I think not.
Lately I've been seeing more and more evidence that election season is indeed upon us, and on our cute little block of suburbia, a curious phenomenon is occurring. In every 5th window or so up and down our block, a little blue placard proclaiming "Women for Obama" has popped up, and I'm just a little bit confused and a lot concerned.
You see, I find the whole idea of being labelled a constituent of that oh-so-desirable demographic "the women's vote" a bit offensive. Yes, I'm a woman. But I'm also a unique and complex human person, and my chromosomal makeup sure doesn't determine the way my politics swing. As if having breasts confines me to membership in a voting block that will or won't cast a ballot dependent upon receiving freebies from Uncle Sam in the shape of little pink pill packs?
Hardly.
I find it deeply offensive that 1. the entire spectrum of women's "health" has been reduced down to two fundamental issues: abortion and contraception, and 2. that women are somehow perceived as being primarily concerned with their reproductive organs over, say, the economy, foreign policy, school quality, the poverty level, excruciating tax rates and other such worrisome issues of the day.
Are we to assume that those stuffy old issues are best dealt with by the menfolk, and we ought not to worry our pretty little heads about such big, serious matters, but just keep filling our prescriptions for birth control and the federal government will foot the bill? (Pat, pat, there, there, little lady.)
Hi, I'm a 21st century woman and I am offended.
And my sexual behavior? That's my own responsibility, not the government's, thank God. (For now, at least.) I don't need the contraceptive equivalent of food stamps every month to help me "get by," and it sure as heck isn't going to sway my vote this November if I can count on a federal kickback for toxic chemical ingestion.
Even for women who lean leftward in their politics and ideals, I cannot fathom how such an approach can be anything but deeply offensive to them on a primal level. Can't they see the ironic, blatant anti-feminism behind such tired rhetoric?
Can't they see that keeping women carefully, consistently sterilized and thereby "freed" for economic contribution is so much of the same tired old system of repression and degradation that we are supposedly evolved beyond?
And don't they expect more from a president than the condescending promise of free pills and continued government-funded access to the woman-hating mega-business Planned Parenthood?
I suppose if they are indeed members of that mythic "women's vote," whose only apparent common thread is an ugly, rose-colored shade of apparent self-loathing, they don't mind much at all.
I, for one, prefer to be seen as more than a sexually-active baby-maker. Because those are things that I do, they don't solely define who I am.
Think I'm totally crazy? Remember this excerpt from Obama's Planned Parenthood promo tour last time around.
How's that for a vote of confidence for the fairer sex?
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