I'm siding with Kos and Amanda Marcotte here. As much as the thought of Santorum being taken seriously and receiving a public platform makes me throw up in my mouth a little each day, he is the candidate we want to fight because he IS the war on women.
Honestly I've been flummoxed by the diaries today against Operation Hilarity. I think hilarity is the wrong title, the longer the joke goes on the less hilarious it gets, that's how I've felt about the primaries since long before the holidays. But besides the name, I think it's a great idea. In fact, I hope Rick Santorum is the candidate. Amanda outlines why:
If in fact anti-choicers double down and start attacking contraception more directly, I welcome that like it was a birthday party thrown for me by a rich benefactor. Dragging this out and fighting about sex openly is what pro-choicers have always wanted, because once we start talking about what this is really about, we win. Being anti-sex is unpopular and makes you look like a complete weirdo. Even people who were against the mandate are probably going to get sour if this fight becomes more explicitly about a bunch of a religious nuts trying to tell us how to fuck. I want to fight about contraception. It's like fighting over cable television. The side against it is going to lose that one.
I think
Amanda and
Greg Sargent hit the nail on the head here. Feminism has been bearing a backlash for 30 years. All the disingenuous arguments about religious freedom, economic liberty, and valuing 'life' is bullshit. We've all know it's bullshit. But nobody embodies that bullshit better than Rick Santorum. The more Rick Santorum gets a public platform, the more the TRUE anti-women arguments surface (alla his book, particularly the passages
his wife wrote). And when the true anti-woman agenda is made clear, the backlash from women will be there and be very real.
This sausage party is being exposed, and women are gonna get pissed.
Which is why I found it ironic when Kos described the criticisms as getting the 'vapors' or 'pearl clutching'. I don't know about the dudes on this site, but the women will be ready for a fight on this one. Starting August 2012, I suddenly have access to affordable birth control. This hit home for me when for various health reasons I went on the patch, only to NOT go on the patch because of an $85 copay (and I have good insurance). Take that times millions, every woman on birth control starting in this August.
And one more thing, growing up in a conservative state and knowing (and being related to a lot of conservatives) the real war on women (not the cover stories about fetuses and religious liberty) will not go well here. My dad might not call himself a feminist, but he helped me sue my school for a Title IX violation when I was in High School. To him, in his words, equal rights for women just makes sense. We pride ourselves on work ethic here, and we have one of the highest proportion of women in the labor market. Saying women should be in the home will NOT work here. And for the record, my dad liked Paul Ryan's budget and wants Gingrich to be the nominee. He's also against gay marriage (I'm working on it). The one thing him and I have agreed on since childhood is that women should get the same opportunities as men. Thank you feminist movement!
