These kinds of pieces make me irate, mostly because they are
dismissive of anything not included in the piece. Also, I have no love for Matthew
Yglesias. Yglesias wrote a response (?) to Rand Paul’s assertion that women
have won the “war on women”, which you know by our equal representation in all
branches of government, and the recognition of women as people who have rights
to autonomy in our lives over things like medical decisions, and finally we
live in a country where sexual assault is taken seriously and met with harsh
mandatory minimum sentencing…see what I did there with pointing out a few of
the areas where women aren’t treated equally or with equity.
Yglesias points out inconsistencies in the logic of
Republicans point fingers at Democrats as declaring a “war on women”, focusing
mostly on Dems inability to keep it in their pants. Yglesias points out,
justly, that anyone making this sort of argument as missing the point, which is
the “war on women” is a matter of public policy. Yglesias argues that
conservative ideas aren’t palatable to women. Again he isn’t wrong there.
Then Yglesias brings out a variety of policy issues where
women side more with Democrats than Republicans, but he didn’t explain that
women aren’t a monolith or that many of the underlying issues that push women
toward Democratic policies are discriminatory. He notes that women are more
likely to be low-wage earners, live longer, and responsible for care
responsibilities within the family. But these aren’t simple. Women earn lower
wages because of structural systems that keep women in poverty. This is much
worse when you include race, class, sexuality, etc. There are social constructs
in place to keep women disadvantaged, and Republican policies aim to make these
social constructs law.
And I would agree with Yglesias’ assertion, “Now of course
Republicans object that these policies [anti-women] aren’t motivated by animus toward women.” I don’t think all Republicans
hate women, well some do. Republicans are concerned about is centralizing their
power as they claw to keep their party alive. They aren’t just fighting women,
they are pushing people of color back every chance they get too.
Yglesias concludes by saying as long as X is true then Y
will always be. Sub in any “women’s issue” for X, and women’s vote for Y. This
a take issue with too because nothing is that simple. Women are a diverse group
of people, and it feels like Yglesias is asserting women will vote a certain
way because we’re single issue voters? unable to understand the consequences of
policy as they relate outside ourselves?
I was opposed to the language “war on women” for a long
time, but I’m coming around to it. Mostly when I look at the information
surrounding sexual assaults does this language become more and more useful. I
look at the “war on women” as something like the Cold War. Something is
happening, we’re not seeing or being told about it till after the fact, and the
policies are resulting in the suffering of a lot of people, both direct and
indirect targets and victims.
