In my last post I talked about the lack of women in the GOP. Yesterday, some guy named Todd Akin made some elephant shit insane remarks about rape and abortion. I won't quote him here. It's obvious he has no answer for the issue of abortion because of rape and just made shit up to try and justify his horrible position. I'll just send you to this piece by Jamelle Bouie explaining that the policies Akin supports are that of the entire GOP.
What I didn't get to in my last post was some of the specific the consequences of the lack of women in the GOP. I think those remarks and the GOP's stance on abortion might be the biggest consequence. If you read what Akin said and his responses you see that he just has no clue about what it means to be a woman. He barely addresses the woman in his remarks. It's all about the act of rape, which he seems to not fully understand, and the child (as he puts it) that "may" result from the rape.
I pretty firmly believe that if there were more women in the GOP people like Akin would be far less likely to go around saying these kinds of things. They just wouldn't allow this thing to fly. And eventually their experiences as women would influence the rest of the party. Think about gay rights and how individual experience with gay people can affect a person. Dick Cheney has a different view of the issue than the rest of the GOP because his daughter is gay. When your worldview is challenged on an individual level you are more likely to change your way of thinking.
The men of the GOP have only a certain view of rape and abortion because they aren't subjected to the point of view of women. Obviously they have mothers, wives, and daughters. But as I pointed out in my last post, most of these people are well off financially and thus probably don't have to experience these things. So they go along unchallenged and feel they can get away with saying ridiculous things and supporting ridiculous policies.
The first title I had for this post was just "The GOP's women problem". But I didn't want to keep my full attention focused on them. Yeah, this is why Democrats get most of the women vote. And hopefully these comments will bring more women (and men) to our cause. But it's obvious that women suffer the most from the GOP's problem. And until more women are able to gain power within our gov't we will continue to get bad policy that hurts a lot of people.
What I didn't get to in my last post was some of the specific the consequences of the lack of women in the GOP. I think those remarks and the GOP's stance on abortion might be the biggest consequence. If you read what Akin said and his responses you see that he just has no clue about what it means to be a woman. He barely addresses the woman in his remarks. It's all about the act of rape, which he seems to not fully understand, and the child (as he puts it) that "may" result from the rape.
I pretty firmly believe that if there were more women in the GOP people like Akin would be far less likely to go around saying these kinds of things. They just wouldn't allow this thing to fly. And eventually their experiences as women would influence the rest of the party. Think about gay rights and how individual experience with gay people can affect a person. Dick Cheney has a different view of the issue than the rest of the GOP because his daughter is gay. When your worldview is challenged on an individual level you are more likely to change your way of thinking.
The men of the GOP have only a certain view of rape and abortion because they aren't subjected to the point of view of women. Obviously they have mothers, wives, and daughters. But as I pointed out in my last post, most of these people are well off financially and thus probably don't have to experience these things. So they go along unchallenged and feel they can get away with saying ridiculous things and supporting ridiculous policies.
The first title I had for this post was just "The GOP's women problem". But I didn't want to keep my full attention focused on them. Yeah, this is why Democrats get most of the women vote. And hopefully these comments will bring more women (and men) to our cause. But it's obvious that women suffer the most from the GOP's problem. And until more women are able to gain power within our gov't we will continue to get bad policy that hurts a lot of people.
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