Is the GOP Becoming the Party of and for Women?
August 2, 2010
by Amy Siskind
|The following op-ed by The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind is featured at The Huffington Post.
Why did President Obama choose to appear on The View? The answer is simple. The View’s audience is 79% female and Obama has a women problem. Obama’s approval among women voters has plunged from 59% to 45% during his term in office. Here’s a shocker: just one-third of white women approve of the President.
In fairness to President Obama, his policies and lackidasical focus on women’s issues only partially explain this nosedive with women. The Democratic Party — once heralded as the party of equality — has lost its moral authority with women after the misogyny-fest of 2008. Suddenly, Democratic and newly-minted Independent women are re-examining their political-selves and priorities. The Republican Party, sensing this shift, is gearing up to feature a strong field of women in 2010 and beyond. Will the Republican Party succeed in becoming the party of women? And will the Democratic Party fight for women’s vote?
There are 3 major factors that have made Democratic and Independent women voters transient.
1. A redefinition of “women’s issues”
Traditional feminists and women’s groups have sought to narrowly define issues that matter to women. Since many of these issues, such as abortion rights and legislating equal pay, were aligned with the Democratic Party, so too were women’s votes.
More recently, women are increasingly concerned about a broad set of policies. We prioritize such things as creating jobs (especially for small businesses that disproportionately employ women), reducing the deficit burden left on our children, and ending fruitless wars to bring our children home.
We want the next generation to have opportunities. Yet, under the current administration, less than one-third believe that the American Dream is intact. This is the thought that keeps mothers awake at night.
2. The Democratic Party lost it’s moral authority
The Democratic Party of the Roosevelts and Kennedys was based on the notion of equality. Yet in 2008, we learned that equality of the gender variety had de minimis standing in the current Democratic Party.
In 2007-08, the Democratic Party fielded its first viable female presidential candidate. What ensued was a onslaught of horrific, shameful, overt sexism for which the Democratic Party was silent and in some cases complicit (if you forgot how bad it got, watch here.)
Where were the DNC officials? Where were the Democratic elected officials? Where was Obama and his aids? Why did so few speak out?
What ensued was an awakening. A realization that in 2008, sexism was alive and well in our country — and in some instances, was promulgated by the Democratic Party and the liberal media. And as women increasingly feel betrayed, their loyalty and attachment to the Democratic Party has cooled.
3. Gender representation vs. policy
Until recently, conventional wisdom has been that the best way to better conditions for women was to elect politicians who would support women’s policies. The gender of the politician was secondary. When Obama was elected, Ms. magazine issued a special Inaugural edition cover featuring Obama in a superman pose with a t-shirt proclaiming: “This is What a Feminist Looks Like”. Foreboding perhaps.
In the ensuing year, neither women nor women’s issues fared particularly well under President Obama (even the widely ballyhooed signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Act only makes it easier to file pay-discrimination suits). By early 2010, an article at BlogHer queried: Are Democrats Losing Their Hold Over Women? and noted: “Maybe women on the left are realizing that they are more than their uterus…Women are drawn to other women in leadership.”
Republicans seemed to sense this discontent and presented women with an alternative to the narrow-issued, male-represented version of Feminism embodied by the Ms. cover. The new vision is a broad-issued, women-represented, women-supporting-women, Pro-Women movement.
Whereas the policy argument makes women passively dependent on progressive male candidates; the gender representation alternative posits: get women into leadership and the rest will take care of itself!
So while the DNC failed to back numerous qualified women running in 2010 primaries such as Jennifer Brunner (OH) and Colleen Hanabusa (HI), the RNC fielded and supported a bevy of qualified women. In the Year of the Woman, many of these Republican women are running to become historical firsts as governors (states include OK, SC, GA, NM and CA).
Republican women candidates are also supported by women in their party. F0r example, Sarah Palin endorsed so many women in her party that The New York Times reported: …the biggest furor so far has erupted here, with a leader of an anti-abortion group, Georgia Right to Life, accusing Ms. Palin of “endorsing any female Republican candidate that she could find.” Jan Brewer, viewed by Politico as a rising star, has also actively endorsed women in her party.
The sexism the 2008 election will forever change the political landscape. Millions of women voters, be they registered Democrats or newly-minted Independents, no longer feel that they have a home in the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party does not yet realize this, the Republican Party does!
