It is finally dawning on some women that a Republican in the White House backed by GOP control of Congress would set back women's rights by more than 50 years, perhaps even to a time when women lost their jobs after World War II in favor of returning GIs. This time our veterans are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to a still dismal labor scene. I can just hear Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney vying to be the first to proclaim Marabel Morgan was right, a woman's place is in the home, not the office or factory and, heaven to Betsy, for sure not on the construction site or in a police or fireman’s uniform. They should be home baking cookies and meat loaves, not writing legal briefs or news stories.
The NY Times reported Saturday women are squeamish about the prospects of Republican control of their reproductive rights (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/us/politics/centrist-women-tell-of-disenchantment-with-gop.html?_r=1). Excuse me, but were they Sleeping Beauties during the last 18 months when newly elected Republican state governors and legislators rolled back social, educational, health, welfare and labor laws? What did they expect people like Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Santorum and Romney to do if elected? Hadn't they been listening to Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other right wing crazies tell us they preferred a country of the past?
This sudden awakening by Republican and independent women really ticks me off. Had they rallied before to the reality of a conservative mindset on social and cultural issues, perhaps we wouldn't have been subjected to the spectacle of candidates trying to out-Neanderthal each other. Perhaps we wouldn't have tolerated during the debates applause for the death penalty, calls to let a sick person without health insurance die, and the Dark Ages idea that higher education is for snobs.
Seriously. I know Obama has lots of faults. But seriously, how can any thinking person truly consider voting for candidates with so radical a view of our future that they would take us back to our past and beyond?
