Women are not impressed with Fox Business’ Erick Erickson today, after he said it’s natural for men to dominate women, “the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.”
Sigh.
Watch here via Media Matters if you dare:
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Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire broke it down:
After a Pew Research report found that mothers were the sole breadwinners in 40% of American households with children, Erick Erickson said on Fox Business that it is “anti-science” to suggest that’s acceptable.
Said Erickson: “I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology — when you look at the natural world — the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complementary role.”
I’m going to try to avoid the obvious problem with Erickson’s “idea”, which is that Erick Erickson doesn’t exactly strike me as the dominant type, unless knuckle-dragging thuggery passes for dominance in a civilized world. Enough said.
Still, Mr. Erickson exemplifies why the Republican Party is stuck in their itty bitty Mad Men tent. The women on Twitter were less than impressed.
Mr. Erickson seems to suddenly want to embrace science, and we applaud this choice. However, one doesn’t get to cherry pick science, and to that end, I’d like to introduce him to the black widow, as suggested by many women on Twitter.
Mr.Erickson’s real problem is that he sees women who work as “competing” with men, and clearly, this is one area where the Republican does not advocate for a free market based upon competition, where the best woman/man wins. Mr. Erickson seeks to limit the competition, by driving out all of the women, who should instead be serving in complementary roles. So, what it comes down to for him is fear. (Remember when I pointed out that Mr. Erickson doesn’t strike me as a dominant person? Yeah.)
I’m going to go out on a limb here by presuming that Mr. Erickson’s idea of women doing proper female work is raising children. However, even if a woman is raising children while “the man” (pardon me, but I’m trying to talk to 1950 here) works outside of the home, she is contributing equally to their family goals. Even the church tries to make this point in these modern times, striking a separate but equal note that should alarm those who know better, but is a step up from helpmate. Just how far back do Republicans want to go?
So, Erickson’s “idea” is a fail within his own ideology, and certainly a fail outside of it. While some conservatives seem happy to compare themselves to animals in order to justify being Neanderthals, liberals tend to believe in evolution and civilization. Thus, we don’t cherry pick the “science” of animal behavior in order to justify a refusal to grow up and evolve. That’s just sad.
The real issue with women working isn’t that Mr. Erickson is so concerned about his inability to compete, but that America is tough on working parents, regardless of their gender. “The country ranks at number 17 out of 22 developed countries on women’s labor force participation, down from a post at number six two decades ago. Those losses can be attributed to a lack of policies that can help working parents, according to researchers, including paid parental leave, protections for part-time work, and spending on child care,” according to Think Progress.
If Mr. Erickson’s goal was to remind women why they did not vote Republican in 2012, then job well done, sir. But mostly, I’m not impressed. I find Mr. Erickson’s inability to compete predictably boring, and his comparison of men to animals only indicates the lack of imagination often found in habitual projectors. It is redundant to call out his confused, lost misogyny at this point.
Fox, Republican, done.
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