I originally posted this at dkos. It got almost 1000 responses and stayed at the top of the recommend list for awhile. I was amazed at the response and most of the people who jumped in and agreed with me were men and women (particularly women) who wanted other people to understand, we are here. We aren’t giving back our rights without a fight.
I realize it reads a little “in your face”, but the response I got leads me to believe that most women are sick of giving in and conceeding our position just so that the next Northern european male can get elected.
I got many e-mails telling me that the thread would not open on dial up browser. So I thought I would post it here and perhaps with fewer members people can read and discuss in leasure.
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What you don’t understand about pro-choice women and the Democratic party: There are more of us than you.
What does that mean? It means that if you put 100 democrats in a room there would be more pro-choice women than anyone else. I am not sure what the exact numbers are but I am going to guess we’d be more than half the people in the room.
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Yes, African American voters and homosexual voters are more loyal by percentage than women in general, but they are a much smaller constituency and more of them are pro-choice women too.
Everyday on dkos, I read about “single issue pro-choice voters” and it is never a compliment. There are even a lot of women here who use the term with derision. But when one of the says “I am a pro-cboice woman but….” I know that they are actually anti-choice people playing a game.
Their arguments usually go something like this: I am pro-choice but I also care about unemployment heathcare etc…. to which I say “so what? We’ve run out of pro-choice democrats who also support those issues?”
Pro-choice may be a single issue but it is also the 1000 lb gorilla and if women would stop being so spineless when it comes to sticking up for ourselves there would be no question about placating the fetal obsession of some voters to win back the votes of the 15 white guy swing voters who give a shit about abortion.
We aren’t losing white guys because of abortion rights. We’re losing them because we run candidates who can’t spit out a simple sentence and tell people where they stand in a believable manner.
This idea that we have to run anti-choice candidates in states like Pa and RI so that we can win (THE POLLS THE POLLS) when all evidence suggests that, at least in Pa, on a statewide level, PRO-CHOICE candidates WIN, is nothing more than political manipulation by the senate campaign commitee who want to appease the anti-choice minority in the party.
What they ignore is the fact that there are indeed swing voters in Pa. They are pro-choice republican women. They vote for pro-choice democrats all the time. But they aren’t going to swing their vote for an anti-choice DEMOCRAT. They have no reason to do so.
Santorum does not win in Pa because he is anti-choice or against gay rights. He wins because he is a fiscal conservative. If that weren’t the case how do you explain Arlen Spector, Ed Rendell, Governor Ridge?
If Howard Dean were to run for office in Pa against Santorum he’d kick his ass all the way to 2012 and again to 2018. Why? Because he can talk fiscal conservative with authority and he’s not seen as anti-gun.
Pro-choice is the only rational moderate postion. It means you can’t chose pregnancy for me and I can’t chose abortion for you, even if I do think you have too many kids and the world is over populated.
It means you can’t chose pregnancy and motherhood for me and I can’t chose involuntary sterilization for you so that women don’t have to worry about being made criminals or forced to look at fetal portraits or wait 24 hours or beg a judge or sit through a lecture, or be an incuabator for a wealthier woman who can’t or won’t get pregnant but wants a nice white baby and not one of the thousands of minority babies growing up in foster care.
On another thread some one asked this:
Maybe you could explain (3.86 / 15)
Since you understand this post so well, help me clarify the following.
Why are THESE points true and valid:
1. The right to privacy is a fundamental principle of the Democratic Party.
2. Equality under the law is a fundamental principle of the Democratic Party.
3. A woman’s right to choose flows logically from both the right to privacy and the concept of equality under the law.And yet THIS point, in Kos’ world, is utter horseshit:
A woman’s right to choose is a fundamental principle of the Democratic Party.
Maybe you could help me understand the distinction, because I am sure not getting it.
To which I replied this:
It is the difference of having a penis (none / 0)
If one has a penis then one’s fundamental rights are more fundamental than the rights of those without a penis. If you do not have a penis then your fundamental rights are negotiable depending on whether people with penises can win elections.
Think I am kidding? No I am not. There is sexism in the democratic party just as there is in the republican party. It is just as strong and it is all about men, who hold the power if not the majority, being uncomfortable in a party that more and more doesn’t look like them. They don’t just want democrats to win, they want white males to win and if not white males, then at least males. When women get power in this party in proportion to our numbers, there are going to be as many women as men in congress, the senate, the whitehouse, the political organizations and that is a scary picture to people who want to be alligned with power and have been socialized from a young age to think that mean’s “person with penis”.
I am not accusing all men, in fact I am not accusing most. I know that often sexism is not intentional. But lots of men will claim they are not sexist when they most certainly are. Even some women are anti women’s rights because they chose to allign themselves with the “don’t rock the boat and we will let you hang with the guys” contingent.
In addition, get the hell over NARAL, they don’t exist to get democrats elected. The answer to the argument that women’s rights will be protected when democrats are in power, and therefor NARAL cut their own throat, falls flat while the party is annointing anti-choice candidates. NARAL endorses incumbants because they have proven loyalty to their issue. The minute NARAL stops being non-partisan is when they actually cut their own throat. I am sure that if democrats in DE run a pro-choice candidate they have a good chance to win. But for several election cycles, just like here in Pa, they have run republican lite candidates.
In regards to the polls in PA (and RI)….. nice try Schumer. We know that polls are meaningless this far out. Most of the people who voted have no idea who Casey is or what he stands for. They recognize his name and they know he isn’t Santorum.
My prediction is that Casey will lose and if he should happen to win, women lose.
The reason Hoefful didn’t beat Spector is because Spector is pro-choice and has the endorsement of the teachers Union. Still if the party had really gotten behind Hoeffel he might have won. If the party would get behind a pro-choice democrat against Santorum, the way they are going to get behind Casey, that candidate would also win.
So insult me and minimize me and call me nasty names to try to bully me(one issue voter) but you can’t make me vote for anti-choice candidates anymore than you can make black voters vote for pro-slavery canidates.
I don’t have to, I am the majority and pro-choice candidates of every stripe are in plentiful supply in my party.