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A recent survey of this country showed that the biggest problem we face as a nation is our political polarization. Not rascism, nor division by religion, ethnicity or creed. We are angriest towards others on the political side of the aisle. How stupid,then, to defend the choice of Martha Raddatz as the sole moderator of the sole vice-presidential debate, now that facts have surfaced that raise legitimate questions on the appearance of bias.
The Daily Caller has exposed that Martha Raddatz, the sole moderator of the sole vice-presidential debate, hosted President Obama as her wedding guest back in 1991. Apparently, President Obama was a good friend and law school classmate of Ms. Raddatz’s groom, Julius Genochowski. Nonetheless, ABC News and the Commission on President Debates insist there is no bias, especially because Ms. Raddatz divorced Mr. Genochowski back in 1997 and each has since married other people.
Wait a second. Hold on just a minute. Ms. Raddatz may be an extremely effective journalist, known for posing tough questions to everyone in power. But it doesn’t change the fact that there is an appearance of favoritism here, and that appearances count. In this overheated campaign season, do we really need aspersions cast on the motivation of the questioner? Ms. Raddatz is the sole moderator- she gets to decide which questions to pose, in which order, and how to volley back a response. Get tough on abortion, she favors Obama/Biden, because the majority of women in this country are pro-choice. Skip it altogether, as did Jim Lehrer, and focus on budget, she could be said to favor Romney/Ryan, notably knowledgable on this issue.
Moreover, Raddatz may have divorced her first husband, but they could still be good friends. My law partner’s ex was her closest confidante for the next 30 years, until he passed away, despite the fact that each went on to marry other people. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that Ms. Raddatz would harbor personal affection for a guest at her wedding who went on to become the President of the United States. I know I would.
The fact is most often we cannot see our own biases; others need to point them out. Washington insiders are so blase, so totally used to the revolving door of public office, lobbyists, and journalists that they are uniformly refusing to see what we outside the Beltway can see so clearly. The reason this story is getting such wide circulation is that the ordinary person sees it for what it is- media bias having the potential of affecting the outcome of an election.
As a lawyer, I was ingrained with the professional training that judges should always recuse themselves from cases whenever there is even an “appearance of impropriety”. Justified or not, it is always more important that the public be satisfied in the impartiality of a ruling, rather than satisfy a particular judge’s ego to preside at a case. For the sake of the integrity of the debate process, Martha Raddatz should step aside.
I had just come back from a gathering of the National Women’s Political Caucus at the DNC in an exuberant mood. Nothing gets me more charged up than a gathering of women demanding power, insisting that their voices be heard. I was sharing my experience with a group when all of a sudden, like birds chirping one after another, they repeated the refrain ” I’m not a feminist. “. I’m not a feminist” I’m not a feminist”. For a change, I was speechless. Shock can do that to you.
Which one of you isn’t a feminist? Is it the one who is newly married and pregnant for the first time at 36, regretting that she doesn’t live in a time when she would have been called an old maid if she didn’t get married by 23? Is it the one who is a successful entrepreneur, who doesn’t remember that a generation ago a woman could not borrow money without a man’s co-signature? Or is it the defiant lesbian, an influential voice for gay rights, who doesn’t make the connection between the civil rights struggles of women a hundred years ago and the civil rights struggle for gay people today?
Stop telling me you are not a feminist. Of course you are a feminist, if you believe in the guiding principle that women should be able to chart their own course with the same freedom as men, that they are entitled to the same freedoms and opportunities as men, that their voices and their choices are as deserving of respect as those of men. I know you believe that. I know you live that.
What is it that you fear, you women who denounce the word “feminist”? Are you afraid you will be lumped in with bra burners, the pioneers and radicals who dared to dream of equal opportunity? Are you afraid you will be considered a hater of men, as if real women don’t love men? Or have you been influenced by people like Rush Limbaugh, who took a beautiful word and distorted it beyond recognition- equating the struggle for human rights with the Nazi party. If Rush Limbaugh is your barometer for self-worth, shame on you.
When I asked why you dissociate yourself with feminism, one of you told me that you blame the movement for the fact that your dates no longer open your car doors nor offer to pay the dinner bill. One boor actually divided the check based upon his estimate of the ratio between what he earned vs. you. Apparently he earned less. It would be too easy for me to dismiss this with a flip “then you’re going out with the wrong guys”, which you clearly are. I’m comfortably ensconced in a marriage, light years away from today’s dating world, where the sexual and economic mores have decidedly changed for women, not necessarily for the better. But opening a car door for a woman isn’t laden with a political agenda- it’s a matter of common courtesy and decent manners. If a guy doesn’t have those, dump him. So what to do about this dilemma of wanting equality but also wanting to be treated special, of wanting to be able to earn the same dollar but also wanting the guy to pick up the check? What do you say to the guy who thinks that feminism entitles him to be a cheapskate?
