Where are all the Republican Women?

Personally I avoid Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh like the plague. If I’m in the mood for hypocrisies, conspiracy theories and hate rhetoric I can usually find a good Hollywood blockbuster that will not only deliver but be much more entertaining and much easier on the blood pressure. So when I heard about both hosts referring to United States Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La) as a prostitute, as much as my blood pressure did rise, it wasn’t exactly a huge surprise. Being respectful and showing regard to common decency have never been strong suits for either man.

What gets me is the reaction from Republican women. I know you’re probably asking yourself, what reaction? Which is my point. There hasn’t been one. Not a thing. Conservative women, specifically Republican Women who actually serve in Congress have nothing to say about blatant sexism against one of the few female colleagues they have? How about Sarah Palin? She has been at the losing end of some of the worst sexists treatment from media in recent history, yet she has nothing to say about calling a Senator a Prostitute?

The reason Senator Landrieu is being called such offensive names is because she offered to vote in favor of moving ahead with health care debate on the Senate floor, (she did not promise to vote for the bill itself, just the vote to move it along) in return for $300 million in federal aid. Federal Aid for Louisiana. Is there really one person in this country who doesn’t think Louisiana needs federal aid more than we need to put off the debate on health care? I wonder how all the people in New Orleans who are still trying to rebuild, who are still without a home, who are still looking for help after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina feel about comparing Senator Landrieau's deal with a whore? I’m guessing not good.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, after all it was last month that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was told she needed to be “put in her place” by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The Huffington Post tried in vain to contact fifteen female lawmakers (fourteen from the House or Representatives) as well as two Republican women's issues groups to get their response to the very sexists statement made about Speaker Pelosi. Not one was willing to provide a statement.

Yes, there were many Democratic women who refused to stand up for Sarah Palin during the media frenzy that occurred during the 2008 Presidential election and the year since because of her politics. But there were many who did. There were many women who put politics aside and made sure their voices were heard when sexism came into play.

But where are female voices from the right? Is sexism not an issue for all of us? Doesn’t Senator Landrieu deserve the respect and defense of her fellow female lawmakers regardless of what side of the aisle they’re on?

Don’t all women?

This is a cross-post from the WomenCount blog. 

Meghan Harvey is the New Media Producer for WomenCount and can also be found blogging at Meg's Idle Chatter.

Calling Out Tea Party Racism: Sometimes an Ally Can Challenge It Most Directly

Over the weekend, President Obama had this to say about whether resistance to White House policies were tinged with racist sentiment:

Previously, he'd spoken to the issue of race in America in a stirring speech during the Democratic primary.

I believe he's right in both his prior and most recent comments. Rudeness made Kanye West the talk of the Video Music Awards and rudeness made Congressman Joe Wilson the talk of a recent presidential address to a joint session of Congress. And, at the same time, I also believe that the president's task is to take the long view, a meta-quotidian and transcendent one. He guides the nation as we are and as we will be in years to come for the overall betterment of the country. So a disagreement over what constitutes racism moves no policy forward and certainly doesn't befit the office, and what racism exists ought not be dignified with a reply.

August 4, 2009: Happy Birthday, President Obama

Would you pay $5 to say, SHUT UP FOREVER ABOUT THE BIRTHER THING? How about $10? I just did.

There's a section of Wingnuttialand peopled by those who believe our president is not a citizen of the United States of America--the very nation whose Constitution he swore to uphold, whose domestic and foreign policy he shapes, and the nation he represents to the world. You know, the country whose approximately 60 million inhabitants of voting age and the Electoral College actually elected him to office. Wingnuttians instead believe that Obama's a Kenyan citizen by virtue of his father's having started and ended his life there after immigrating to the US and fathering Barack Obama.

Well, that's crazy. And xenophobic. With dollops of racism swirled in.

A Green Revolution of Another Kind: Iranian Protests on Social Media for a Fair and Free Election

Who else is sitting home late on a Friday night, twittering, but a mom of a small kid? I'd like to say I was out doing something tragically hip, or even out somewhere, but... this past weekend, I was at home and swapping quips on the nightly carnivalesque Burning Man For Shut-Ins called Twitter.

Half a world away, Iranians were turning out in record numbers to vote for their new president. Very rapidly, tweets among my lefty-liberalish friends began to highlight Iranian sources of news for the results of the election. (The #tcot people, or Top Conservatives on Twitter, seemed not as attuned to what was happening. Some speculations why here.)

Light chitchat turned to concern as many of the people I follow and I realized that many Iranians found serious anomalies in the way votes were counted. Very quickly, it seemed that the most helpful thing one could do as a westerner sympathetic to the goals of Iranians demanding a free and fair election, with a re-vote if necessary, was to retweet the as-it-happens tweets of Iranians, which could be viewed under the hashtag #iranelections.

Funny, G. Gordon Liddy Doesn't Look Like An Expert on Women's Health

This is G. Gordon Liddy.

Yesterday, G. Gordon Liddy said on his conservative talk radio show that SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor was a member of La Raza, "which means in illegal alien, 'The Race.'"

WOW. There's now a language called "illegal alien."

And then he said:

LIDDY: Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Now, take a second look at the picture above. Does that look like a man who knows anything about Latinos, women, or Latinas? Female reproductive cycles? Common sense?

Obviously, no.

