I don’t talk politics on this blog. I don’t. Last summer I lost a friendship over a political argument on Facebook, and since then I’ve been a little gun-shy on bringing up politics in any situation.
But I can’t be silent on this.
I am definitely fiscally conservative. I am also a gun owner and pro-second amendment. On social issues I’m a little more middle-of-the-road, but in recent times I mostly identify with conservatives.
And then this week happened. Let’s start with Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke. I don’t necessarily think that religious institutions should be forced to foot the bill for something that they are clearly opposed to, like birth control for
the sole purpose of preventing conception. 
That said, Rush’s over the top rhetoric – likening Ms. Fluke to a slut or a prostitute because she was advocating for such coverage for birth control – is inexcusable. The nuances of this controversy have been hashed and rehashed time and again by bloggers who are far more intelligent than I, so I won’t bore anyone with my own inartful take. But shouldn’t every woman – conservative, liberal, republican, democrat, libertarian, whatever – be absolutely outraged at how quickly the “slut” card gets played, and how it is done with almost no consequences? And even more – shouldn’t we all be absolutely pissed off that Rush’s conservative talk show cronies are doing little to nothing to distance themselves from his position on this? The shows I listen to were asking the question “Did Rush say something inappropriate?” How is that even a question? There should be no doubt about it – what he said was inexcusable. Unforgivable.
Even worse was the responses by our Republican candidates. Mitt Romney’s condemnation wasn’t even lukewarm: ”it’s not the language I would have used.” Rick Santorum’s take was that Rush was ”being absurd, but that’s, you know—an entertainer can be absurd.” So, it’s okay then? It has the blessing of the Republican party because Rush perhaps used a poor choice of words, or because he’s “just an entertainer?” Fuck me! (Whoops! Perhaps I had better clarify, lest I get slut-shamed for that turn of phrase. In the present context, “fuck me” is a sign of exasperation, not an invitation for sexual congress. Whew – I think I dodged a bullet there. You never know when a conservative talk show host may be listening).
And, as an aside…it is 2012, right? Why the hell is contraception a hot-button issue right now? Are we not beyond that? Don’t answer that. Apparently we aren’t.
And since the war on women is ramping up, Wisconsin Senator Glenn Grothman is doing his part to let everyone know that single moms are a problem. Grothman introduced Senate Bill 507, which would emphasize that nonmarital parenthood is a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect. Unbelievable, right? Here is the text of the bill, because you should never trust what a blogger says when she simplifies and summarizes a piece of controversial legislation – always go to the text and read for yourself.
Of course, we can give Grothman the benefit of the doubt: perhaps he’s relying on some legitimate scientific evidence for this presumption on abuse. Well, yes – as support for the proposition that single parenthood is a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect, he cites a study that saw a correlation between single parenthood (and a plethora of other factors) and child abuse/neglect. And where there’s correlation, you can presume that there’s causation, right? Lordy, no! That correlation does not equal causation is a basic, basic tenet of statistical studies. 1
Annnnnd, lest you think that Mister Grothman is just a misunderstood soul, he’s not. His commentary on the Bill has made it pretty clear that his beliefs are right in line with what the bill suggests. And he makes it abundantly clear that he’s not worried about single parents so much as he is about the scourge that is the single mother. He thinks that ”unwanted or mistimed” pregnancies are the “choice of the women” who should learn “that this is a mistake.”
Of course, a shit cake like this needs some icing, so here it is: On Tuesday night, the Wisconsin Assembly passed SB 202, a law that repeals the Equal Pay Act signed into law in 2009 that allowed people to sue employers who illegally discriminate against them based on protected class status. Essentially, the enforcement provision that allowed victims of unlawful pay discrimination to have their day in court has been removed. In Wisconsin, women earn 75 cents for every dollar that men earn, according to the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health, which estimates that families in the state “lose more than $4,000 per year due to unequal pay.” Clearly the problem is not solved, so why remove the teeth from our enforcement tool? What country am I in? What year is it?
Now for the question of the hour: how does a woman continue to support conservatives when it seems clear that conservatives are not at all interested in us? At every turn we are being shamed, ridiculed, belittled. What happened? To quote Homer Simpson, “did we lose a war?”
I don’t know. And I don’t know how I get back to being a conservative after all of this. I’m nowhere near hopping on the Recall Scott Walker train or voting for Obama, but I have a lot to think about these days. And if things continue down this path, I’m going to come out the other side with a much different perspective on things.
- My husband has an awesome example of this. We live in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My husband owns a really neat, really big gun. He says that he likes the gun because it keeps the elephants away. And he must be right – I’ve never seen an elephant in our house! It must be because his gun IS keeping the elephants away, right? That’s how correlation does not equal causation. ↩
I’d be worried about how far behind I have fallen. I’d be trying to pull double duty to get caught up on our messes and clutters. But Flylady takes that stress away. She tells us to jump in where we are – “you are not behind!” I love that philosophy.
