This is Why WE NEED MORE WOMEN in Government
October 9, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|6 Comments
I often hear the argument that policy is more important than representation. That somehow it is just as good to have a man in government that will work on women’s issues as having a woman.
I say: Bullsh*t!
How many of our male politicians are speaking out for women? Healthcare is now our country’s biggest issue and women’s issues are not being dealt with in the proposed legislation. Thank goodness we do have strong women like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and others to speak out for us (hat tip to anna51mann for sending us this video):
And to Marille for this article: Women Democratic Senators Take On Reform, Show Their Male Colleagues What it Means to Have Cojones.
Excellent Amy! Now why can’t our elected officials go ahead and pass a law that makes it illegial to deny coverage for pre existiing conditions? Instead we hash out a reform package with a ton of political hot button items which is steadily putting all health care reform at risk. (Sounds like too many men in the pot – kinda like too many cooks in the kitchen!)
Although health care reform has many areas that need to be fixed, I would think if we did one thing at a time, it would be faster and easier for everyone to understand.
Again, if we had more women in office, I would think the preexisting issue would have ALL READY been resolved!!!!
This is why parity should be the issue, not agendas and issues. When more women are involved in governing then issues important to women will follow. Men rarely have the personal fear of breast cancer, being raped, victims of domestic violence, of being attacked in a garage and the like. Although we clearly have mothers, sisters, wives, daughters and nieces who face these issues, we do not generally ourselves. Women need to be co- equals in government, in order that issues and agendas of women can clearly become law and this will only occur when parity in office as been achieved.
Another supporter of women and women’s rights, Greg Mortenson, passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize:
“Mr. Mortensen’s life work is remarkable. He has overcome great adversity, escaping brutality and death, to continue his commitment to providing educational opportunities to children, especially girls, living in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has established more than 78 schools in rural areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan after witnessing, first-hand, children being schooled on sand lots with nothing more than wooden sticks to use for writing in the dirt.
As we well know, educating females in these countries remains controversial. Mr. Mortensen understands the tremendous positive, peaceful impacts that educated girls and women have on societies around the world. He advocates girl’s education as the key to economic development and peace, and he continues to fight to make this possible where it otherwise may not be achieved.”
Also I’m outright sick of men, patriarchy, violently enforcing female compliance, slavery, and subjugation, and making women’s achievements invisible by either hijacking them altogether, ignoring them, or erasing them, then pointing to the fact that there are no (apparent) women in power, no women in science, and no women in x,y, and z, as a reason to suppose that men are naturally better at these things, and that they are important. So men can point to congress and say, yea they are all men, and no it isn’t a big deal that they are all men, as was said during Hillary Clinton’s bid, because women with their women brains should be doing x and z. Never mind that the world is a wreck and our technology is crude; that’s just the way human beings are. We need to have women in all human areas so we can finally move forward and make progress and children can stick up for themselves and say “Yea there are women in power. Yea there are women in science. No you’re wrong Baumeister that I can’t be a scientist, an inventor, a president”
because there are plenty of women doing these things, better than men, and that we’ve been doing it all along, when you let them.
And let’s be clear, the only thing men are naturally better at than women, is fighting other men. Inherently, they know this, and that is why we are in the mess we are in. Getting more women in politics, and forcing men to step down, should stop violence altogether, or cause a massive violent upsurge of Patriarchy which will need to be quelled once and for all, because there will be no mistaking it for what it is.
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