A few conservative politicians have issued tepid reprimands.

What I want to know is--where are the conservatives who howled that Sarah Palin was being treated in sexist fashion? Where are the conservative women--Republican Latinas, even, if such people exist--who are decrying this ridiculous Neanderthal racism and sexism as something that should crawl back to the stone age where it belongs?

Feel free to leave any examples of right-wing outrage at what Liddy said in the comments. I'm curious to see if there are any.

They don't even have to be wingnuts. They could be members of the media.

For example, if anyone sees Campbell Brown declaring "Free Sonia Sotomayor," like she did for Sarah Palin, please let me know.

So far?

I mostly hear crickets.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Double X Double Slam: Women, Mothers Marginalized More Than Ever?

Yesterday, I read this article, "Raising the Baby Question," at The Nation. I was steamed in a way I haven't been in a long time. Here comes this young (24 year old) reporter who writes an article with outrageous claims. Nona Willis Aronowitz, the writer, posits this theory: feminist writers ignore mother and family issues, and mother and family writers ignore feminist issues.

She cites a few blogs, books, and Web sites, which she claims proves her point.

Even though they don't, really, and she ignores a huge, active population of women who are feminist and family writers who are actively not just writing about but are also doing something about feminism, politics, and family issues.

Case in point: the MOMocrats.

We are merely one among many, including: WomenCount, BlogHer, MomsRising, PunditMom, Political Voices of Women, The Girl Revolution, the late great Moms Speak Up, and more, including the many individuals who contribute their voices at group sites and personal sites. Just check out the Just Posts, for example, to see a lengthy list of women writers---some mothers, some not---who are delving into issues related to feminism, politics, social justice, life as a woman, life as a mother, and more. I became involved with the MOMocrats, in fact, because I was blogging so often about these topics at my personal blog, and had, through that, connected with both the Just Posts and Political Voices of Women.

Nevertheless, Willis Aronowitz claims that, "There's a palpable disconnect between these two worlds [mother and feminist], and it's starting to worry me."

Actually, that's dead wrong.

I don't think Willis Aronowitz means to be totally incorrect in an article on a national site.

I think she just missed a lot of relevant information.

Her side point, the one she ought to have pursued, is dead on, though, "Most feminist mom organizations and websites like Sistas on the Rise or Hip Mama are local and grassroots, often excluded from discussions of feminism in the national media."

Too true.

However, national media---collapsing under its own auspice currently---isn't the end all be all, and grassroots organizations have a wonderful outreach.

Can it be bigger? Should it be bigger? Yes.

That doesn't affect, however, how empowering and effecting it feels when a fellow mother at my daughter's school catches me one morning to say, "My friends and I, we hate the news, but oh we love MOMocrats, read it every day!"

In the Voting Booth, No One Knows You're a Dog

Ssssshhhhh, come here. I want to tell you a secret.

You know the saying, "On the internetz, no one knows you're a dog?"

Well, in the voting booth, no one knows you're a dog either.

A lot's been said about the Bradley effect  here, and here, where whites asked if they'll vote for Obama lie to polltakers. It's a question that clouds the candidacy of every African American running for elected office no matter their record of achievement, partisan affiliation, or the fact that largely white states populated by Iowans, Wisconsinites, and the many many white people of California all voted for Obama. And not only were these intrepid white people *not* struck down by lightning, they felt better, looked an average of 5-9 years younger, any lingering back problems went away, and their skin cleared up immediately. (I can see you through the computer screen, and You. Look. Marvelous.)

Polls are only as reliable as people are honest. And who's going to tell a pollster, a total stranger, "I'd never vote for a black man"? Only a really really hard-core person who can't get past race. (As we heard from Mary in Nebraska, unfortunately, there are more than a few of those people around everywhere. But even they might not want to say what they really think and feel to someone they don't already know.)

That's why at MOMocrats we have a category called "Polls, Shmolls."

Election '08 Should Be About "Real Solutions for Real Problems"--Thank You, Craig Ferguson!

OK, here's some good advice on what voting is all about, plus a dash of media critique of election coverage by mainstream media, delivered in a zexy brogue by talk show host Craig Ferguson.

"Real Solutions for Real Problems"--yes!

Shhh, don't tell--I might have to break up with my current boyfriend Keith Olbermann, the Olberdawg, in favor of Ferguson. (Olberdawg=part Rottweiler, part St. Bernard--an appealing mix of attack dog against the right and rescue dog for the left.)

Cynematic blogs sporadically at P i l l o w b o o k, when she's not in the middle of moving house.

McCain/Palin press avoidance tactics: More of the same for America

It's now 8 days since Sarah Palin has been "too busy" to talk to the press.

The first question that popped to mind is the one that most thinking Americans are wondering right now: How is she ready to be President, let alone Vice President, if she doesn't even have the ability to talk to a little ol' reporter?

But on further reflection--eight whole days of it--I realized this isn't about prepping (although lord knows she could use it). This isn't about stalling for time while Palin signs up for a crash course on geography at the Learning Annex or sits down for a primer on the policies that McCain keeps claiming he has.

This is about protecting the lies.

Missive Shot Through Strategic Use of a Stretchy Hair Tie

Dear Maureen Dowd,

How do you sleep at night?

Sincerely,
Debbie, aka limpid-and-lovin'-it