Sunday Reader DAILY NEWS, BOWLING GREEN,...
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Check out a few Facebook pages these days, and you’ll find an abundance of exasperation. There is the “Angry Conservative Women” page, which insists: “The only war on women (and on free- dom) is being waged BY THE LEFT!” Then there’s “One Million Pissed Off Women,” which warns: “We have HAD IT . ... We are no longer willing to be compromised or thrown under the bus.” It all follows four months of headline-making salvos that, to some women at least, have begun to feel like a bombardment of sorts. Think: Susan G. Komen ending cancer-screening grants to Planned Parenthood (quickly reversed). And disputes over laws designed to protect women against wage discrimination (Wis- consin Gov. Scott Walker last month signed a repeal of his state’s equal pay law, while a U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan called a federal equal pay law a “nuisance.”) And there’s the fight over abor- tion. After Republicans made his- toric gains during the tea party- driven “red tide” of 2010, abor- tion was back on legislative agen- das with a vengeance. In 2011, 24 states enacted a record 92 provi- sions restricting access to abortion services in some way, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro- abortion rights organization that tracks such proposals. This year, dozens more provi- sions were introduced in state leg- islatures nationwide. A measure in South Carolina, for example, would eliminate a woman’s abili- ty to get an abortion through the state health plan if she’s a victim of rape or incest. Georgia and Ari- zona have banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy; Utah increased to 72 hours the waiting period required before an abor- tion; Mississippi now requires doctors performing abortions at a clinic to be a certified OB-GYN with admitting privileges at a local hospital. Not all these actions have received as much attention – or inspired as much controversy and derision – as the Virginia proposal to mandate a transvaginal ultra- sound before an abortion. Hun- dreds of women converged on the state Capitol in Richmond; Jon Stewart said the bill required a “TSA pat-down inside their vagi- na.” The governor eventually signed a pared-down law requiring abdominal ultrasounds instead. There was also the battle over whether religious-affiliated employers should have to cover birth control in insurance plans. When law student Sandra Fluke, prevented from testifying before Congress on the issue, spoke instead to a Democratic panel to advocate payments for contracep- tives, Rush Limbaugh set off a firestorm by calling her a “slut.” Karen Teegarden saw the con- gressional hearing from which Fluke was excluded, and she saw the all-male witness table. Within days, this 56-year-old wife, moth- er and marketing specialist from Birmingham, Mich., had launched UniteWomen.org. Its mission statement: “Help defend women’s rights and pursuit of equality.” Using social media and the Internet, Teegarden’s group orga- nized protests in cities across the country on April 28. All told, hun- dreds marched in places like Phoenix, where coat hangers were on display featuring a plea: “Keep Abortion Safe & Legal.” And Austin, where a Democratic state representative took to the micro- phone to quote a famous phrase: “Heed our warning. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.” And Ohio, where women at the state Capitol hoisted signs that read: “ ‘Sluts’ Over Nuts” and “My Vagina. My Choice.” The rallies came a day after GOP Speaker John Boehner took to the floor of the U.S. House to lambast Democrats for politicizing issues that he said should transcend partisan politics. He brought up the “so-called war on women,” calling it something “entirely created by my colleagues across the aisle for political gain.” “Give me a break,” Boehner roared as his fellow Republicans cheered. Teegarden, a supporter of Pres- ident Barack Obama, said: “If you don’t want to call it a war, that’s fine. We are fighting something. It’s not just us having ‘emotions.’ We are fighting very specific leg- islation.” It’s worth considering the land- scape in which all of this is hap- pening. This year is the 20th anniver- sary of what became known as the “Year of the Woman,” an election year in which the number of women serving in the U.S. Senate tripled and in the U.S. House went from 28 to 47. Many of those newly elected women were driven to run after watching the 1991 hearings in which an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee ques- tioned Anita Hill about sexual harassment claims against then- Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Political consultant Mary Hughes sees parallels between then and now. “There were a number of things percolating in 1991 and 1992, just as I think there has been a number of things percolating last year and this year ... that made it appear that women needed to do more on their own behalf. There are similar indignities,” said Hughes, who directs The 2012 Project, a non- partisan campaign to increase the number of women running for office. The project’s website features a video with these stark statistics: “While women make up 51 per- cent of the population, 83 percent of members of the U.S. Congress and 76 percent of state legislators ... are men. And of the 50 gover- nors in the United States, only six are women.” “Don’t get mad. Get elected,” reads the organization’s motto. Conservative women, mean- while, are battling what they see as Democratic pandering that paints all women with the same brush. The conservative group Smart Girl Politics last month launched a “They Don’t Speak for Us” cam- paign that includes a video focus- ing on unemployment rates and the cost of gas and groceries. ShePAC, a political action committee working on behalf of conservative women candidates, promises in another ad that “2012 won’t be a war on women, it will be a war by women.” For better or worse, the debate over gender politics has launched a new national dialogue that reaches beyond the campaign trail and cable networks. To see it, sim- ply look to Colorado – and a sin- gle day in the trenches. ••• At the Equal Pay Day rally, Wanda Ramey recalled growing up in the 1960s – hearing about friends who’d received illegal abortions, witnessing the battle for an Equal Rights Amendment and, later, waging her own battles as a woman in a mostly male work environment. “Back in the 1960s, we fought hard. And we didn’t have Face- book. We didn’t have the Internet,” said Ramey, who supports Obama. “We’re older now and we have the time to research, and we’re not going to be led around anymore.” As the equal pay protesters dis- persed, a man orating about reli- gion soon took to the pavement of the university commons. When marketing major Sasha Luinstra stopped to watch, she remarked that “I should get out there and preach.” A male student standing next to her replied: “What are you going to preach about? Makeup?” Luinstra didn’t bother responding. It’s those kinds of comments, along with the many different statements about women that she has heard so far this campaign season, that both rile and baffle the 21-year-old. How, for example, can Ameri- cans in 2012 still be debating the virtues of stay-at-home moms vs. those who work? To Luinstra, it’s a non-issue. She recalls her graph- ic designer mom in tears when she would drop her at day care. Her mother eventually quit and stayed home full time, and instilled in her daughter the idea that “I’m free to make any choice I want.” Luinstra feels the same princi- ple should apply to abortion. She has friends who are now parents but who have also terminated their pregnancies, and said she’s grate- ful those women could choose for themselves what path to take. Over the summer, she plans to volunteer for Students for Obama. “He backs up my values,” she said of the president. By evening, as a group called 9to5 gathered at a local bar to dis- cuss women’s wage issues, anoth- er 30 or so men and women – members of the Denver chapter of the Coalition for a Conservative Majority – convened at the Hotel VQ for a panel discussion by five Republican women about the so- called war on women. These women – a lawyer, a for- mer options trader, a business- woman who tracks government spending, a stay-at-home mom who started a conservative advo- cacy group and a legislative aide whose mother is a state lawmaker – discussed how conservatives could work to reach out to female voters, especially the indepen- dents who are key in Colorado. Several suggested a move away from the debate over contracep- tion – whether it’s framed as a reproductive rights or a religious freedom issue. “Gas or groceries. That’s the real war on women,” said Lori Horn, 50, who co-founded the group R Block Party. “We have to feed our families. We have to decide whether we need to forgo a few things because we need to put gas in our cars. So take that con- traception argument away from them, and come up with some ... different words about what the real war on women looks like for us.” For Horn, a mother of two girls, discussions about contraception have become “noise,” a distrac- tion that could prove harmful to the Republican candidates she supports. “I’m all for birth control. I use it,” she said in an interview. “Jobs and the economy, creating the security that families and single women