If Women Ruled The World, Would Debt Be Less?
Commentary by Michel Martin, as seen on NPR.org:
I didn’t want to bite my nails all weekend waiting for the congressional leaders and the president to agree on a plan to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the federal debt.
So I did the next best thing — watched the Harry Potter marathon. And yes, I am getting ready for the big U.S. premiere this week. And no, I have not seen the new one yet. My hookups don’t run that deep. Trust me, if they did, I would have been there.
But while I was watching the previous films, I was thinking our political wizards could catch a clue from the Potter gang. They could listen to Hermione once in a while, which is to say, they could let some women in the room.
It’s a stereotype that women are more reasonable than men, more moderate than men, nicer than men. I know that’s not true.
Being here in D.C., I’ve met more than my share of narcissistic, blowhard female politicians, and I’ve met many men who listen well and don’t care who gets the credit, as long as the job gets done.
But I will say, first of all, it is amazing to me that during what could be one of the most important decision points in recent U.S. history, there are so few women with a seat at the table.
Sure, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was there on Sunday night. But is that really enough? Half the population gets to be represented by one voice?
Can I just tell you? Is it a coincidence that in this financial crisis, as in past ones, women were often the people sounding the alarm before anyone else was?
First there was Sherron Watkins, who tried to blow the whistle on the shady accounting practices at Enron long before regulators and the public caught on. More recently, there was former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila Bair, who raised questions about subprime mortgages when few others did. Or women like June O’Neill, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office.
These women had the right idea. What they lacked was the power and the allies to allow their point of view to prevail.
I would also ask, is it a coincidence that some of the countries with the most serious and intractable budget woes in Europe right now are countries where female participation in government is minimal or degraded? Like Greece, where just over 17 percent of the Parliament are women? Or Italy, where just over 20 percent are, and where the prime minister evidently thinks the most important roles for women in his country involve taking their shirts off in public and cavorting with him in private at parties where the favors are alleged to involve something other than goodie bags?
In the U.S., women are just 17 percent of the members of Congress, holding 89 out of 535 seats.
Although many of the headline-grabbing potential candidates for president have been women in recent years — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side three years ago and Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann on the Republican side now — Clinton has made it clear she is done with campaigning. And it remains to be seen whether Palin or Bachmann will ever have an impact on governance equal to her impact as a media figure.
This raises the question, just what do women bring to the table when it comes to difficult negotiations? It is tough to say, and many people have tried. Is it that women are socialized to listen more and talk less? Is it that they are more willing to sublimate their own egos for the sake of the greater good?
I don’t know.
I do know that something is wrong when our economic future is at stake, and the only people who get to sit at the table to talk about it are the very people who messed things up to this point.
Chris Wallace, it’s Time to Change the questions…
Republican women are on the rise and the old boys club is starting to show signs of concern. Just this weekend an Associated Press poll listed Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann amongst the top three most favorable leaders in our party, Chris Wallace did his best to set back our cause…..
Chris Wallace interviewing Michele Bachmann this weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjdeRHoSaeI
When will the questions that women are asked on the campaign trail be equal to the ones asked of men? Would Chris Wallace ask President Barack Obama or Governor Mitt Romney, “Are you a flake?” These are the same issues we saw 3 years ago when Senator John McCain announced his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin.
Just a little over a year ago, Mr. Wallace found himself in a similar degrading conversation pertaining to Sarah Palin. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/chris-wallace-hopes-sarah_n_449693.html?
We wonder when interviewing Speaker Gingrich or Governor Romney if Mr. Wallace would have the same request? As is clear in the Associated Press poll – voters are rejecting this kind of sexist attitude by the good old “beltway boys” in DC and in their own community. Women especially recognize that we have real issues to focus on and as we’ve seen in the 2010 elections, the Tea Party movement and now in the Presidential field – women are the ones stepping up and taking on these tough issues.
We have real issues to focus on and these women, whether you like them/want to vote for them or not, deserve the respect to be asked the same questions as men and not treated differently because of their sex. These women have risen to powerful positions, and rather than take them seriously – our media asks degrading questions such as “are you a flake?”
