Posted on 11/07/2014 8:05:37 AM PST by Kaslin
Wonder Woman is home from the war on women, a "war" fought mostly in the fantasies of embattled Democrats, and she sounds like a Republican who looks a lot like Joni Ernst of Iowa. Or Elise Stefanik of New York, who at 30 will be the youngest woman to serve in Congress, or Mia Love of Utah, 38, daughter of Haitian immigrants, the first black Republican woman in Congress. These are women with neither lamentations nor unresolved grievances. The only whine anyone heard on the morning after the elections was the growl of Mrs. Ernst's Harley.
Despite the tedious rhetoric of the feminists, or maybe because of it, women, like the Republican wipe-out crashing through Washington like a wave, focus not on victimhood but on kicking butt (as a lady might say) and taking charge. There's an audience-in-waiting for them, looking for a woman who knows how to fight and win, active in her own self-defense. They're not crying harassment at every slur and imagined arrow. Wonder Woman does not look for a fainting couch. Liking men is not a capital crime.
Joni Ernst laughed -- you could hear the wink in her voice -- when she took "offense" that Tom Harkin, the Democrat she will replace in the Senate, compared her to Taylor Swift, the hot young pop singer. She knew he sounded like a chauvinist, and she knew voters would know, too.
Joni Ernst is the first woman senator from her state, a good-looking grandmother of 44 who is a National Guard lieutenant colonel who carries a pistol in her pocketbook. She's the lady who said in a television commercial that she grew up on a farm, castrating hogs, and when she gets to Washington she'll know how to cut pork. On election night she promised to "make them squeal" when she crosses the Potomac.
The Wonder Woman metaphor stretches beyond parochial politics. The gorgeous, dark-haired comic book heroine with stars on her bodice and in her eyes is an icon freshened up for modern women. Gal Gadot, the actress who will play her in the forthcoming movies, is in real life a beauty queen who was a soldier in the Israel Defense Force. Her fighting spirit, like the determination of the new fighting woman in Congress, was nurtured in authentic experience.
The Wonder Woman of the comic books as metaphor for 2014 is complicated because her portrayals have been mixed depending on the culture and the artist drawing her. But she's a tough cookie with a strong moral sense. She wielded a golden lasso that, once wrapped around a villain, forces him to tell the truth. Wonder Woman arrived in the comic books during World War II to fight the Nazis. She was patriotic and pretty without purring or preening. Like Rosie the Riveter, she was comfortable in who she was and what she was called on to do. Like a woman with a golden lasso newly elected to Congress, you might say. She was decorative in male eyes, perhaps, but she wore her bracelets as armor, a fighter as "beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, as strong as Hercules and as swift as Hermes."
These new Republican Athenas are a challenge to the likes of Lena Dunham, the creator of the popular television series "Girls," who flaunts her bitter experience of having been raped in college, of not knowing how to fight back because she was drunk, high on Xanax and cocaine, and giving off "mixed signals." No mixed signals from the women of the wave. They're clear with the message.
Feminists have made harassment the dominant issue of their age. In one widely circulated video, a woman walks through New York City for 10 hours, attracting more than a hundred call-outs from men, call-outs decried by women as typical of a ubiquitous culture of harassment. The video star, Shoshana Roberts, dressed simply in a black crewneck T-shirt and jeans, passes mainly black and Hispanic men, calling out to her with such "offensive" remarks as "Good morning," "What's up, beautiful?" and "What ya doin' today?" But for one creep, who stayed with her for five minutes, there was nothing menacing in the flirtatious banter. But the video was presented as evidence of Everywoman's daily descent into the hell of harassment.
Where is Wonder Woman's golden lasso now that we need it? Gone to Capitol Hill, perhaps. Harassment is a legitimate and important concern, but wallowing in it is not the most effective way of dealing with it, as Joni Ernest, Mia Love or Elise Stefanik could tell anyone listening.
With a nice bow to irony when Mrs. Ernst finished her remarks to her troops late on election night, the band struck up an enthusiastic rendition of "Shake it Off," Taylor Swift's popular hymn to female empowerment. Wonder Woman enters, stage right.
I love what I read of Joni Ernst. Definitely a national office contender at some point.
One small criticism: her laugh was a little affected and annoying. Needs some coaching on that.
2014: Year of the Conservative Women!
Said no left-wing outlet ever.
If Blacks that don’t toe the Democrat/NAACP line are Uncle Toms, what are women who don’t toe the Democrat/NOW/NARAL line?
Good question.
According to liberal theology, women are supposed to vote Democrat. Blacks are supposed to vote Democrat. Hispanics are supposed to vote Democrat.
According to them, white men are the ones who vote Republican. Anybody who is a member of some grievance group is supposed to be Democrat. They are supposed to vote Democrat because, well, just because. No reason, no explanation. Just sit down, shut up, and vote Democrat.
THE WAR ON WOMEN IS OVER!
WE WON.
Hear's the new 18 year old Republican Rep
State Rep, not US Rep
Hear's the new 18 year old Republican Rep
And it was prolonged, and it kept happening...over and over and over. I had to turn the channel.
The real tragedy is if it wasn't 'affected' but is really her laugh. :>)
If so, it was just her joy coming out over a victory, but like you said 'coaching'. (Or a shock collar for a handler to activate when she reaches her limit of 2 laughs.)
She could be indulged in a little jolliness after the bitter, pitched battle. We don’t know the context.
LOL. Glad I wasn’t the only person who noticed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGjAHnlgQ38
It shows up in other videos, too.
Are you old enough to remember Suzanne Somers laugh in “Three’s Company”?
Maybe we could get Somers to coach her. It wouldn’t be an improvement, but at least it would be funny....
lol
And, Mia Love. Not bad for a bunch of sexist, racist white folks.
BTW, I read today that Democrats are having a hard time getting more than 25% of white voters in some Southern states. That’s a good start, a great model to follow, and quite the opposite from 50 years ago.
SHEESH! You two sound like many of Palin’s critics, claiming to like what she says but grousing about her accent and manner of speaking. The nation has been driven to the edge of a cliff by folks who sound like New Yorkers or Yaleys - or Walter Cronkite. I much prefer the authentic, unaffected voices of the prairie and the north woods. Get over it.
Yeah, she'll get right on whacking that ethanol subsidy that is depleting topsoil for a low-value crop.
Saira Blair is a Delegate, not a Representative; she will hold office in Charleston, WV.
Let’s not forget another conservative woman - Barbara Comstock the new US Rep from northern VA :-)
“You two sound like many of Palin’s critics, claiming to like what she says but grousing about her accent and manner of speaking.”
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Sorry, but unfortunately politics is as much about image as it is about substance.
Palin is a good example. Great looks, great ideology, great words. But honestly, whether it is on a conscious or subconscious level, her physical voice is a negative, and has doubtless hurt her. Sad but true.
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