need, that’s the most important thing. I’m a powerful woman. ... I can take care of those other issues.” Moderating the panel, lawyer Linda Hoover cited a March USA Today/Gallup poll of swing states, including Colorado, that showed women favoring Obama over Romney by 18 percentage points. “It’s absolutely frightening how quickly, once they launched that (war) narrative ... the polling data changed. I’m hoping it was a short-term bounce, but let’s not assume that,” said Hoover, 60, who has been working voter reg- istration booths to do her part in enticing more women voters. The women gathered on this night may know better than most the power of the gender vote. They saw it in action in 2010 when, despite sweeping GOP vic- tories elsewhere, a Democrat edged out a tea party-backed can- didate in Colorado’s U.S. Senate race. Republican Ken Buck was targeted as “anti-woman” in advertisements and mailers – first for joking that voters should pick him over a female GOP primary opponent “because I don’t wear high heels” and then for favoring a constitutional ban on abortion. (He had also opposed exceptions in cases of rape or incest.) In the end, exit polls showed that women voters went for the Demo- crat by 17 percentage points. That gender gap can make a significant difference in presiden- tial elections as well. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, the num- ber of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. And, in every presidential election since 1980, a gender gap has been apparent – with a greater proportion of women choosing the Democratic candidate over the Republican. Come November, said Rutgers professor Carroll, “it’s very likely that women’s votes – whether they go strongly for Obama or whether Romney’s able to mini- mize the gender gap – will make the difference.” DAILY NEWS, BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY PAGE 8C - SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012 Sunday Reader SOUNDSOFINDEPENDENCE.COM Member FDIC From Page 1C Abortion returned to legislative agendas after tea party-driven GOPgains in 2010 Ed Andrieski/AP Wanda Ramey holds some of her political posters Monday in Denver.
Transcript of Sunday Reader DAILY NEWS, BOWLING GREEN,...
Check out a few Facebookpages these days, and you’ll findan abundance of exasperation.There is the “Angry ConservativeWomen” page, which insists: “Theonly war on women (and on free-dom) is being waged BY THELEFT!” Then there’s “One MillionPissed Off Women,” which warns:“We have HAD IT. ... We are nolonger willing to be compromisedor thrown under the bus.”
It all follows four months ofheadline-making salvos that, tosome women at least, have begunto feel like a bombardment ofsorts. Think: Susan G. Komenending cancer-screening grants toPlanned Parenthood (quicklyreversed). And disputes over lawsdesigned to protect womenagainst wage discrimination (Wis-consin Gov. Scott Walker lastmonth signed a repeal of hisstate’s equal pay law, while a U.S.Senate candidate in Michigancalled a federal equal pay law a“nuisance.”)
And there’s the fight over abor-tion. After Republicans made his-toric gains during the tea party-driven “red tide” of 2010, abor-tion was back on legislative agen-das with a vengeance. In 2011, 24states enacted a record 92 provi-sions restricting access to abortionservices in some way, accordingto the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights organization thattracks such proposals.
This year, dozens more provi-sions were introduced in state leg-islatures nationwide. A measure inSouth Carolina, for example,would eliminate a woman’s abili-ty to get an abortion through thestate health plan if she’s a victimof rape or incest. Georgia and Ari-zona have banned most abortionsafter 20 weeks of pregnancy; Utahincreased to 72 hours the waitingperiod required before an abor-tion; Mississippi now requiresdoctors performing abortions at aclinic to be a certified OB-GYNwith admitting privileges at alocal hospital.
Not all these actions havereceived as much attention – orinspired as much controversy and
derision – as the Virginia proposalto mandate a transvaginal ultra-sound before an abortion. Hun-dreds of women converged on thestate Capitol in Richmond; JonStewart said the bill required a“TSA pat-down inside their vagi-na.” The governor eventuallysigned a pared-down law requiringabdominal ultrasounds instead.
There was also the battle overwhether religious-affiliatedemployers should have to coverbirth control in insurance plans.When law student Sandra Fluke,prevented from testifying beforeCongress on the issue, spokeinstead to a Democratic panel toadvocate payments for contracep-tives, Rush Limbaugh set off afirestorm by calling her a “slut.”
