Ice Age
Forget about hapless mates being dragged around by macho mammoth killers. The women of Ice Age Europe, it appears, were not mere cavewives but priestly leaders, clever inventors, and mighty hunters.
Recent anthropological research has revealed just how much Soffer’s colleagues overlooked. By observing women in the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies and by combing historical accounts of tribal groups more thoroughly, anthropologists have come to realize how critical the female half of the population has always been to survival. Women and children have set snares, laid spring traps, sighted game and participated in animal drives and surrounds—forms of hunting that endangered neither young mothers nor their offspring. They dug starchy roots and collected other plant carbohydrates essential to survival. They even hunted, on occasion, with the projectile points traditionally deemed men’s weapons. I found references to Inuit women carrying bows and arrows, especially the blunt arrows that were used for hunting birds, says Linda Owen, an archeologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
The revelations triggered a volley of new research. In North America, Soffer and her team have found tantalizing evidence of the hunting gear often favored by women in historical societies. In Europe, archeobotanists are analyzing Upper Paleolithic hearths for evidence of plant remains probably gathered by women and children, while lithics specialists are poring over stone tools to detect new clues to their uses. And the results are gradually reshaping our understanding of Ice Age society. The famous Venus figurines, say archeologists of the new school, were never intended as male pornography: instead they may have played a key part in Upper Paleolithic rituals that centered on women. And such findings, pointing toward a more important role for Paleolithic women than had previously been assumed, are giving many researchers pause.[Notice that what I referred to as the "fertility goddess" is here called the venus figurines. So, the previous explanations still apply.]
Of course, this isn't the first time women have fought...
Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America
Women of the Republic views the American Revolution through women's eyes. Previous histories have rarely recognized that the battle for independence was also a woman's war. The "women of the army" toiled in army hospitals, kitchens, and laundries. Civilian women were spies, fund raisers, innkeepers, suppliers of food and clothing. Recruiters, whether patriot or tory, found men more willing to join the army when their wives and daughters could be counted on to keep the farms in operation and to resist enchroachment from squatters. "I have Don as much to Carrey on the warr as maney that Sett Now at the healm of government," wrote one impoverished woman, and she was right.
Women of the Republic is the result of a seven-year search for women's diaries, letters, and legal records. Achieving a remarkable comprehensiveness, it describes women's participation in the war, evaluates changes in their education in the late eighteenth century, describes the novels and histories women read and wrote, and analyzes their status in law and society. The rhetoric of the Revolution, full of insistence on rights and freedom in opposition to dictatorial masters, posed questions about the position of women in marriage as well as in the polity, but few of the implications of this rhetoric were recognized. How much liberty and equality for women? How much pursuit of happiness? How much justice?
When American political theory failed to define a program for the participation of women in the public arena, women themselves had to develop an ideology of female patriotism. They promoted the notion that women could guarantee the continuting health of the republic by nurturing public-spirited sons and husbands. This limited ideology of "Republican Motherhood" is a measure of the political and social conservatism of the Revolution. The subsequent history of women in America is the story of women's efforts to accomplish for themselves what the Revolution did not.
Yet, look at the overview of the GOP's war on women by MoveOn.org...
Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women
1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.
2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."
3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that couldmake it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)
4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.
5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.
6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said.Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.
7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.
8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill would cut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.
9) Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.
10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing toeliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).
Here are some comedians offering their perspectives on news in the corporate media...
Notice: One side is arguing the health benefits and the other side is saying 'you're going to hell'... (also relevant: Fox News Lies)
Culture War Update - The Dividening of America - Dana Perino vs. Free Birth Control
Notice in the above video that a Republican WOMAN proposes a bill which is not just inappropriate but similar to State sanctioned rape(notice what Jon Stewart says at the end of the video) ... best part is this is perfectly consistent with the Republican war on women (see above extract from MoveOn.org).
Next...
See what Governor Bob McDonnell has to say at 3 minutes 50 seconds into the following video...
This is my favorite part....
All-MALE Panels to decide the fate of women...
Another example of all male panels...
Sean Hannity's Holy Sausage Fest: In response to the Obama administration's birth control coverage mandate, Christian conservatives equate themselves to victims of actual religious persecution.
Very Funny: A Parody of the all male decision panels on women's issues...
Moment of Zen
The Pope (a Catholic) came out in favor of universal healthcare...
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive[lmao = approx 2 mins above: 'contraception is cock blocking the almighty'.]
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Comments (42)
Your first sentence is false as usual.
Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin are conservative women whose lives are in danger from Democrats whenever they go out in public.
Almost all political violence is committed by the Left as we saw at the maggot, flea and crab fests last year aka Occupy (name the city).
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - Did you read the words and watch the videos?
@explorer9360 - Of course he didn't.
Fake Christians don't read...they simply deny, accuse, and lie. Never feed the trolls...
