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Obama Declares War on the Republican War on Women
Sensing that the Republicans are on the run, President Obama mounted a counterattack against the war on women by explaining why this war isn’t just a women’s issue.
Here’s the video from MSNBC:
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The president said,
That’s what we mean when we say these issues are more than just a matter of policy. When we talk about these issues that primarily impact women, we’ve got to realize that they are not just women’s issues, they are family issues. They are economic issues. They are growth issues. They are issues about American competitiveness. They’re issues that impact all of us.
Now think about it, when women make less than men for the same work that hurts families who have to get by with less and businesses who have fewer customers with less to spend. When a job doesn’t offer family leave to care for a new baby, or sick leave to care for an ailing parent that burdens men as well. When an insurance plan denies women coverage because of preexisting conditions that puts a strain on emergency rooms, drives up costs and care for everybody. When any of our citizens can’t fulfill the potential that they have because of factors that have nothing to do with talent, or character, or work ethic that diminishes us all, it holds all of us back, and it says something about who we are as Americans.
Right now women are a growing number of breadwinners in the household, but they’re still earning just seventy seven cents for every dollar a man does, even less if you are an African-American or Latina woman. Overall, a woman with a college degree doing the same work as a man will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the course of her career. So closing this pay gap, ending pay discrimination is about far more than simple fairness. When more women are bringing home the beacon, but bringing home less of it than men who are doing the same work that weakens families, it weakens communities. It’s tough on our kids. It weakens the entire economy.
The president also talked about what the right is really getting at when they demand the repeal of healthcare reform and the defunding of Planned Parenthood, “When people talk about repealing health care reform, they’re not just saying we should stop protecting women with preexisting conditions. They’re also saying we should kick about a million young women off their parents’ health care plans. When people say we should get rid of Planned Parenthood, they’re not just talking about restricting a woman’s ability to make her own health decision. They’re talking about denying, as a practical matter, the preventive care like mammograms that millions of women rely on.”
This speech was really a call to arms for all Americans. President Obama was broadening the issue to mobilizing men and women to stop this assault of civil rights and freedom that is being advocated and perpetuated by the Republican Party. President Obama didn’t stop at joining the battle to stop the Republicans. He is leading it.
The president’s point that the war on women isn’t just about women is something that Republicans never thought the American people would catch on to. Instead of dividing America along gender lines by trying to turn birth control and Planned Parenthood into culture war issues, the right has unified much of this country around the common cause of protecting rights that directly impact women. The war on women is in reality a war on all Americans.
As the president stated, this isn’t just about fairness. It concerns families and households that have grown more dependent on the income generated by women for their survival. Republicans are out to fundamentally transform our society. By denying economic opportunity for women, they are limiting class mobility for a majority of Americans.
When they target women’s healthcare, the right is threatening your girlfriend, wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, or grandmother. The president’s point was that this matters to us all. The Republican war on women impacts every single American.
Politically, the contrast between Obama and the Republicans couldn’t be more stark. The president isn’t engaging in political pandering. He deeply and truly holds these beliefs. There is an authenticity in his comments, and a personal commitment to this issue that is easily visible. The reason why Obama leads Romney by nearly 20 points with women is that his defense of women is real, and he has the record to back it up.
The Republican war on women has already inflicted likely fatal damage to the GOP’s White House hopes, but this is about more than an election. It is about defending generations of hard fought progress. It is about building on that progress for future generations, and making the United States a stronger country.
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9 Responses to Obama Declares War on the Republican War on Women
Rmuse
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
We knew we could depend on President Obama to fight for women’s rights. It is not a new battle for the President either. He has been consistent throughout his entire political career in protecting women’s rights, and especially their right to good health and deciding for themselves when they have children. It was especially good the President brought up the ACA’s protections for women.
Jo Hargis
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Important to remember is that he was raised by a single mother, a strong independent, college educated single mother! And partly by a set of pretty progressive (for their time) grandparents. His grandmother was a bank president for many years. His mother died of cancer because of lack of money when her insurance cap was reached, if I remember the story correctly. He’s very “in touch” with us regular folk, he’s been there and lived it. Michelle Obama’s father suffered from MS. She said recently that in her memory, she never saw him walk, due to his disease. Yet he kept plugging on, and her mother is a strong independent woman too! These people “get us”.
Deborah Montesano
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
“When we talk about these issues that primarily impact women, we’ve got to realize that they are not just women’s issues, they are family issues. They are economic issues. They are growth issues.” The President nailed it!
Anne
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
I love the way the president framed the issue of women’s reproductive rights as being inextricably tied into the economic well-being of women and their families. The short-sighted Republicans along with their equally short-sighted and self-righteous minions who agree with calling young women like Sandra Fluke “sluts” are relics from the early part of the 20th century. They selfishly equate the use of birth control with promiscuity that they claim they don’t want to pay for, which is utterly ridiculous. I sincerely hope the president keeps it up, because it’s very clear what’s at stake if any Republican wins the WH, and also if the GOP ever gains control of both congressional houses.
Reynardine
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 2:19 pm
As for the attitudes Republicans have been both playing to and promulgating… I took a brief walk around the “manosphere” this morning. I found a great many malcontents who, without exception, hated every aspect of every member of a group to whom they, without exception, are closely related. That such men have been out there, we all know; that they have been reinforcing each other on the internet since its availability, we all know; we all know, too, that they have sometimes incited each other to criminal, even murderous violence. But under the high-power fuel injection of the political and religious right, I am beginning to think we may be looking at an upsurge in it, and I believe that, like racial violence, this is being deliberately stoked.
Cui bono? Some of it is simply a product of the right-wing authoritarian attitude. However, of all the “election-fraud” measures being advanced to disenfranchise demographic grups that tend left or center-left, none can be tailored that singles out women separately from men of their own group. Could the idea then be to stoke violence: street violence before the election that makes women afraid to go out, or violence at the polls, that might physically keep some from voting, or domestic violence, so that enough of a certain male demographic will beat their wives senseless rather than let them cancel their men’s votes? I’ve seen talk like that, and I suspect this is going to be an ugly election.
Johnee
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
I have no doubt that is the idea behind it, but it ain’t gonna work. Too many angry women. They have awoken a sleeping giant with this one.
The Platzner Post
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 3:37 pm
“Equal rights for all, special privileges for none” Thomas Jefferson The Plataner Post Facebook/Twitter
Rho D
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
I really don’t need to add to all the wonderful things said here, but my husband has some great things to add.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=l...
SinghX
Apr. 6th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
…[T]he women that I speak with, and the women that my wife speaks with, tell her that their No. 1 issue is the economy so that they can get good jobs for themselves and their families and they can have confidence their children can get good jobs when they come out of college or high school,” Romney
Uh, I don’t think so. The women you and Ann “speak with” are ultra-rich white woman who could care less about getting a job! Paleez! The only part of the “economy” that is an “issue” for these women is, is my status quo going to remain the same? Their life depends not on a job but, their hubby’s “business” or the trust fund they live off of in so they can shop and do lunch. As far as their “children”, it’s the same thing; status quo–it’s the trust fund and college where mum’zz-darling and daddie-dearest went for rah-rah time (and meeting other potential ultra-rich kids for mergers via an expensive party called “a wedding”).
White man, you just stepped on your ennie-weenie-pee-pee again, and, have once again, insulted all women who work for a living AND raise their own children.