Karen Teegarden saw the con-gressional hearing from whichFluke was excluded, and she sawthe all-male witness table. Withindays, this 56-year-old wife, moth-er and marketing specialist fromBirmingham, Mich., had launchedUniteWomen.org. Its missionstatement: “Help defend women’s
rights and pursuit of equality.”Using social media and the
Internet, Teegarden’s group orga-nized protests in cities across thecountry on April 28. All told, hun-dreds marched in places likePhoenix, where coat hangers wereon display featuring a plea: “KeepAbortion Safe & Legal.” AndAustin, where a Democratic staterepresentative took to the micro-phone to quote a famous phrase:“Heed our warning. Hell has nofury like a woman scorned.” AndOhio, where women at the stateCapitol hoisted signs that read:“ ‘Sluts’ Over Nuts” and “MyVagina. My Choice.”
The rallies came a day afterGOP Speaker John Boehner tookto the floor of the U.S. House tolambast Democrats for politicizingissues that he said should transcendpartisan politics. He brought up the“so-called war on women,” callingit something “entirely created bymy colleagues across the aisle forpolitical gain.”
“Give me a break,” Boehnerroared as his fellow Republicans
cheered.Teegarden, a supporter of Pres-
ident Barack Obama, said: “If youdon’t want to call it a war, that’sfine. We are fighting something.It’s not just us having ‘emotions.’We are fighting very specific leg-islation.”
It’s worth considering the land-scape in which all of this is hap-pening.
This year is the 20th anniver-sary of what became known as the“Year of the Woman,” an electionyear in which the number ofwomen serving in the U.S. Senatetripled and in the U.S. House wentfrom 28 to 47. Many of thosenewly elected women were drivento run after watching the 1991hearings in which an all-maleSenate Judiciary Committee ques-tioned Anita Hill about sexualharassment claims against then-Supreme Court nominee ClarenceThomas.
Political consultant MaryHughes sees parallels betweenthen and now.
“There were a number of things
percolating in 1991 and 1992, justas I think there has been a numberof things percolating last year andthis year ... that made it appearthat women needed to do more ontheir own behalf. There are similarindignities,” said Hughes, whodirects The 2012 Project, a non-partisan campaign to increase thenumber of women running foroffice.
The project’s website features avideo with these stark statistics:“While women make up 51 per-cent of the population, 83 percentof members of the U.S. Congressand 76 percent of state legislators... are men. And of the 50 gover-nors in the United States, only sixare women.”
“Don’t get mad. Get elected,”reads the organization’s motto.
Conservative women, mean-while, are battling what they see asDemocratic pandering that paintsall women with the same brush.The conservative group Smart GirlPolitics last month launched a“They Don’t Speak for Us” cam-paign that includes a video focus-ing on unemployment rates and thecost of gas and groceries.
ShePAC, a political actioncommittee working on behalf ofconservative women candidates,promises in another ad that “2012won’t be a war on women, it willbe a war by women.”
For better or worse, the debateover gender politics has launcheda new national dialogue thatreaches beyond the campaign trailand cable networks. To see it, sim-ply look to Colorado – and a sin-gle day in the trenches.
•••At the Equal Pay Day rally,
Wanda Ramey recalled growingup in the 1960s – hearing aboutfriends who’d received illegalabortions, witnessing the battlefor an Equal Rights Amendmentand, later, waging her own battlesas a woman in a mostly malework environment.
“Back in the 1960s, we foughthard. And we didn’t have Face-book. We didn’t have the Internet,”said Ramey, who supports Obama.“We’re older now and we have the
time to research, and we’re notgoing to be led around anymore.”
As the equal pay protesters dis-persed, a man orating about reli-gion soon took to the pavement ofthe university commons. Whenmarketing major Sasha Luinstrastopped to watch, she remarkedthat “I should get out there andpreach.” A male student standingnext to her replied: “What are yougoing to preach about? Makeup?”Luinstra didn’t bother responding.
It’s those kinds of comments,along with the many differentstatements about women that shehas heard so far this campaignseason, that both rile and bafflethe 21-year-old.