You might remind the guy that women do the lion’s share of the work in this world, the work of devotion to our careers, our families and our communities. We go to school in greater numbers than men. Nowadays we often out-earn our men, but only because we’ve chosen careers in lower paying fields like education and health which continue to be in great demand. Men still overwhelmingly hog the top of the one percent. And while some men are increasing their child-rearing commitment, a whopping 40 percent of American women last year gave birth without being married at all, statistically forecasting a family life in which the dad will be all but absent in everyday life. As we get older, we do the lion’s share of caring for our parents too, forgoing our earnings in order to spend quality time with our loved ones. If your guy is both honest and bright, he knows that chances are, long-term, he’ll end up with a lot more money in his bank account than you will. But you, too, should be kind. If you can really afford to split the bill, you should at least offer to do so. Feminism is about enabling women to have choices; it is not about turning a blind eye to reality.
The next time you brag about not being a feminist, remember who you stand with in your cause. The Taliban is right beside you, telling the female representative of the US State Department to go back to her husband when she tried to do her job. The Hasidim are right beside you, insisting that their women shave their head when they marry, in obedience to God. Millions of Indians and Pakistanis stand with you, marrying their daughters off at 12 to strange, older and often abusive men.
You want to know why we haven’t achieved equality in the workplace and the home? Just look in the mirror. We are our own worst enemy.
If you believe the conventional wisdom, all presidential elections boil down to money. Do you have more than you did four years ago? Answer yes, the incumbent wins. Answer no, the other guy gets it. But this year is different. This November, as never before, we women will have to choose between our wallets and our wombs. This may not be the choice we wanted, but it's the choice we've got. For me, it's pretty easy. I've only got one womb. Money comes and goes.
Republicans are frantically trying to change the subject again. They thought they were safe for a while, that we had forgotten Rick Santorum's march against contraception and abortion, that we were suitably distracted from the nasty Republican primary battles. But this week they got nabbed. Republican Rep. and Senatorial candidate Todd Akin was caught on videotape opining that in cases of "legitimate rape" most women didn't get pregnant anyway because "their own bodies" presumably fight this outcome. Bottom line? No need to really worry about that pesky exception of allowing abortion in cases of rape because it isn't really necessary anyway. Oops. Off playbook. Abortion is back on page one, complete with a rare press conference by President Obama labeling the comments "offensive" and a statement issued by Romney that he utterly refutes the comments of Akin.
We really ought to be grateful for the recent tongue tripping. Why? Because we must face it: Today's national Republican establishment is obsessed with taking away all rights that women currently possess to abort any fetuses they carry. Republicans are obsessed with removing our choices about whether, when and with whom to reproduce, with inserting themselves into our medical examination rooms (literally, in some cases, via the transvaginal ultrasound) and with changing the laws to view women merely as a carrying vessel for a fetus, rather than an adult with rights of her own. We can no longer pretend that this is a social issue that real Republicans don't really bother with; that once in office, Mitt Romney will focus on money and nothing else. As an occasional Republican myself, I wish that were true. It's not. Romney's appointment of Paul Ryan as his running mate confirms the anti-choice agenda in big, bold, bright red colors.
Paul Ryan and Todd Akin are allies on the subject of abortion, both co-sponsoring the Personhood Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would define life as beginning at conception. For a guy who proclaims to be all about states' rights, this is certainly an end run around them, and would upend thousands of individual state laws regulating infertility treatments, stem cell research grants, abortions, criminal conduct, car accidents involving a pregnant mother and countless more laws designed to find a balance between competing interests on this very complicated subject. If passed, this Amendment would criminalize any attempt to abort a fetus, regardless of the mother's life. Make no mistake on this -- Paul Ryan is as much a zealot on the issue of abortion as he is on the issue of trimming the budget.
This past June, a bill on flood insurance to ease the catastrophic consequences to thousands of Americans besieged by spring floods was held up because Republican Sen. Rand Paul attached the Personhood Amendment to the bill. The same thing happened earlier in the year to another unrelated bill. They won't be stopped unless we stop them. We need to send the Republicans a message, once and for all, to return to their real roots, as crusaders for fiscal sanity, environmental stewardship (yes, that too was once the Republican party) and social libertarianism. The only way they get the message is to lose.
On center stage during the Republican convention in Tampa, little overt reference will be given to these crucial issues that affect every woman at some point in her life. Look for the covert message to the party faithful. Rick Santorum will be speaking. Pro-choice Republicans have been drummed out of the party. Paul Ryan is the stand-in for number one.
The Republicans need us women, badly. In 2008, 70 million women voted. Only 60 million men did. Without the support of women in large numbers, Republicans know they simply can't win. They are counting on us to prioritize the money in our pocketbooks over the control over our bodies, and over the bodies of our daughters, friends and sisters. We will be bombarded with persuasive data that we should gamble our votes on Romney/Ryan to put more bread on our tables and more money in our savings accounts. We will be almost convinced because the Republicans are good at sticking to the script, and let's face it, we aren't exactly in economic boom times, despite the healthy stock market. No one wants to pay more taxes, and the Democrats are stuck in their own ideological rut, telling us that the answer to our problems is to put more money into more government agencies which give us more incomprehensible regulations that slow everybody down.
Every election seems to end up giving us the choice of the lesser of two evils.
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