Suzanne Terrell, founder, ProjectGoPink
Michele Bachmann makes it official in Waterloo
as appeared on desmoinesregister.com by JENNIFER JACOBS
Playing up her home field advantage as the only Iowa-born presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann made her formal announcement for the White House this morning, saying the country can’t afford four more years of Democrat Barack Obama as president.
“I do so because I am so profoundly grateful for the blessings that I have received both from God and from this country, and not because of the position of the office, but because I am determined that every American deserves these blessings and that together we can secure the promise of the future for America,” Bachmann said outside the historic Snowden House, once the home of the Waterloo Women’s Club.
Bachmann, who earlier this year was considered third-tier candidate unlikely to do well outside Iowa, is now being talked about as a serious competitor who is making smart moves.
With her today is her new deputy campaign manager, David Polyansky, who was an aide to Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign and is considered a top strategist. Bachmann’s Iowa headquarters, on 86th Street in Urbandale, is set to open next week, her advisers said.
Bachmann lived in Waterloo and Cedar Falls until age 12 when her family moved to Minnesota. There, she became the first Minnesota Republican woman elected to Congress. She now has four years of experience in federal elected office.
Today, she recited a list of problems she sees facing the country: debt, an unconstitutional health plan, unemployment, jobs that pay too little for people to support their families, a housing crisis that is devaluing homes, foreign policy that leads from behind.
“We can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama,” she told a crowd of at least 300. “As a constitutional conservative, I believe in the founding fathers’ vision of a limited government that trusts in and preserves the unlimited potential of the American people.” FULL STORY
Women gaining ground in gubernatorial races, study finds
as posted by TampaBay.com
More than half of the 10 women who ran for governor in 2010 didn’t nab enough votes to clinch victory, including Democrat and former Florida CFO Alex Sink. But new research indicates that women’s campaigns ran on a more level playing field than in years past.
The research, announced Monday, comes from the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, a group focused on women’s representation in politics.
Four Republican women won their 2010 races, bringing the number of current U.S. female governors to six and the historic total to 34. That’s 2,285 fewer than their male counterparts.
In 2010, voters prioritized more gender-neutral characteristics than in recent years, such as problem-solving and strength, according to the study. This is a shift from the foundation’s 12-year research history in which voters valued traits more typical of men, such as toughness.
Another interesting point: Both women and men had to show a mastery of the economy and “pocketbook issues.”
“Voters did not disadvantage women candidates as they had in the past,” said founder and president Barbara Lee.
Voters continue to give women a slight advantage on honesty and ethics. To counter this edge, male opponents “tried to knock women candidates off their pedestal” with attack ads, the study found.
“It’s an enormous challenge for women candidates to defend themselves,” Lee said. “Voters see negative campaigning as a sign that she is just a typical politician.”
A few more snippets from the study:
- By a landslide, partisanship was the most dominant predictor of votes for women in the midterm elections. But likeability emerged as the second predictor of whether someone would vote for a woman.
- In a dramatic shift from a decade ago, young female voters 18-34 years old said they were interested in female candidates but that factor did not predict their vote.
- Independent women continue to vote more for female candidates than independent men.
- The biggest advantage for Democratic female candidates in 2010? Education and ethics. For Republican women, it’s all about fostering a favorable business climate.
The foundation studied the campaigns of Jari Askins, D-OK; Jan Brewer, R-AZ*; Diane Denish, D-NM; Mary Fallin, R-OK*; Nikki Haley, R-SC*; Susana Martinez, R-NM*; Libby Mitchell, D-ME; Alex Sink, D-FL; Leslie Petersen, D-WY; Meg Whitman, R-CA.
- * candidate won her race
GOP freshmen women go on offense
as published on Politico | By MARIN COGAN | 6/20/11 6:34 PM EDT Updated: 6/21/11 2:22 PM EDT
Republicans have a new weapon in their messaging arsenal — a growing, influential caucus of younger GOP women intent on fighting back against Democratic claims that the party is anti-woman.
The new group doesn’t neatly fit the traditional model of women who run for office — the older, post-career PTA moms with grown children and more time to devote to politics. Four of the nine Republican GOP freshmen are under 50. And they aren’t moderates in the mode of Senate GOP women such as Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.
