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SEX AND THE "COMPASSIONATE" CON
As you might expect, when the media reported that Bush had "erased the gender gap", we got a few snappy posts from some readers who were delighted. "Ha, ha!" was the gist of most of them.
"Now
you'll have to change the name of your @#*%
Website."
Wishful thinking, fellers. Even if it were true, we will stay with the name "GenderGappers" because it stands for the hope and belief that one day ALL women (white as well as black, rich as well as poor, healthy as well as disabled) will understand that they do have power -- political power -- and will exercise it on their own and their sister's behalf.
http://www.fair.org/articles/womens-vote-2000.html
That said, one post we got did make an interesting point that deserves thinking about. "B" wrote, "The key to success is, and has always been, singularity of purpose. If women subsume their precious few resources to general political concerns, the goal of reaching that equality of opportunities and recognition which women do not have will continue to elude us."
Our first thoughts on reading this turned to women like Susan B. Anthony and their struggle to obtain our right to vote, and all the benefits that flowed to us from their "singularity of purpose." Certainly "B" has a point; however, a vote is of no use to us unless we use it. It is also a fact that if we do not take part in politics we may well lose the gains we have made.
Actually, some women do take the path of "equal opportunity and recognition" while eschewing all that is political. Then there are others who concentrate entirely on the political. We suggest that most women do some of both.
The question then
becomes, "Do we advance the movement more by 'using our resources'
to gain our individual goals, or by working politically to make gains for
all women?" Perhaps the answer here is "whatever works."
Surely women who have made it to high places inspire us, but they do us
little good at election time.
November is a very significant month for women because it can signal the TWILIGHT OF ROE vs WADE. At least two of the Supremes are due to retire and their replacements will be picked by whoever is elected president. If it is Bush and his oh-so-compassionate sidekick, Cheney (who would not even allow abortions when the woman's life was in danger, or for rape or incest), forget about your repro- ductive rights.
Republican women must love being disrespected by their party. Once again, the anti-woman, anti-abortion (*WITH NO EXCEPTIONS*), anti-family-planning plank has been included in their platform. Once again, their Party considers them WHORES. It claims STATE ownership of their bodies and "pays their whore-women off" with a modicum of promised extra financing for other "women's concerns" such as education and health.
We hope that these pro-choice Republican women will revolt and join their sisters in casting their votes for those candidates who will VALUE ***WOMEN'S*** RIGHT TO LIFE, who will leave reproductive decisions to women and their doctors, and keep government out of it. So, talk to your Republican friends but if you really want to do something positive to insure a continuation of women's reproductive rights, TALK TO THE MEN YOU KNOW. Right now, a majority of males are besotted with Bush. His cowboy, baseball club ownership and big money aroma have seduced them.
It's up to EVERY woman to tell EVERY man they know WHAT MEN'S SEX LIFE WILL BE LIKE if women no longer have ACCESS TO birth control and THE SAFETY NET OF legal abortion. The young guys have no idea, and the older guys have forgotten what it was like, so don't forget to remind them, and while you're at it, clue in the young women you know who also have no idea what it was like before ROE vs WADE.
NB: Maureen Dowd's column in the NYTimes for 7/30/00 should not be missed. Especially the following paragraph:
"[writer] O'Hara, who savored the self-destructive streak among the pampered, would have enjoyed Bushville as much as Gibbsville: a millennial convention rooting for the goof-off son of the fired boss to get the big job. It is the old-boy network writ large, a bunch of mostly rich, white, male, older delegates pouring into the city of under-dog "Rocky" to see two overdog oilmen who got to go to Yale preach about a more democratic Republican Party."
2000-031
Copyright 2000 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@gendergappers.org.
G e n d e r G a p p e r s T M
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