Comments on: Why Women’s Orgs MUST Become Non-Partisan

By: marille

marille — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:37:37 +0000

so many great comments and strategical voters. Bes, i like a lot of your comments. just a minor disagreement. true not all injustices to women affect us equally. although young women are the main target of rapes, none of us at any age is safe. there is no age limit to rape. although I have no need for reproductive services or same sex marriage i will always support these issues. #1 we need to band together and see our common causes. #2 we need broad alliances. we go to gay marches and gays go to reproductive, anti domestic violence/rape marches. that would be my goal. re marches. anybody saw the movie “iron jawed angels”? it shows the big march along pennsylvania avenue from 1910 for the womens vote. the media currently pay attention to our issues Rihanna interview ABC. Schriver report MSNBC. gays had their equality march a few weeks ago with 150000 and it brought them the hate legislation bill, a far cry from their demands. but still a very useful action. could we organize that in response to increasing violence, lack of respect, sexualized objectifying pictures of women, disregard in healthcare services. i’d like to see a sign demanding men pay more taxes for prisons.

By: Hillarysmygirl16

Hillarysmygirl16 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:47:16 +0000

I never understood how the so called womans groups would endorse the most sexist man who ever ran for President as well as the Party who helped him cheat the more qualified woman.
I am offended that both Parties think the only issue I care about is abortion. I used to consider myself pro choice until Pro choice began to mean whenever the mother felt like it. As a poor woman I am sick of people on both sides using poor women in this issue. The Government stopped paying for our abortions back when the Dems had control of the House and Senate and Ronald Reagan was President and frankly I don’t know anyone who couldn’t get an abortion if she wanted one.
I still consider myself pro choice for the first 12 weeks of Pregnacy. Will I ever vote on this issue NO I much prefer to know what the politicians pay their female staff in comparison to their male staff because that frankly tells me more then anything else about the character of the person running for office.

By: Janis

Janis — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:43:21 +0000

I’m more Machiavellian. I do want choice there, and I can see a world where I might need it even though I don’t have sex with men.

But voting women-only without regard for choice is the path that5 will get us there. If you just can’t see that, or just can’t manage it, or if your contempt adn hatred for some Republican woman candidate matters more to you … then fine.

Voting women-only regardless of their personal stance on choice will get us choice. Why? Because so many women are pro-choice, and even the ones whoa ren’t are generally not so in-your-face about it as to um, oh I don’t know, withhold it from government funded healthcare.

If you can’t see how this works, then fine. Go on your anti-chick grudges, and sit right where you are, without hoice and with a Democratic party that trats women like the nurses in Richard Speck’s basement. They played it safe, too. Look where it got them.

If you CAN understand how arriving at your goal might take a path that swerves a bit or doesn’t seem to head directly toward choice for all, then stay the course. Vote women, all women.

(PLease don’t make the arugment about six million Margaret Thatchers being elected. Yeah, and I might flip a coin and have it land on edge ten thousand times.)

By: MaryL

MaryL — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:00:18 +0000

Bes, great comments…

By: Bes

Bes — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:22:27 +0000

Interesting point Shannon but do you want to base the fight for womens rights on rape which again only happens to some women or would you like to base it on issues that happen to all women? I would like to base my fight for womens rights on issues that affect all women their entire life. So I am interested in the lack of female voice in Media, The portrayal of women as sex objects or victims by media, The inability of media to call a brutal gang rape a sex based hate crime and instead try to reframe it as a youth problem. Unequal wages for the same work as men, lack of representation in government. I would also like to know since it is considered that women should pay more for health care since their reproductive care could cost more then men should men not be charged more in taxes to support prisons and court systems since their testosterone influenced behavior causes them to behave in a manner that clogs the courts and prisons. I’m just wondering. And if women are not represented in significant numbers in government are we then being taxed without representation? I say we are. I am not interested in the “feminist” definition of womens rights.

By: Shannon Drury

Shannon Drury — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:53:00 +0000

I disagree with Bes’s assertion that reproductive rights are the problem of young heterosexual women, for that assumes a world without rape. But won’t raped women still be able to terminate, you say? Not if they can’t find a clinic and/or can’t get the money to pay for it. The anti-choice movement has done everything possible to thwart access to abortion for everyone, and many want to remove the rape exception as well.

It’s a slope that’s slippery and getting slipperier……

By: samanthasmom

samanthasmom — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:16:20 +0000

My revelation about how working with women from all political parties works for all of us came while I was working for candidates and issues at the local level. There are no R’s or D’s after anyone’s name on our local ballot – and behind the candidates or the issues was just a group of women trying to get Jane elected to the school board or a new wing built on the library. I was surprised when I discovered that a lot of them were Republicans seeing how we agreed on electing Jane and building the library wing. And some of them with R’s after their name joined me in campaigning for Hillary all the way to South Dakota. Most women, both Democrats and Republicans, are closer to the center politically than they are to the fringes, but I think the media has done a good job of convincing women like Pat that Republican women are rightwing crazies. It’s a shame because I would love to have Pat on our team. When I was a little girl and would get stuck on an idea that just wasn’t working out, my gran would say, “Sweetie, there are none so blind as those who will not see.”

By: Bes

Bes — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:36:33 +0000

Yes both parties are awash in misogynist Bullcrap but the Democrats are also profoundly hypocritical. While the choice between an honest Republican misogynist and a dishonest hypocritical Democrat misogynist isn’t much of a choice, for me it is a clear choice. One is clearly worse than the other.

By: Bes

Bes — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:29:14 +0000

Abortion is not the only womans issue. It is just the only issue that “feminist” groups seem to care about. Women are only even fertile for half of their average life span. Then not all women engage in sex with men so those women don’t have reproductive issues at all. There are issues that affect all women throughout their whole lives. Unequal pay for equal work, women are three fourths of all people in poverty, Unequal access to health care, No voice in media, Represented by media as either sex object or victim, unequal representation in government, etc, etc, etc. I don’t see any of these issues being addressed by “feminists”. They are nothing but the Democrat party’s ladies auxiliary.

So feminist orgs sold their souls to the Democrats for reproductive rights and the Dems sold women out. Dems will never firm up your Reproductive rights because if they did they would lose the issue that they hold over womens heads to make them heel like good little doggies and vote Democratic. Democrats communicate with women through fear, fear of losing reproductive rights. I don’t think there is any hope for reforming “feminist” orgs. I quit donating to them and donate instead to orgs that actually help women.

By: Pat Johnson

Pat Johnson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:19:15 +0000

Both parties are awash in a heaping pile of bullcrap! Neither party has shown any interest, outside of pallid lip service, to women’s issues or equal rights. The Repub platform is loaded with pro life fervor that would interfere with a woman’s right to choose while the Dem platform contained language that would lead one to believe that they were championing women from the get go when it is not so. Neither one deserves respect.

But when a candidate whose base is heavily inscribed with donations from the Fundamentalists whose aim is to reduce even the possibility of access to a lawful medical procedure, one has to take that firmly into account. Lying beneath the surface of many of these pols is their adaptation to the agenda so proscribed in order to get their hands on the funding.

It remains, to me at least, a dangerous proposition to ignore the warning signs that have been raised in this regard.