Mark Steyn: Idea of 'women's issues' a lie

If you were a newspaper editor and you were trying to figure out what big analysis piece to splash over your front page the Sunday after the election, what would you go with? Well, the Valley News, the biggest daily in the western part of New Hampshire, surveyed the scene the morning after: A state that had been high up on the list of Democratic targets had instead voted for an all-Republican congressional delegation, an all-Republican executive council, a Republican governor, and a 75 percent Republican state Senate and general court. Nevertheless, the editors dutifully looked up "Post-Election Analysis Features You Can't Go Wrong With No Matter How Many Times You Trot Them Out" in the Columbia Journalism School Book of Lame-O Cliche Stories You Can Serve Straight From the Freezer and turned in a somnolent front-pager headlined "Women Candidates Fared Poorly In Midterm Elections."

As it happens, certain women candidates fared rather well in the elections: Elizabeth Dole and Katharine Harris, for example. On the other hand, the Widow Carnahan in Missouri and Kathleen KENNEDY!!! Townsend flopped out. I wonder what could be the reason for the remarkable disparity in how these women fared. Might it have something to do with the fact that the former are Republican women and the latter Democrat? Perish the thought! Pondering the fate of the Widow Carnahan and Jeanne Shaheen, the Valley News and its interviewees--spokeswomen for the National Organization for Women, etc.--thought that women's issues such as ''reproductive rights'' had been overshadowed by the way Bush had gone around whipping up a lot of "fear" about obscure fringe issues like national security.

If you were really interested in doing a story on women and the elections, it would be this: "Women Candidates Backed By So-Called Women's Groups Fared Poorly." The women who had the bad luck to be endorsed by the abortion absolutists at NOW, NARAL and Emily's List bombed big time, which might suggest even to our dopey press that perhaps the rent-a-quote spokeswomen don't represent quite as many women as they claim to.

The other story that might be worth going with is ''Young Women Hot For Republicans.'' Indications are that, in this month's election, the famous ''gender gap'' from which the GOP's country-club old-boys executive-men's-room sexists are always said to suffer was wiped out among young voters. To be honest, I've never really subscribed to the ''gender gap'' theory. After all, a gender gap cuts both ways, and in recent years the Democrats have arguably suffered more from their lack of appeal to men. But on Nov. 5, guess what? Among female voters under 30, as many voted Republican as Democrat. The Dems are the party of old women. Oh, OK, ''mature'' women.

But come on, does anyone honestly vote like this? If I've got a choice between Condi Rice and Ted Kennedy, I'll go with the broad. If it's Don Rumsfeld vs. Nancy Pelosi, I'll vote my gender. And, believe it or not, most feminists do the same thing: If it was Elizabeth Dole vs. Bill Clinton, the need to elect women would take a back seat to the need to elect a ''pro-choice'' serial pants-dropper. The only people who think in these terms are folks like Judy Woodruff, who late in the evening on CNN, with Democrat hopes crumbling to north, south, east and west, suddenly decided that there was a pressing need to discover how ''women'' were doing in this election and commanded the back-room psephologists to unearth the relevant data. Now Judy is all a-twitter because Nancy Pelosi has become the first woman in Congress to be elected party leader.

Who cares? Just about the least interesting thing about Pelosi is that she's a woman. What's interesting is that she's a Haight-Ashbury leftist who voted against war with Iraq. That's likely to prove more relevant in the two years ahead than whether she looks better in a bikini than Walter Mondale. What is a ''women's issue'' anyway? To some, it might be the sacred constitutional right to avail oneself of a partial-birth abortion. But to others it might be the war on terror. After all, if there's one single issue that distinguishes Western values from Islamofascism, it's the treatment of women. Imagine being forbidden by law to go to school or leave the house unaccompanied. Imagine the state deciding what clothes you can wear. Imagine being prevented by law from feeling sunlight on your face. I'd say voting for people who liberate women from theocratic fascism is a women's issue.

Most American voters aren't interested in candidates because they're women, or because they're widows, or because they're triple-amputees, or because they're last-minute iconic replacements for suddenly deceased senators. Believe it or not, right now they're interested in a couple of overriding issues. A not insignificant segment of the electorate has moved in one direction and, if the Democrats aren't to do worse next time (the Senate seats they're defending give no cause for optimism), they have to figure out a way to get that segment to move back toward them. Who is this segment? And why does it prefer the Republicans? Some of us reckon we know. But the media keep yakking on about ''women's issues'' and all the other pre-9/11 trivia as if all the king's cliches and all the king's bumper stickers can put Humpty Dumpty Democrat together again.

It's not just the Democrats who'd benefit from a little self-examination. What about all those network boobs who gave us the fawning puff pieces about how Bill Clinton's crowd-pulling rock-star charisma is bigger than ever on the campaign trail? Sure, he pulls crowds--of Republicans, to the polls. And, as bad as the Wellstone ''memorial service'' was, it wasn't as lousy as the media coverage of it. On the following morning, CNN's Jonathan Karl reported that ''the overflow crowd came as much to celebrate Paul Wellstone's life as to mourn his death,'' and referred only to the ''impassioned appeal'' made by the senator's son. The boos for Trent Lott? The walkout by Gov. Jesse Ventura? The totalitarian hectoring by Wellstone aide Rick Kahn as he singled out attending Republicans by name and demanded they switch sides? Jonathan Karl sat through all of it and evidently thought none of it worth mentioning. It was the same with Jodi Wilgoren in the New York Times, whose report of the event--''Mourning In Minnesota''--seemed blithely unaware of its tenor. Kahn's partisan bullying was described only as a ''spirited eulogy.'' Karl and Wilgoren missed the story: They saw what millions of American TV viewers saw, but they were either blind or averted their eyes.