@galadrial - I'm not feeding them anything. They come to me like moths to a flame... I want to get back to my study of culture but I gotta finish of my politics and economics outlines. So I will get some anger till I'm done. Then I'll just be a nut to be ignored. :)
I however, did read the piece. I've also been observing this for 30 years, and I agree with your premise.
Want to know HOW they have convinced women that Equal rights (stuff like equal pay, etc) wasn't in their best interests? They threatened them with UNISEX bathrooms. Nope...not kidding. Of course, they did a hatchet job on women, at the same time. But some of this goes back to Lincoln.
You probably heard of Votes For Women...the whole American Suffrage Movement? It got rolling in Seneca Falls, back in 1849....and was blessed with charismatic and brilliant leaders like Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. It is useful to recall that when they first proposed the vote for women, women HAD NO LEGAL STATUS AS CITIZENS. They had no property rights, could not make contracts, and were utterly dependent on their husbands or close male relatives for any legal help. When a man died, his widow did not inherit his estate...and could be put from her home by his male relatives. The custody of her children could be stripped from her on a whim...with no legal right to regain them. If your male relatives did not want to bring a suit for you, or act on your behalf, you were without any help.
The Seneca Falls Women decided that only way to right the awful inequity that afflicted them was to grant females the right to vote...which they lacked. It was assumed that women would vote as their husbands would...and that it was not needed. It was also assumed that if she was not married, a woman's opinion was invalid. Along the way to gaining suffrage, Stanton and Anthony actually proposed property rights FOR women, that gradually caught on, state by state. At the same time, the cause of Abolition (Ending slavery) was also heating up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism
It's leaders recognized that Stanton and Anthony were gifted and persuasive orators...and convinced them to strike a bargain. If they would support Abolitionism, once slaves were free, the Abolitionists would support the cause of women's Suffrage. They agreed. When the Civil War ended, however, the Abolitionist leaders reneged. They focused instead on giving the vote to freed slaves...the males only. Women voting was still considered "too controversial."
They tried to get it on a territory-by-territory basis...but that proved not only difficult, but counter productive.
http://www.suffragist.com/timeline.htm
This timeline shows a pattern. Women would get the vote---only to lose it. In NJ, they briefly were allowed to vote, but lost it when they used the ballot to try to defeat a male candidate two decades later.
Over and over, the same pattern emerges. Women asked for rights---and were struck down for it. They were harassed, arrested, and attacked from all sides, regarded as evil and unnatural, and guilt ed at every turn for even thinking they could be "equal." The usual party line against any form of women's rights were that it would DISTRACT women from their "natural roles" as wives and mothers. Education was discouraged. Women needed only to be able to read a bible...,more than that was regarded as "unhealthy".
And amusingly...most arguments to keep women down, and deprived of legal status were always offered for their "own good, and protection." Women worked outside their homes. They supported the nation through two World Wars---but still were not allowed to vote until AFTER the first one ended. When men signed up for service after Pearl Harbor, women BECAME the work force that supplied the war effort. Tens of thousands became WACS, WAVES and WAF's. More would have, but the auxiliaries were limited. For every one woman who joined, there were over a thousand applicants.
When WW Two ended. women stepped down from their jobs, to make room for the returning GI's. Once again, they were either moms and wives, or delegated to pink color work---employment deemed appropriate for women, usually at the bottom of the pay scale. Feminism found it's roots in Ike's America...where women who once met their nation's call, suddenly found themselves limited severely in options, and opportunity.
A generation that built tanks and ships were once again dependent on their male relatives. If you were married, your husband had to sign contracts for you. If you were single, your father, brothers, or uncles had to vouch for you. If you wanted contraception, you had to be married, and prove that a pregnancy could kill you---AND had to have your husband's permission to get it.
Women caught the blame for the "destruction of the American family"...but Hugh Hefner had already achieved that with the Playboy Mentality. Once men were able to acquire sex without matrimony, women's stock and value plummeted. "Why Buy the Cow"....The Sexual Revolution was an offshoot of the Playboy Mentality...and women tried to participate...but were vulnerable to pregnancy. Contraception helped---but by no means leveled the playing field between genders. Men who had casual sex were "groovy". But they did not accord any real respect to women who did so as well. We still called them "whores, sluts. and tramps"...while admiring the "swinger" men.
Women were essential to the anti-War movement of the 60's...but again...were accorded no power. The women who worked to end the Draft later tried for Women's Rights...and got demonized for it. So this war has been playing out for a long time...Reagan's supporters shot down ERA, and women since have been terrified of being labeled "feminists"...for simply wanting equal rights...not "superior" ones.
@galadrial - No, I'm not familiar with women rights history. Just the GOP. Thanks for the useful info!
@explorer9360 - I didn't mean to lecture...but I'd been seeing so much crap about the evils of feminism on Xanga lately, that I sort of lost it. (Not from your posts---they are well put together, and informative...not to mention factual.
