liberal

telling

Yesterday I wrote about a woman being branded by a group of people for calling CPS to protect children.

Today, I’m going to write about the way a female candidate is treated by a certain male journalist.

But first, confirm this for me. We are in the year 2007, right? And people keep saying we’ve reached the threshold of equality, right? I mean, I keep hearing younger people saying that we have complete equality between the sexes.

But…the disparity between us is still huge. Take, for instance, the election for President of the United States.

MediaMatters reports that on the Chris Matthews Show, this took place:

Asked by Time managing editor Richard Stengel, “What are you suggesting by asking does this diminish her as a commander in chief by being surrounded by women?,” Matthews replied: “No, the idea that it — well, let me just get historic. We’ve never had a woman commander in chief.”

Right…historic. Because everything should be based on what has happened in the past. As if going with the status quo — John Wayne and General Patton — has been so great for us.

What really gets me, though, is that people are actually discussing the fact that Clinton has other women surrounding her. That’s a bad thing? And then discussing their hair color. WTF?!?

“It makes a case with a certain demographic, and I noticed the picture on the front of The Washington Post the other day showed her with all these women and her crew, and did you notice, there was only one blonde out of about 15 women, so it sort of — I thought that was very telling.”

Women with needs, Matthews says. Yeah…because, really, we’re either needy, maladjusted women or supposed to be beautiful, barefoot, and in the kitchen waitin’ for our man. We’re not supposed to be ambitious, intelligent, or fraternizing with other ambitious, intelligent women. Cardinal sins, those are.

Be a good girl. Shut your mouth. Don’t try to work outside the box.

one giant step


I am thrilled that a woman has finally been elected as Speaker of the House. This powerful position is in the number 3 spot for the Presidency of the United States (behind the President, himself, of course, and the Vice President).

What I’m not so thrilled about is that it is Pelosi. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a decent representative. However, I think she plays favorites (as witnessed with her earlier nomination of a friend who had ethics issues) and this whole thing about being the mother is really starting to irk me.

I think that her play on “mothering five children so I can handle the House” is silly. Really. It belittles the members of Congress. They are not children (although, on occasion, some members have acted more like children than most of the kids I know). I think it also reinforces this whole attitude of women being mothers first.

We’re not all mothers. Some of us don’t ever want to be. Some of us will never get the chance. That doesn’t mean, however, that we, too, couldn’t make good leaders in government, commerce, or otherwise. Being a mother doesn’t mean you can be, either.

Yes, it’s an admirable job. In fact, I’ll be the first to say that I think parenting is the hardest job people have and those that do it well should be commended and looked up to for what they do. I admire good parenting. I admire the kids that come from good parenting. I don’t think parents get enough credit for what they do.

What bothers me, however, is that this theme keeps coming up with Pelosi. Great, she’s been a mom to five. Great, she’s a grandmother. That’s awesome. But what will she do for this country? And how will she do it without looking at all of us like we’re her children? We’re not. We are the people who pay her salary and we deserve to be treated as such, not patronized or condescended to.

That’s not good parenting.

up in flames

I get the “flaming liberal” moniker more often than not. What people don’t realize about me is that I was born into a 5 generation Navy family. I was a Navy brat, traveling around the country with my Dad. Both of my grandfathers were Navy. Most of my uncles were Navy.

My family has a long history in the military. So, I’m not some Ivy League kid grousing at the injustices of war. I’m talking about human lives. I have a great uncle that I never got to meet because he was killed in WWII at the bombing of Pearl Harbor. War sacrifices good men. War legitimizes bad behavior (at times).

We have to look at it and ask if that’s what we want from war. Do we want to walk away feeling pretty good about our actions or do we want to walk away feeling like we let something happen that was atrocious? We have that power to decide.