How to debunk the 'war on women'

Pioneer Press ^ | 1-30-14 | Charles Krauthammer

[TurboZamboni]

WASHINGTON -- What is it about women that causes leading Republicans to grow clumsy, if not stupid? When even savvy, fluent, attractively populist Mike Huckabee stumbles, you know you've got trouble. Having already thrown away eminently winnable Senate seats in Missouri and Indiana because of moronic talk about rape, the GOP might have learned. You'd think.

Huckabee wasn't quite as egregious, just puzzling and a bit weird. Trying to make a point about Obamacare mandating free contraceptives, he inexplicably began speculating that the reason behind the freebie was the Democrats' belief that women need the federal government to protect them from their own libidos.

Bizarre. I can think of no Democrat who has ever said that, nor any liberal who even thinks that. Such a theory, when offered by a conservative, is quite unfortunately self-revealing.

In any case, why go wandering into the psychology of female sexuality in the first place? It's ridiculous. This is politics. Stick to policy. And there's a good policy question to be asked about the contraceptive mandate (even apart from its challenge to religious freedom). It's about priorities. By what moral logic does the state provide one woman with co-pay-free contraceptives while denying the same subvention to another woman when she urgently needs antibiotics for her sick child?

[MrB]

I think God put my libinlaw in our life in order to provide an example of the world’s thinking for my kids... :)

The other night, we were discussing various groups of folks throughout history, and any negative behavior was always explained with “because they were threatened”.

It was a great illustration that I could use to point out to my kids that as a result of the wrong assumption of human nature, people will always come to the wrong conclusions about the causes of behavior.

[IronJack]

“Fertility, not sterility, is a positive feature of “women’s health.”

That is nothing short of brilliant! Why is the assumption always that women want to AVOID having children? Why have we let child-hating harridans define the discourse? There are millions of women who recognize the biological imperative of motherhood and embrace it. Why have we willingly sacrificed them to a flock of harpies?

You should consider public office yourself.

[Tax-chick]

You should consider public office yourself.

It's nice of you to say so! I had a notion to run for state representative some years back; my "big issue" was going to be the need for more left turn lanes. "Vote Wright, so you can turn left!"

But I had another baby, instead.

Seriously, I've worked on many campaigns, and being a candidate takes more drive than I have.

[IronJack]

What you lack in time you make up for in vision and your baby’s gain is our loss. Conservatives need smart, visionary, articulate women to help us counter the myth that we’re all a bunch of creaky white geezers.

[Tax-chick]

Someone in the state government agreed with me, because we have a lot more left-turn lanes than we used to.

I have four daughters. Maybe one of them will take up politics, or one of the hundreds of children I’ve taught in Sunday School or led in Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts.