As the campaign emails grow increasingly frantic from both sides, it becomes evident how quickly the elections are approaching. Both candidates have had their chances to “introduce themselves to the public,” because obviously the last year of campaign commercials and gaffe-a-thons hasn’t been enough for us.
Each side has had their own approach to winning the election. Romney has been driving home the mantra “you built this!”, specifying exactly how out-of-touch Obama is in regards to the needs of the people. Sometimes, he has blatantly lied and reinvented mathematics for the purpose of using a statistic at an optimal moment in a debate. Either that or just killing Big Bird because it worked out well in Massachusetts…or something. Obama has been, more or less, standing back (or just falling asleep) using a main argument that even though things aren’t drastically better than they were four years ago, at least he isn’t the other guy.
Yes. The election is coming, and as President Obama said in a recent interview on the Daily Show, “the stakes have never been higher.” Each candidate has been pandering to different voting groups in an effort to come out on top. One of the most talked-about minority groups seems to be women.
No, neither group is concerned about winning the vote of the elusive white middle class male. However, women have become exotic creatures in the voting world, at least according to politicians. So that is exactly why they’re making such bland platitudes about women’s rights during debates, right?
It’s really not the issue of which women’s rights are being debated. I’m not saying that I’m not all for contraception being covered by basic healthcare plans, the right to choose, funding for Planned Parenthood, equal pay and reproductive justice. Those things are all great. But what is frustrating is the fact that they’re being debated at all. I mean, the fact that I want options to ensure that there will be no babies in my uterus until I’m ready is not an open invitation for politicians to set up camp there. That seems like it should be self-explanatory.
We all know that if males were required to push watermelon sized infants out of their urethras, there would be countless options for them. Deciding whether to get an abortion would hold the significance of deciding whether to get their morning coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts and it would never come into question by politicians or anyone else for that matter.
I guess if people aren’t just going to accept the fact that women are humans that deserve basic rights to their own bodies, they should at least give women the benefit of the doubt and believe that they care about things beyond women’s rights in politics. Yes, we would like to have rights to our bodies. But we also have concerns beyond ourselves that include things like foreign policy, the economy, education and other absurd things. Who would have thought?
The other bothersome thing is the way that the media tries to predict the female vote (especially on the conservative side *cough* Fox News). They take the most insignificant quirks of the candidates’ performance and rate them as “Hot or Not” like they’re some kind of twisted and completely un-sexy version of a Cosmo sex column. A recurring phrase is “(insert completely irrelevant and fabricated action here) is a total turn off to women.” Well excuse me sir, you don’t know my life or what turns me on. Maybe I think Obama’s studly chiseled jawline is damn attractive. Do you know? No you don’t.
However, if you have ever talked to, met, or even seen a woman, you should probably have a pretty good idea that we don’t like being told what to do with our reproductive systems. We don’t even like it when you backseat drive. So thanks for the concern and paternalistic feelings, but no thanks.
This will be the first election in which I am able to vote. Part of me feels like it’s a privilege to be a part of something so big, but the simplest factor of being a woman has made it a different experience. I’m simultaneously being used as a political argument while being completely disregarded as a person with opinions that range beyond my body. I agree with Obama when he says that these aren’t women’s issues, but rather family and human issues. The way a society, even one as supposedly as advanced as our own, regards women says worlds about its values and characters. Although, I do know one thing for sure: The candidates have not made it a tough choice, I’ll be voting for the one that doesn’t expect me home to make dinner. •
Well said! Send this to every paper in the country!