The next year will be very telling. Women voters have decided every modern day presidential election. If the Democratic Party continues its tone-deafness to women voters, it does so at its own political peril.
Wonderful article! And your message is clear: Dems need to start showing that they CARE about the political representation of women if they are going to keep up with the momentum of the Repubs. They need an attitude adjustment!
Yep. Dems can sit there and scream, or they can field women and take advantage of some of this energy. It would require Dem women to actually stop voting against women deliberately so no one will accuse them of voting FOR women heaven forbid! … but hey. That fear doesn’t seem to be stopping Republican women.
Again though, I have to keep reminding myself of that documentary about the 2008 Dem primary — most Dems WERE willing to vote for the woman.
The dems have a long road to redemption before they deserve women’s votes. Their manipulation of the abortion rights issue, following the democratic primaries was offensive. And to add insult to injury, the dems have sold the issue out at every turn ever since Obama took office.
I know “The View” is considered a woman’s show and I am sure that is why Obama was on that show and why he was giving speeches about schools that same day. However “The View” draws around 3-4 million viewers a day and there are 150 million or so women in the USA. As far as the President giving speeches about Education, that pisses me off. Isn’t he using our tax money to sue Arizona for enforcing our border since the Federal government refuses to do so? Obama says he has the right to sue Arizona because the state is taking over a federal function. Well isn’t Education a state function? I would like to see Federal politicians, especially Federal Democrats who think it is a good idea to sue a western state, to STFU regarding Education. It is a state function. And seal that border now before talking about any other immigration reform. With 30-50% of children not even graduating from high school we need the unskilled labor jobs this country has for our own multitude of illiterate citizens.
You nailed it, Amy Siskand. There is proof in the question, “how come the Dems don’t have an equivalent of Palin on the left?” It’s because they aren’t supporting female leadership on their side of the aisle. Even the Dem women simply running for public office are being challenged and attacked by the Dem leadership.
They had a Palin-equivalent on the left, who was even all nice and pro-choice and still is. They went out of their way to knife her. Why isn’t there a Superstar kingmaker woman on the Left walking around blatantly endorsing women? I don’t know, why aren’t there any snowballs in hell?
The climate isn’t exactly conducive to them.
I remember saying two and some years ago that I wanted the Dem leadership (And Repubs as well!) so afraid of women and how we’d vote that they’d piss themselves in ice-cold fear at the thought of us.
I got my wish. It feels great.
The Dems do seem to be systematically destroying their women’s farm team. It seems like every time they get a woman Governor in they give her some Federal political appointment before she can serve out her term and accomplish a record to run for President or VP on.
Great essay, Amy!
I sure hope that the Fox & Friends expose’ of the misogyny of Obamacrats continues long enough for them to cover the laws they broke (1) when they withdrew to discuss in a private room, and (2) when they stole delegates from “uncommitted” and from Hillary to gift to Obama. Cheat, cheat, cheat. And when they bring it up, I want Alysyn to challenge them about what gave them the right to break the rules and steal from the winning candidate (in order to change the final outcome of the election), by giving them to the losing candidate to make him win. Someone should make each of them SPECIFICALLY anwer the questions.
1. I want the rest of the country to know what they did
2. I want them all have to sit there and be interrogated about why they did and how in the world did they think they had special rights to break laws
And I’d like it if they’d have Amy on, also Geraldine Ferero, and Lynette Long. Oh, and Ani and RRR Amy from No Quarter.
Matter of fact, this whole thing has infuriated me so much for so long, that I think we should get a new holiday on May 31 each year, named for Obama’s Need to Cheat. And another holiday, when all the women can storm the “women’s groups” headquarters, and then can ceremoniously tear that d*mn “this is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt right off of him. Ever notice we have no holidays for women?
lorac, holidays honoring women is what we want at EVE (equalvisibilityeverywhere.com). lynette long is president. take a look.
the idea of a congressional ethics hearing of the famous democratic leaders in 2008 asking about their behavior in the primaries. that would get millions to the TVs.
“The Democratic Party of the Roosevelts and Kennedys was based on the notion of equality.”
I would cross out “and Kennedys.” Women were disposable sex objects to them.
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