On gender politics

Yeah, I'm tired of the political rhetoric from this campaign, too. But I read an article about the election gender gap in the NYTimes today, and it struck a chord.

“What was really frustrating is that there was this myth manufactured by Democrats in Washington that the Republican Party as a whole is against women,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who said she watched with disappointment as her friend Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts was tarred by the broader fight and lost his bid for re-election, to a woman. “There is no doubt we need to do a better job as a party in reaching out to women, recruiting strong women candidates and sending a more positive message,” Ms. Collins said.

When you put a goal in the party platform that would not only ban abortion, but also some forms of contraceptives, then I think it's fair to assume that is one of the party's objectives. When Republicans fight as hard as they did to allow companies to opt out of providing contraception coverage in their health plans, then yeah, I look at that as being against women. I'm not sure Democrats manufactured a myth, here.

“It has never made sense that my party, the party of individual freedom and personal responsibility, thinks the government should be involved in issues” like abortion, Ms. Collins said. “We are the party that trusts individuals to make their own decisions. That is one of the defining issues of the differences between Republicans and Democrats. So this is just bewildering to me.”

This is something I have always wondered about. I DON'T agree with the statement that a defining  issue between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans "trust individuals to make their own decisions".  But they do talk a lot about individual freedoms, especially in regards to guns. When the issues have to do with sex (abortion, contraception, homosexuality), all of a sudden individual freedom and personal responsibility are not part of the Republican conversation.

I feel like this was a pretty rough campaign. Attack ads were more ubiquitous than ever. In the past, I think Republicans were successful in their smear campaigns (e.g. swift-boating), and Democrats were not very good at hitting back (kinda like the first presidential debate, what little I could stand to watch). While I would prefer to think candidates should campaign on their own issues and goals, without resorting to such relentless attacks, that leaves you open to the situation from the movie American President, where "they're the only ones doing the talking". In this campaign, I thought the Democrats did a good job of capitalizing on the mistakes, lies, and mean-spirited positions that many of the Republicans took. Yes, there were some failures, but overall, I think this election was a success for liberal's and women's issues, and that Republicans made their own beds when it came to alienating women voters.

And by the way, I think it should be a rule that when a health plan doesn't cover contraceptives, it can't cover Viagra either.