So mea culpa....
great post. i'm only marginally/vaguely aware of female roles in ancient cultures. this was an interesting read. the GOP attack on women is longstanding but at present the GOP appears to be lashing out desperately. i watched every video. excellent and valid points made in the ways only these comedians can make them. Stewart's description of parking in NYC is hilarious. i remember a restaurant on a block of restaurants in NYC that had the misfortune of being across the street from a house of worship. while the other restaurants on that block served alcohol this restaurant was not allowed to because.....it was across the street from a house of worship. the restaurant had a bring your own booze policy. whose rights were being violated there though?
To watch the clips requires a flash player update which is said to disable my security, so I'll pass on that.
In ancient cultures, there were two important ways females were seen to have an angle on getting closer to the gods that escaped the males: sexual desire and pregnancy.
Given the predominantly female gathering part of the hunting and gathering societies, they got to know about medicines and poisons etc., which the males missed out on. Males figured that females must be using magic potions to attracted them but at first did not realize why. The male part in procreation was not understood and so producing babies was also seen as a magical affair.
Marriage developed for two reasons: to ensure a share of the females by the weaker males if the latter were to be expected to join in the hunt and raids. Otherwise, there would not be a society, just the alpha male for a season or so, herding his females, while growing males hovered around the edges of his flock. Later, marriage was solidified when the need to ensure correct heritage came into play. In effect, once the awe was lost, the female became property.
It seems that some individual males and some whole societies have no progressed beyond that development, but I digress as is my wont.
Females also lost much of the superstitious awe men had for them once it was realized how women got babies. Until then, getting pregnant was viewed
as solely a female affair of magic. Once the male contribution was realized, then came in male thoughts of heritage and the need to ensure one did not get a cuckoo in the nest. Marriage grew in importance as did the serious taboo against taking advantage of the man's absence on the hunt or at war. Marriage became so importance for the society that it became a proclamation to the gods. Therefore, adultery became profanity of the highest order punishable by death. Sex before marriage became taboo as well, because without marriage, the offspring belonged to no man and therefore were cut off from the increasingly complex heritage lines which gave the individual a place in society. Bastards were in effect, outsiders.
@Lovegrove - You can't watrch the daily show or colbert report? How sad. Maybe its your firewall? Someone could have bugged it? As for your other points, I agree in a limited way. Have you considered that our cultures roots (and our species) goes back further than we realize? i.e. this = http://explorer9360.xanga.com/758856767/ancient-mysteries-the-worlds-earliest-cities-reprint/
@TheSutraDude - Probably both. I lived in NY and am familiar with the anti-muslim sentiment there (as well as the anti-christian and anti-jew and anti-greek etc., NY'ers love to hate). Let's see drunk idiots accross from a house of worship... . If it wasn't for that problem, I would say the drinkers rights were being violated.
@Lovegrove - Ummm...dude?
In effect, once the awe was lost, the female became property.
That happened THOUSANDS of years back...and we've only figured out in the last 100 years that men were occasionally part of the reason women didn't conceive...(Thank you Henry the Eighth....)
@explorer9360 - you've got a point. my experience was a little different. i lived for a while in Bayside and Flushing, Queens and dated a couple of girls from Brooklyn meaning i had to go there at times. i found racism in NYC was much more alive in the outer boroughs. it exists in Manhattan where i lived for 35 years but nowhere near the degree to which i found it in the outer boroughs. i was amazed at times how much crossing into the other boroughs felt like i was entering another state.
@explorer9360 - I have considered that we go back a very long way indeed.
@galadrial - That what happens when the boys run the joint.
@NewDog2 - Progressives have been running the world for over a century now. They've driven Europe to the brink of collapse and America is not far behind. And all you folks can do is wring your hands and blame George Bush.
@TheSutraDude - Yeah, I've lived in Brooklyn, Staten Island and worked in those two plus Queens and Manhattan. Except for the Bronx (only been a few times), I'm pretty familiar with the area. You can move from one part of Brooklyn to another and it's like entering another State!
@Lovegrove - lol! Cool.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - Dude. You're in for one hell of a ride.
@explorer9360 - Tell us about it! Europe going under. Gas going to $6 a barrel. 15% real unemployment rate. Economic collapse just over the horizon.
And all because President Obama wants it that way.@explorer9360 - haha you're right. i've been on Staten Island some but not enough to say i'm familiar. i bought a motorcycle at BMW of Staten Island on Richmond Ave. i knew how to get there from the Staten Island Ferry but that was about the extent of my travels there.
@sometimestheycomebackanyway - What unmitigated BULLSHIT.
@galadrial - The concept of women having extra rights is not only based on stupidity but also a desire some men have to keep the upper hand. Women fought for equal rights under the law, they did not fight to become men. Women's issues and rights will be not respected until these men (some of who are Democrats, it really is not just a Republican issue) understand that women want to be women with the same legal rights as men. It's a shame.
@galadrial - Obama said it himself. Don't you listen to him? Don't you read the news? I'm not making this stuff up.