Rather, they are rock ribbed, younger, conservative working mothers, a new breed of GOP representative that Republican male leaders are more than happy to have deployed on the front lines, to act as the public face for a party that still suffers from a gender gap in their rank-and-file. On Tuesday, a handful of them will take to the House floor in a series of speeches titled, “I am a Republican woman” — a coordinated effort to argue that the Republican Party’s priorities, like job creation, lower gas prices and a fiscally responsible budget, are also women’s issues. FULL STORY
‘Sexual charisma’ and 2012 presidential politics: TNR edition
During the 2008 Democratic primaries The New Republic ran a cover showing a crazy-looking Hillary Clinton spouting nonsense speech-bubbles, with the headline “The voices in her head”.
You didn’t need to be Sigmund Freud to figure out what TNR was saying there with a sledgehammer. It was a nadir in a bitter campaign frequently marked by casual and not-so-casual sexism aimed at a high-profile woman candidate.
But that was in 2008 – and we’ve all learned and moved on, right?
Not so fast….
Men rule when it comes to sleaze in politics
By Leonard Pitts
…Can anyone name the last female leader caught in a sex scandal? Me neither. It is not that women are of a higher moral order than men. Studies confirm that women cheat, too. And, yet, you never see that fact reflected in a Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin biting their bottom lip in the glare of TV lights while making some teary-eyed confession of infidelity and “mistakes.”
We must conclude that women are possessed of something rare among men. It is called a “brain.”
Evidently, that organ tells them that when your private life is public record, when you live in a news cycle that is all intrusive, all the time, it might be wise to keep that other organ zipped.
Some may say this is not our business, that while infidelity is awful, it is also between a man — even a public man — and his wife. But see, this is not about marital morality. It is, rather, about judgment.
The ability to weigh one’s options and make the right call is the basis of leadership. Consider that, and then consider: Bill Clinton thought he could get away with being serviced by an intern in the Oval Office. Kwame Kilpatrick thought he could get away with paying $8 million from the city treasury to keep his affair secret. Anthony Weiner thought he could get away with tweeting suggestive photos of himself online. Repeat: online.
Yet we depend on men like these to make decisions about our money, our health care, our children. Not to mention war and peace. What faith can we have that men who show such poor judgment in their marriages will show better judgment in other areas? Or might not the thrill-seeking, testosterone-fueled alpha male recklessness that makes a public man think he can get away with a private affair not also impair his thinking when debating the debt ceiling or teacher salaries? And we wonder why things don’t get done.
Scott Brown’s wife, a journalist, rips coverage of Sarah Palin as ‘sexist’
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has drawn his share of unflattering news coverage, but it’s the journalist in his family who is the more outspoken media critic.
Brown’s wife of nearly 25 years, Gail Huff, is a longtime television reporter who now works for ABC’s Washington affiliate. When the couple appeared together at a Newseum event Saturday on politics and the media, Huff sharply criticized political coverage in the Beltway, particularly involving Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee.
“I thought the coverage of her when she was on the ticket was sexist,” Huff said in response to a question from the moderator. “I found it difficult many times to watch. The kind of questions she was asked were very different than the kind of questions [Sen. John] McCain was asked.” Palin faced intense criticism during that campaign following a shaky interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, when she struggled to answer a question about what newspapers she read.
“Part of that I understand is cultural and social. But still, we as journalists have to be above that,” Huff said. “We have to ask the important questions.”
She said the media should “back off [Palin] coverage unless she decides to be a candidate.”
“If she wants to be a candidate, great, then she will get the same fair coverage that every other declared candidate gets,” Huff said.
Sen. Brown was considerably more circumspect about Palin. He said she “obviously plays a role” in the political process but that he wasn’t sure what her plans for 2012 would be. “I wish her well,” Brown said. He is supporting former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination.
Huff, who said she does not cover politics because her husband is a U.S. senator, said the media could become “complacent” in states where one party controls political power, as Democrats do in Massachusetts.
