An underlying socio(ill)logical republican premise: women are not sharp enough to make decisions for men, and not moral enough to make decisions about their bodies (which might endanger future/potential men). Women can't be trusted, they would like us to believe. It is this outrageous patriarchal infantilizing that makes me crazy. If I assert myself I am shrill, if I criticize I am a bitch, if I inquire, I am a naive child. And Mitt can't find anyone qualified? The problem isn't a scarcity of women of integrity, the problem is that qualified women avoid him like the plague. Intelligent people don't seek toxic environments where they will not thrive. The War on Women may more accurately classified as a war on dismissive privileged power. The gender gap may be a gender war by women (and other living things): A gender war.
(this is an expansion on a comment I made to Chris Andersen's October 16 diary, but the idea has stayed with me so I'm writing this as a diary)
The gender gap exists because women are all too familiar with the belittling and berating behavior that we are currently witnessing in the republican party. I guess it's not just current, but has been present since the boys started came home from WWII and telling us we didn't need to worry our pretty little heads about working those jobs (that we were a little too good at). We recognize the signs of moral superiority. Women say they are most interested in talking about abortion, but republicans say that's not the important issue. Which, as Kagro in the morning radio suggests, is code for saying "we don't want to talk about what you want to talk about, we want to talk about our own issues". So, we are dismissed, and told that what we think is important is not important. If we beg to differ, they shame and blame us as unattractive, slutty, belligerent, intellectual (huh?) etc. They tend to be dehumanizing, and the accusations are not confined to women, but really to any group that can be cast in the light of "other". Any group that can be differentiated from the main power structure, that is anyone who is "not characteristically me" is fair game.
People with this dysfunction like to file and categorize human characteristics (binders are perfect for this system!) so that they can have a sense of control. People who are not in categories are messy and cluttered, and tend to gum up the works. How can a person achieve one's goal with all those messy people in the way? So the behavioral habit of the person is by its very nature disenfranchising. And i think it's important to understand that the he really doesn't understand why everyone is so mad about. He can only see, and very clearly sees, his (noble to him!) goal. I believe Romney believes what he is doing is right! It is his own conviction in his righteousness that is so dangerous. And it is my expectation that he would see my way of reasoning (if only I tell him loudly/convincingly enough) that may be equally dangerous. We will not convince each other, because we live in two different worlds. To both of us, the other is Bizzarro.
So it is unreasonable for me to think he will ever be convinced by what I see as reasonable. we don't "reason" in the same way. We don't share a common reality.
He doesn't have the tools to see it any other way. But women, who have an incentive to collaborate because it has tended to be women's work to make functioning systems, share my reality. And we see Romney's behavior as representing an ugly controlling, disempowering and disenfranchising force. And we do not approve. Our vote is a way to actually count. (As Obama repeatedly suggests: don't boo, vote)
And guess what? If you are non-white, non-normative heterosexual, or non-christian you also have your own special binder! There are special bullet points for each binder, and each is talked down to, or talked over. I have this sense that if it were a simple matter every binder would be taken off the shelf and stuck into a pit. If it weren't so much trouble, so stinky and well, bad, I believe anyone in these "other" (non-me) categories would happily not exist. The problem with women; the problem with blacks/Mexicans/Indians/yankees/southerners/townies/hipsters/democrats/republicans, the problem with jews/muslims/mormons!/catholics/baptists/unitarians/atheists..., the problem is seeing people as not related to ourselves. The problem is that the world isn't big enough to share air and not share a common reality.