Let me start with a little bit of data (pdf): Women have voted at higher rates than men in every election since 1980, and in higher numbers since 1964. We were also the driving force behind the grand Democratic takeover (pdf) that was the November ’06 election, providing "the critical margin of victory" in the Virginia, Missouri and Montana Senate races.
My point? It's time for the Democrats to stand up for women.
Before we begin, a message for the uninitiated:
Feminisms is a series of weekly feminist diaries. My fellow feminists and I decided to start our own for several purposes: we wanted a place to chat with each other, we felt it was important to both share our own stories and learn from others', and we hoped to introduce to the community a better understanding of what feminism is about.
Needless to say, we expect disagreements to arise. We have all had different experiences in life, so while we share the same labels, we don't necessarily share the same definitions. Hopefully, we can all be patient and civil with each other, and remember that, ultimately, we're all on the same side.
And a message for those who'd like to contribute (which I've borrowed from righteousbabe):
And remember, Feminisms is a community series. If you'd like to host the series some week, email Elise to set it up, but be forewarned- so many righteous diarists have volunteered to host this series that there's quite a backup in regards to the next available slot. I had to make this "reservation" over a month in advance. DailyKos Feminisms is the new Nobu.
And, finally, a message from me clarifying what this diary is not about:
Your favorite candidate.
No, this diary is for the Democrats, every single one of them who holds or seeks a position of power, whether a public office or within the party. And the message is simple: It’s time to call "bullshit" on the republicans, to bring to light that they are the enemies of women’s freedom and full equality and to get real about supporting what matters to us, as women.
From the dawn of morning in America to the very minute you’re reading this sentence, the republicans have worked against us and have denigrated us a good deal along the way. In 1980, the republican party withdrew its 40 years of support for the Equal Rights Amendment. The platform took no position on the ERA, but in January 1981, Reagan made it official by becoming the first president to oppose it. He also popularized the welfare queen stereotype, made Rehnquist the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and gave him Scalia and Kennedy to pal around with in his ideological playground.
And so it is today, but with a heightened sense of both viciousness and evasiveness of purpose. They use their cadre of slimy mouthpieces to say what’s really on their minds. Rush Limbaugh coins the term feminazi and perpetuates the myth that what the women’s movement is really about is hating men. The unspeakable abuse at Abu Ghraib is laid at the doorstep of female soldiers, including the "girl general." Bill O’Reilly pushes our progress back by unashamedly proclaiming that a woman who was raped and murdered deserved her fate because she was a moron in a miniskirt.
The policy side is no better, just sometimes less obvious. But think about this, just for starters: When the government gets drowned in the bathtub, all the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws goes down the drain with it.
A lot of emphasis is, as would be expected, given to sex, pregnancy and motherhood. Under the guise of religious freedom, for example, republicans in 2004 enacted the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, which, the National Compulsory Motherhood Committee (aka National Right to Life Committee) tells us:
The Hyde-Weldon Amendment provides that no federal, state, or local government agency or program that receives federal health and human services funds may discriminate against a health care provider because the provider refuses to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortion.
This protection covers any "health care professional," as well as hospitals, HMOs, health insurance plans, and "any other kind of health care facility, organization, or plan."
There’s also the well-known and misnamed "partial birth abortion" ban and republicans’ resistance to the availability of Plan B to prevent pregnancy and the HPV vaccine to safeguard against cervical cancer. Resistance to these has come because the republican base, which cannot stand the idea of women having and enjoying sex, says they both will promote promiscuity among girls.
Rushing in to play the hero, the republicans passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also called the "Laci and Connor Law," which makes it an independent crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman. In another protector-of-women moment, the republicans rushed in to save Terri Schiavo who had absolutely no power or ability to tell them to butt out. Oddly enough, they’ve yet to push for repeal of Ohio’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which cut off protection for victims of domestic life and helped lead to the murder of a woman whose father is a member of this community.
Republicans blew a gasket over the televised exposure of a woman’s nipple (forgetting, apparently, how much they overwhelmed public discourse with dirty talk in the latter half of the 1990s) and they have poured millions of dollars into worthless "abstinence-only" programs, which, let’s be frank here, are really about female purity.
But among the most chilling, and most honest, statements from the non-left is that expressed by Concerned Women for America when they expressed their opposition to the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination:
"We believe that far better qualified candidates were overlooked and that Miss Miers’ record fails to answer our questions about her qualifications and constitutional philosophy," said Jan LaRue, CWA’s chief counsel. "In fact, we find several aspects troubling, particularly her views on abortion and a woman’s ‘self-determination,’ quotas, feminism and the role of judges as social activists. (Emphasis added.)
So, bringing this back to the Democrats, the question is this: What are you going to do about it? Do you even get what's at stake here? Sometimes I really doubt that you do.
I took a look at the Democratic party’s 2004 platform, which tends to back up my hunch that they’re missing something big. A search on "women" seemed promising, producing 11 hits. On closer inspection, nine of those were of the "men and women in uniform" variety. Of the other two, one got me to this:
We will defend the dignity of all Americans against those who would undermine it. Because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a woman’s right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that right. At the same time, we strongly support family planning and adoption incentives. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
The other search hit took to this, which was sandwiched in the middle of a paragraph that ran the discrimination gamut:
We believe a day’s work is worth a day’s pay, and at a time when women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, we need stronger equal pay laws and stronger enforcement of them.
Wow, is that ever lame. Worse, it’s not even true. Barely a year after the platform was adopted, they got their test in the form of John Roberts’s nomination to the Supreme Court, as Chief Justice no less. Can they honestly tell me that they stood proudly for my rights when his nomination sailed through on a 78 to 22 vote (Roll Call Vote No. 245, Sept. 29, 2005)?* Did they stand firmly against republican efforts to eviscerate Roe v. Wade by filibustering the Alito nomination?
Obviously, the answer to both those questions is no and we’ve already seen the disastrous consequences in the recent Carhart decision. Adding insult to injury, the abortion ban upheld in Carhart passed both the House and Senate by comfortable margins because too many Democrats voted for it. (Senate Roll Call Vote No. 402, Oct. 21, 2003; House Roll Call No. 530, Oct. 2, 2003.)
I followed up by looking at some websites of Democratic presidential hopefuls to see if any force or substance had been added since 2004. (No, I’m not telling whose sites I looked at. See the caveat above on what this diary is not about.)
Disappointment ensued. For those who include a discussion of women and our issues, there was little more than a lot of mamby-pamby feel-goodism and certainly nothing that approaches the counterattack needed against the republican assault on our rights and our lives.
So, this is my challenge to you, Democrats: Stand up for us. Do it now; do it with force and conviction. Say proudly to all who will listen that you don’t doubt women and our ability to make intelligent choices, that you resent the republicans’ treatment of fully one-half of the population and that you will not rest until our full equality is at long last recognized and assured.
Oh, and you might want to keep in mind those figures I cited above about our voting habits.
*Sorry, but I don't know how to link to Senate votes.