While Brown said there is “a lack of trust between the ordinary citizen and the federal government,” Huff said she didn’t know if it was the media’s job to help tamp down the partisan rancor in politics.
She also acknowledged that it’s difficult for broadcast journalists to adequately cover the financial crisis. “It’s really hard to tell a numbers story on television,” she said.
The event had its lighter moments, and it became clear at one point that Brown is not in danger of following Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) into a social media scandal. Describing his office’s attempts to reach out to engage with people through the Internet, Brown, who is one of the Senate’s younger members, stumbled.
“We have I think over 200,000 Facebook people, and Twitter, whatever … I have no idea what I’m even talking about,” he said as the audience erupted in laughter. “But we take advantage of the young bright minds in our office and on our team to help us with the new social media and how we move forward with communicating.”
Bachmann and other conservative women treated unfairly by mainstream media
The Media Research Center released a new report earlier this week documenting mainstream media bias towards conservative women, especially Tea Party star Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.
The report’s author, Matt Philbin, told The Daily Caller that many media outlets, but specifically Politico and MSNBC, have a double standard when it comes to how they report news regarding conservative female politicians as opposed to liberal female politicians.
“She’s [Bachmann] dangerous to them. I think, like Sarah Palin, they find her dangerous. Women are supposed to be liberal,” Philbin said. “They’re supposed to vote Democrat, just as blacks and Latinos are supposed to vote Democrat. Having a strong conservative woman that voices conservative concerns and understands conservative economics is very disconcerting to the left and to the media.”
Debbie Lee, a member of the Tea Party Express and founder of America’s Mighty Warriors, a non-profit that helps families of fallen soldiers, said she agrees that the media is harsher on conservative women than liberal women.
“I think we’ve seen a huge prejudice with attacks against conservative women. We don’t see that with the liberal, left-leaning women that are in there,” Lee told TheDC. “I think it is a pattern, a concerning pattern, when the media continues to attack conservative women, but, on the other side, lets things slide and doesn’t have the same consistency [for liberal women].”
Lee said conservative women, like herself, are often deliberately smeared by the media in order to discredit them and their worldview.
“I think a lot of is part of that good ol’ boys’ club,” Lee said. “Conservative women don’t fit in that mold, so they tend to attack us and discredit us or make us look like we’re less than or unintelligent or don’t know what we’re talking about.”
Philbin railed on MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews for his treatment of Bachmann during an the interview on Election Night where Matthews asked the congresswoman if she planned to try to use subpoena power to “investigate” Democrats for being “un-American.” Matthews also suggested several times throughout the interview that Bachmann’s answers made it appear as if she was hypnotized and in a trance.
“It wasn’t appropriate for the time, she was at a victory party. Asking her if she’s hypnotized is just incredibly unprofessional,” Philbin told TheDC. “She was gracious enough to go on his show which I would think is a real buzz-kill in the middle of her victory party.”
Philbin said Bachmann’s tendency to fight back against media smears is positive and it is something that she and other conservative women attacked by the media should continue to do.
“I think it can only help them, as long as they’re smart about it,” Philbin said. “What Michele Bachmann did to Chris Matthews on Election Night was some of the best TV I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it can hurt them at all.”
Philbin was referring to a retort Bachmann made to Matthews toward the end of the interview on Election Night when she said that she imagines that the MSNBC host was no longer feeling that tingle up his leg, a reference to a much ridiculed comment Matthews made about feeling a tingle going up his leg after a speech Obama gave during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Philbin added that Palin has only gotten stronger as a result of the leftwing media attacks and he expects Bachmann to come out stronger from the assaults as well. He also predicted that the next conservative woman to feel the liberal media’s heat could be New Mexico’s Republican Governor-elect Susana Martinez.
“They’re going to look at her, and if she really is the kind of rising star everybody says she is, they’re going to go after her hard,” Philbin said. “The examples of women and minorities in the Republican Party is devastating to the liberal agenda. The sense that women are off the reservation really sends them around the bend.”
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GOP leader, and PGP supporter, delivers GOP response
Posted by ProjectGoPink on July 13, 2011 · Leave a Comment
Filed under Blog, Media · Tagged with Commentary, Congress, GOP Women