How, for example, can Ameri-cans in 2012 still be debating thevirtues of stay-at-home moms vs.those who work? To Luinstra, it’sa non-issue. She recalls her graph-ic designer mom in tears when shewould drop her at day care. Hermother eventually quit and stayedhome full time, and instilled in herdaughter the idea that “I’m free tomake any choice I want.”
Luinstra feels the same princi-ple should apply to abortion. Shehas friends who are now parentsbut who have also terminated theirpregnancies, and said she’s grate-ful those women could choose forthemselves what path to take.
Over the summer, she plans tovolunteer for Students for Obama.“He backs up my values,” she saidof the president.
By evening, as a group called9to5 gathered at a local bar to dis-cuss women’s wage issues, anoth-er 30 or so men and women –members of the Denver chapter ofthe Coalition for a ConservativeMajority – convened at the HotelVQ for a panel discussion by fiveRepublican women about the so-called war on women.
These women – a lawyer, a for-mer options trader, a business-woman who tracks governmentspending, a stay-at-home momwho started a conservative advo-cacy group and a legislative aidewhose mother is a state lawmaker– discussed how conservativescould work to reach out to femalevoters, especially the indepen-dents who are key in Colorado.
Several suggested a move awayfrom the debate over contracep-tion – whether it’s framed as areproductive rights or a religiousfreedom issue.
“Gas or groceries. That’s thereal war on women,” said LoriHorn, 50, who co-founded thegroup R Block Party. “We have tofeed our families. We have todecide whether we need to forgo afew things because we need to putgas in our cars. So take that con-traception argument away fromthem, and come up with some ...different words about what the realwar on women looks like for us.”
For Horn, a mother of two girls,discussions about contraceptionhave become “noise,” a distrac-tion that could prove harmful tothe Republican candidates shesupports.
“I’m all for birth control. I useit,” she said in an interview. “Jobsand the economy, creating thesecurity that families and singlewomen need, that’s the mostimportant thing. I’m a powerfulwoman. ... I can take care of thoseother issues.”
Moderating the panel, lawyerLinda Hoover cited a March USAToday/Gallup poll of swing states,including Colorado, that showedwomen favoring Obama overRomney by 18 percentage points.
“It’s absolutely frightening howquickly, once they launched that(war) narrative ... the polling datachanged. I’m hoping it was ashort-term bounce, but let’s notassume that,” said Hoover, 60,who has been working voter reg-istration booths to do her part inenticing more women voters.
The women gathered on thisnight may know better than mostthe power of the gender vote.They saw it in action in 2010when, despite sweeping GOP vic-tories elsewhere, a Democratedged out a tea party-backed can-didate in Colorado’s U.S. Senaterace. Republican Ken Buck wastargeted as “anti-woman” inadvertisements and mailers – firstfor joking that voters should pickhim over a female GOP primaryopponent “because I don’t wearhigh heels” and then for favoringa constitutional ban on abortion.(He had also opposed exceptionsin cases of rape or incest.) In theend, exit polls showed thatwomen voters went for the Demo-crat by 17 percentage points.
That gender gap can make asignificant difference in presiden-tial elections as well. According tothe Center for American Womenand Politics at Rutgers, the num-ber of female voters has exceededthe number of male voters inevery presidential election since1964. And, in every presidentialelection since 1980, a gender gaphas been apparent – with a greaterproportion of women choosingthe Democratic candidate over theRepublican.
Come November, said Rutgersprofessor Carroll, “it’s very likelythat women’s votes – whetherthey go strongly for Obama orwhether Romney’s able to mini-mize the gender gap – will makethe difference.”
DAILY NEWS, BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKYPAGE 8C - SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2012 Sunday Reader
SOUNDSOFINDEPENDENCE.COMMember FDIC
From Page 1CAbortion returned to legislative agendas after tea party-driven GOP gains in 2010
Ed Andrieski/APWanda Ramey holds some of her political posters Monday in Denver.
