What women do you suppose the Republicans are losing?

They are losing the intelligent ones. Among others.

^Why were they there in the first place?

I’m going to assume, the younger ones, who weren’t really that familiar with politics and the Republican Party’s stance on women before. Or, ones who are fiscal conservatives, and on the one hand are pro-choice but on the other hand won’t vote on that if the politician won’t enact much pro-life legislation while in office.

There are so many independent voters who have a compulsive need to remain “above the fray” and take pride in not being attached to either political party. I imagine there is some segment of independent female voters where drawing attention to the GOP’s misogyny could actually help tilt them to vote Democratic.

@Qingu Yeah, but isn’t it kind of known that most of those independents pretty much always vote to one side over the other, they just like the idea of being independent? Even if you fancy yourself an independent, is this actually going to change your mind and make you vote a way you wouldn’t have anyway?

Well, on one hand I think that’s a good point, the fence-sitters don’t usually sit on the fence if you press them.

But your article does say that 6–7% of voters are “truly” independent; that’s well above the margin for the vast majority of presidential elections.

I do think that it’s easy to spend too long looking into the motivations of independent voters. At a certain point it’s like staring into the abyss and getting swallowed by Chthulu.

But then it continues on to say “They also haven’t been the deciding factor in tight presidential elections that many people might think”. So, I have my doubts as to how many independent voters are out there, where this will be the deciding factor. Now, voters who will admit that they are a Rep. or a conservative, but also find this beyond the pale? Or, voters who are Rep. or conservative, but find it disgusting that the Rep. congressmen who are in office are doing all this War on Women stuff instead of focusing on the economy? That’s a different question.

Another theory: the GOP may be losing women who are married to Republican men. These women may have historically voted with their husbands, but the ever increasing misogynistic policies may be turning them off to the GOP, especially if they have daughters. Of course, they’ll never tell their husbands.

Boy, hard to say. Every time I think these people can’t say or do anything more ignorant, dick-headed or misogynist, they top themselves. This week I’m thinking maybe it’s women who actually need money, in order to support themselves and their children; and happen to find money just as important and meaningful and necessary in their own lives as men do, if not more so, that the Republicans may be losing.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman

seem to believe that money is less important to women than it is to men

I would pretty much like cram and/or ram that one right up their asses, if I could, but sadly, I can’t.

And, please excuse my French, as they say

@lillycoyote French shall always be forgiven, in the context of eviscerating misogynistic d-bags.

@Aethelflaed I know you always have my back when it comes to taking down misogynist douche bags. I just want you to know that that means a lot to me. :-)

XD

I’m just not sure how one goes about taking these dick-heads down. State politics. I’m not a constituent. I can’t just go to the Wisconsin state house and cram this nonsense up their asses. How do you go about fighting this nonsense if you don’t have standing?

@lillycoyote Always a good question (and always a question being asked). Try supporting an alternative candidate – like, if there’s actually some pro-choice, liberal woman running in WI against Walker, you can donate to her campaign. Or, just donate to EMILY’s List or an organization like NOW (I’m just naming big ones – go with the organization you like, which can totally be your local Anarchist Black Cross with 23 members or whatever). You can also donate to charities in the state that are having a hard time – I’ve sent money to Planned Parenthood with a little disclaimer (ok, I just “gift” it in someone’s name and then write “for Texas” or “Fuck Tucker Max” in the name section…) asking them to send it to Texas (which is having an abysmal time, even for a PP). Outside of money, it’s harder, because you can’t really donate time to a soup kitchen somewhere you don’t live. You can raise consciousness (and this is where social media becomes huge), and that’s usually the first step to any activist action; similarly, you can help state politics become a “meme” that inspires more state action (like, when totally badass female senators walk out on chauvinistic proceedings, or retaliate with gender equality wink wink bills – make sure that all your friends who would care are in the know, and maybe some who wouldn’t care but really should wise the fuck up). You can also be supportive, and validate those who do have more control, let them know that they are ok, so that they don’t totally lose the will to fight the good fight.

