Hillarysworld

VotedHillary · Platinum

Obama faces new criticism from women's groups over his team (Silla Brush and Sam Youngman - 9/12/10 - The Hill)

freespirit · Moderator

In fairness, The New Agenda was organized following the 2008 theft of the nomination from Hillary, if I'm not mistaken. I believe their primary goal is to increase the number of women running for office and elected. NOW, of course, is a different matter. Although Kim Gandy, the Obamanut, and suck-up is no longer president of NOW. I don't know much about the organization at this point, having said to hell with it in 2008. A couple of state NOW offices actually stood up to The One and the DNP, but the national organization showed how little it gave a damn about women in 2008. They were apparently so infatuated with Obama, they forgot to defend the competent, experienced, strong female candidate against the sexism perpetrated by the DNP, the Obama campaign, and MSM.

Sanders · Diamond

IMHO: Pushing women candidates should not come at the expense of women's equality movement.

I hope The New Agenda pays attention to whether the women they promote are pro-women's equality. It is something very important... otherwise, we will end up simply undermining much of the work of the women's movemment... and get undesirable outcomes such as the loss faced by Sen.Lisa Murkowski due to the action of a not so pro-women person who endorsed another candidate over Lisa Murkowski who did a very pro-women action in supporting Ledbetter Equal Pay Act.

freespirit · Moderator

I have been a member of TNA since not long after it began, and believe they have done some important work in standing up for women. I did become concerned, as well, about a couple of recent blog articles from TNA, encouraging women not to allow the reproductive rights issue get in the way of supporting female candidates.

Many of us were able vote for McCain/Palin in 2008, in part, because of her promise not to involve herself with weakening reproductive rights. And, we wanted to protest the fact that the Dem Party had for too long, taken its female members and their votes for granted, claiming to be the party that supported reproductive rights. Believing they could keep women in line using the abortion rights issue, the DNP, of course, supported the unqualified man over the qualified woman.

In spite of the willingness of many of us to set the issue aside in 2008, IMO we can't risk having these rights eroded further, especially, after the Dems used abortion rights and women's health care as bargaining chips in order to pass Obama's HCR. We are losing ground in this area, and we didn't have a great deal to lose. For me (not speaking for anyone else), as much as I would love to see women filling congressional seats and all other elected positions across this country, I would find it very difficult to again support a candidate, male or female - Republican or Dem, who was anti-reproductive rights.

IMO, at some point, this issue has to be addressed. We can't just pretend it's a non-issue, which should not stand in the way of women getting elected.

Not many of the comments at TNA agreed with my position. That's fine. We should be able to disagree with each other. Several of the comments presented intelligent, reasoned responses. But, my position hasn't changed. I won't vote for a woman or man with whom I have significant philosophical differences.

Sanders · Diamond

freespirit wrote:
I have been a member of TNA since not long after it began, and believe they have done some important work in standing up for women. I did become concerned, as well, about a couple of recent blog articles from TNA, encouraging women not to allow the reproductive rights issue get in the way of supporting female candidates.

Many of us were able vote for McCain/Palin in 2008, in part, because of her promise not to involve herself with weakening reproductive rights. And, we wanted to protest the fact that the Dem Party had for too long, taken its female members and their votes for granted, claiming to be the party that supported reproductive rights. Believing they could keep women in line using the abortion rights issue, the DNP, of course, supported the unqualified man over the qualified woman.

In spite of the willingness of many of us to set the issue aside in 2008, IMO we can't risk having these rights eroded further, especially, after the Dems used abortion rights and women's health care as bargaining chips in order to pass Obama's HCR. We are losing ground in this area, and we didn't have a great deal to lose. For me (not speaking for anyone else), as much as I would love to see women filling congressional seats and all other elected positions across this country, I would find it very difficult to again support a candidate, male or female - Republican or Dem, who was anti-reproductive rights.

IMO, at some point, this issue has to be addressed. We can't just pretend it's a non-issue, which should not stand in the way of women getting elected.

Not many of the comments at TNA agreed with my position. That's fine. We should be able to disagree with each other. Several of the comments presented intelligent, reasoned responses. But, my position hasn't changed. I won't vote for a woman or man with whom I have significant philosophical differences.

freespirit, I agree with you 100%

Let me add one more concern here. Our society has advanced in many ways. The bond of marriage has weakened greatly.

The latest on that is NY State, thanks to a law passed by Gov.Paterson a few weeks ago - divorces in NY can now be unilateral - i.e., do not require mutual consent. There are two parts to this: Any relationship that is not on sound grounds and has headed seriously down the wrong path is not worth keeping. Especially when the parties do not see eye to eye about viability of the relationhip, it needs to end. That said, a woman is still in a vulnerable position, especially in this economy, from being able to go get a job and sustain herself and her family. On top of this, if the person is also pregnant and is suddenly finding herself holding a divorce paper -- imagine that situation.

IMHO, WE ABSOLUTELY CANNOT afford to loose ground on reproductive rights anymore.

Nor can we afford to loose equal opportunity, and equal pay. But honestly, these are probably secondary - and I hate to put it that way, but it has become incredibly important for women to have more control on their body and their destiny.

Otherwise, in combination with other social change that continues to evolve, the woman could end up with the short end of the deal every time.

The extent to which a candidate supports women's rights is going to have big impact on whether I vote for that candidate. In asessing whether the candidate does support women's rights... we can no longer go with a candidate who talks on both sides of their mouth. Not one from the left, nor one from the right. If they are willing to serve up platitudes and say "above my paygrade" or "I govern by the people" - non-answers that are are good for whatever you are looking for - that is not going to be good enough anymore. We will need direct and straight answers.

-- Edited by Sanders on Tuesday 14th of September 2010 03:23:47 AM