Remind me never to complain about ''liberal media bias'' again. Right now, liberal media bias is conspiring to assist the Democrats to sleepwalk over the cliff.

The Dems are the party of old women. Oh, OK, ''mature'' women

Oh, I like that one. We have to start getting that one out and around.

When I worked as a poll judge on the 5th, only one person felt compelled to comment on her voting preference as we were getting her ballot ready, and sure enough she was over 50 and democrat, and her assumption, looking at me - being in the same age group - was that I was obviously a 'sister' in the 'fight' for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Was she ever wrong! In more ways than one!

"There was a problem; it's been fixed, now get over it!"

This same syndrome afflicts the greens. The fact that we have done a terrific job of cleaning up our air and water is dismissed with a shrug as they ride increasingly irrelevant and more costly environmental "issues" into the ground. Partnered with junk science and the lapdog media they cling to their cushy jobs and bureaucratic power.

This same syndrome afflicts the greens. The fact that we have done a terrific job of cleaning up our air and water is dismissed with a shrug as they ride increasingly irrelevant and more costly environmental "issues" into the ground. Partnered with junk science and the lapdog media they cling to their cushy jobs and bureaucratic power.

_________________*__________*________________

The environmentalist movement was never really about cleaning the environment. It was always about eliminating individual property rights and replacing it with collective property rights. It has used the useful idiots of the entertainment industry to market the movement in a way to pass dual objective laws.

In the 60's it was called the conservation movement and it was not environmentalism it was ecology. Those terms have too much on individual responsibility and does not go with the eco-socialists true goals. (why else is gorbachev now mucking around with the enviro-wackos?)

This woman's issues: #1 is homeland security (at which the Dems are hopeless and pathetic). Then: economic stability, affordable health care and prescriptions, protection of the pre-born, protection of the right to bear arms, protection of the right of religious expression.

Blankity-blank Geocities. If the image doesn't load properly, click here to see it.

Oh, no. I love it. Love it. Love it, love it, love it. Love it. Oh my gosh, I love it. Why would I not? I just love it. Holy smoke. I really, really love it.
-- Ben Stein, when asked if his 'Ferris Bueller' bit part ever haunted him (Quoted from here).

As a newly elected public servant, I can tell you that there are, indeed, "women's issues." Take childcare, not one male Supervisor will tolerate having to serve on that county committee. Behavioral health, elder care, child abuse, family services - all the same. This is the "women supervisors" automatic domain. Also, if you look at the committees, there are very few men serving on them - unless they are department heads or physicians. This implies that women care enough about these issue to commit their time and talents to them.

Observing the political leanings of those involved in these issues as a profession, particularly teachers and sociologists, I would say that they are liberal.

Recently, I was privileged to hear Charles Wiley of Accuracy in Media speak. He recounted a story about an obituary of a gentleman who was identified as a Republican and, "in contrast," involved in charitable works.

When my son told his female friend that his mom was a Republican, she crinkled her nose and stated that she couldn't understand why a woman would be a Republican.

I, for one, think we have some image problems. We can pat ourselves on the back and deny it, but the problem will not go away.

You points fail to adress the flip side. Few young men will confess to being democrats because young male democrats are either gay or there because thier wives or girlfriends made them. The democrats have a huge image problem. This last election was not that the democrats did not get their message across, the democrats have sucessfully gotten their message across and the public knows what they are about.

As for acuracy in media, aren't they a left wing media group with the belief that the media has a conservative bias? Try http://www.mrc.org

It is not only any issue of committing time and talents. The childcare committtee (which you do not identify) which you describe are more administrative. Why would any man want to help an institution which has destroyed children and the family unit in the guise of day care.

The image for democrats is fundamental. Not only does the Democrat party not care about straight and/or family men, it agressivly hates straight and/or family men. Who wants to be part of a group that hates you.

The speaker from Accuracy in Media is a conservative. The speach was given at a Republican Women's Dinner.

Your comments about childcare reveal that you may possibly be trapped in the 19th century. Most women now work to earn a living. Without childcare, there is no welfare reform, latch key kids and increased juvenile crime. It is also a huge part of local economies, where parents may pay from $600-$1000 per child a month for care. It is also a profession with many specially credentialed early child development teachers providing services.

When you make statements about childcare having a responsibility in breaking up the family unit, you will probably have huge disagreement from more than half of the population - women. Childcare is an industry that arose in response to a need by BOTH male and female parents to provide supervision and enrichment to their children when THEY were unable to be home to take care of them themselves. The reasons THEY are unable to be home are generally economic, although many men do not see personal child care as part of their responsiblity as a parent.

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