They are losing the following women:

1) ones who wish to act independently
2) ones who can think for themselves
3) ones that feel that they should have their own bodily autonomy

The sad part is that there are precious few women who are smart enough to understand and act on what is going on.

@elbanditoroso “The sad part is that there are precious few women who are smart enough to understand and act on what is going on.”
What?

@wilma – I thought it was pretty clear.

Too many women are unable or unwilling to think for themselves. Those are the ones that the republicans hope to get as supporters.

@elbanditoroso Your opinion of women is that “there are precious few women who are smart enough to understand and act on what is going on” ?
Do you feel this way about women only? Or do you also think that there are precious few men who are smart enough to understand and act on what is going on?

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought Women may be uninformed. They get a little education (and hardly any is needed), become a little smarter, and stop voting for Republicans. It’s called consciousness raising. Or maybe they just haven’t been paying attention, and some asshole Republican politician says something really stupid about women, and the women suddenly realize this is serious business and they better start looking out for themselves. We have to allow for the possibility of change.

As to the weird politics in Wisconsin and Ohio and whatever. I tend to believe that the assholes bring their own destruction on themselves. But I also trust the voters. I assume that the people of Wisconsin really want to give up their rights and transfer their money to rich people. If that’s what they want, then who am I to tell them they are wrong? Just don’t bring your idiot ideas to Pennsylvania!

Speaking of Pennsylvania—we elected Rick Santorum not once, but twice!!!!! I don’t understand why it took so long, but the third time around, he got his ass handed back to him. So maybe there are a lot of people in this state who take a long time to learn, but eventually they figured it out.

I’ve been a person with strongly leftward leaning views all my life. I can’t remember a moment in my life when it wasn’t clear to me that I was far to the left of most people. Odd, because my father was a Republican and despite not voting Republican for decades, still maintained his party registration up until fairly recently. I mean, I don’t think he’s voted for a Republican since whoever was running before Nixon. Like maybe Eisenhower. Of course, being a Republican in Massachusetts is a different thing than being a Republican in, say, Utah.

My mother was a local politician. She serves in town meeting and on the planning board and such things. League of Woman Voters. She raised me, politically, I guess. Although the town I grew up in was about as liberal as they get. Not quite a People’s Republic, but almost. But she went to one of the seven sisters and I think she earned her equal rights by assumption instead of making any kind of deal about it. She just did it. My father may have had all the bluster, but she took care of things. But then again, they seemed to agree on just about everything, so it was not possible to tell who was leading. They both were. I don’t know how they managed that.

In any case, I grew up in time of the feminist revolution. I don’t know why we call it that, since there have been so many battles for women’s rights, but this was the time leading to the attempt to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. This was the time of all the feminist manifestos and the sexual revolution and the pill and the time when they started having boys take home ec and girls take shop (the first real effect on my life).

There have been so many waves of feminism that I have no idea what wave that was, nor what wave we are in now. But I feel that the radical disparity between the genders in terms of who they support, politically, represents another wave. Republicans are becoming a party of machismo and violence and lack of caring. Women are turning away in disgust at the lack of humanity of Republican policies. It’s almost as if these Republican men are deliberately marginalizing themselves. Sure, there are a few women who like that kind of guy. They want to be taken care of. They want to be in a subservient role. It makes them feel safe and cared for and they are willing to give up their own freedom in order to get more “freedom” for their men. It’s a contradiction and they won’t let themselves see it, I don’t think.

One interesting thing to me about this is how different these cultural strains are. Many of us despise those on the other side as deluded and ignorant. Of course, despising someone is no way to make friends or influence people. And yet, the time for being friendly… just seems like it didn’t work. They—the other—Republicans in this case—are so far away as to be completely ununderstandable. Inexplicable. Therefore crazy. Dangerous. Even people who wanted to be in the middle—the people who don’t like extremes; the people who try to make peace—can’t do that any more. Was it Walt Whitman who said, “the middle cannot hold?”

No. Yeats’ stanza in his poem The Second Coming:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

@elbanditoroso As one of these many, many, unthinking women, I sure am glad that a man has come along to think for me. Phew! Problem solved! Now I can go get my hair done.