With each day that passes, there's a new headline announcing how yet another state has pushed to repeal some form of a woman's rights. It's too bad, then, that our disgustingly lazy media would rather report on how large Kim Kardashian's ass has gotten, or the ongoing feud between Hillary Rosen and Ann Romney (which is a pointless argument - both are kind of wrong).
Let's start from the top. Democrats and liberals, noticing that Republicans and conservatives have become more and more focused on passing legislation that involves only women, began to claim that the GOP was trying to start a war on women. Republicans and their media arm, Fox News, shot back with the ever-so-adult, "Nah-uh! You are!"
Now, to say that this is a "war" is both ridiculous and sensationalist. It isn't a war. That's insulting for two reasons: 1) It trivializes actual war (like the one in Afganistan) and 2) It makes it sound like legislators are reaching for their weapons and firing at women. The proper term, I think, is "attack." Politicians are attacking the same rights that women have been working towards for the last one-hundred plus years.
Still, it's hard to believe that the Democrats are the ones perpetrating this attack. Especially since, according to the Guttmacher Institute, Republicans at the state and federal level have introduced 916 anti-women bills in the last year. Oops. Maybe they didn't think someone was keeping track.
Last night, Jon Stewart spoke about this very issue on The Daily Show, making several great points. Here's the video, with a short summary of my own below if you don't care to watch it.
"What evidence is there for some kind of war on women?"
1.) Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin repealed the state's equal pay act, allowing employers to pay their female employees less than their male counterparts.
2.) Arizona wants their women employees to prove to their employers whether or not they are on Birth Control. Depending on the employer's disposition to such a thing, it is grounds for being fired.
3.) Mississippi has/is trying to criminalize abortion as murder (apparently it's illegal to kill something that is hasn't had a single cognitive thought, but it's perfectly okay to kill a person that has lived for seventeen years).
4.) Pennsylvania wants to require sonograms before abortions.
5.) Arizona has protected their pro-life doctors by giving them the ability to remain silent about any possible risks an unborn child could face in the birthing process or later on in life. The doctor cannot be sued or held responsible.
6.) Virginia requires women to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound (you get a giant wand stuck up your vagina) before having an abortion. This is, for women who don't want it, akin to rape.
7.) For the first time since it's original passing, there is opposition at the federal level towards the Violence Against Women Act.
8.) Texas wants to cut all funding to Planned Parenthood.
9.) Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman (the same guy that fought to repeal the equal pay legislation) wants to make single-parenting a form of child abuse. As the majority of single parents are mothers (mothers usually get custody in divorce proceedings), this would mean that single mothers are abusing their children. I take a lot of offense towards this, as my own mother raised my sister and I by herself, working sometimes three jobs to support us.
10.) Topeka, Kansas has made it legal to abuse your wife.
Again, the pundits and opinion-slewing good guys over at Fox would like to impress upon you that there is no attack on women. None. And while we're on the subject of women...
"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, 'Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues,' and, 'When I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life."
Since Ann Romney was a stay-at-home mom to five sons and a millionaire husband, Rosen's comments weren't too far off base. Unfortunately, people began to attack her not because of what she said, but because of what she meant. Fox began to say that Democrats (plural!) were attacking stay-at-home mothers. Apparently what Rosen really said was that being a mom wasn't hard.
I'm not sure if Ann Romney has ever worked as an employee anywhere, but I can say that she hasn't worked as hard as most stay-at-home mothers of five children. The Romneys employed several nannies to help take care of the house and raise the kids.
To summarize, I think Rosen could have chosen her words better, but I also think Ann has little ground to stand on. She has never known what it's like to raise kids paycheck to paycheck. She has always been comfortable, her needs met. And while her husband gave her that luxury, he wasn't so quick to give it to other mothers:
"While I was governor, 85% of the people on a form of welfare assistance in my state had no work requirement. And I wanted to increase work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work."
Here that, moms? If you're poor with kids, you better have the dignity to get up and go to work. But if you're rich with kids, just hire some nannies. Motherhood is hard.
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