How Can Republicans Court the Female Vote? By Embracing Reproductive Rights
August 31, 2007
Kimberly Strassel has an innovative column in the WSJ today about how the Republican party can and should be courting the female vote.
She argues that a flat tax would be attractive to women because:
Most married women are second-earners. That means their income is added to that of their husband’s, and thus taxed at his highest marginal rate. So the married woman working as a secretary keeps less of her paycheck than the single woman who does the exact same job. This is the ultimate in “inequality,” yet Democrats constantly promote the very tax code that punishes married working women. In some cases, the tax burdens and child-care expenses for second-earners are so burdensome they can’t afford a career. But when was the last time a Republican pointed out that Ms. Clinton was helping to keep ladies in the kitchen?
Also, it’s Democrats, not Republicans that are preventing women from getting more flexible hours at work:
Ask almost any working woman what the toughest part of her life is, and she’ll say the complications of scheduling both work and family life. What makes that task so tough is a dusty piece of legislation called the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that hourly workers who put in more than 40 hours a week get overtime. Some women like overtime. But in a 1995 poll, an extraordinary 81% said they’d prefer compensatory time off. Put another way, many women would like to pack 45 hours into the first four days of work, then knock off early on Friday to catch Jimmy’s soccer match.
The mod term for this is “flex time” and Democrats pay it lip service. But what the left won’t mention–and Republicans have failed to mention–is that Democrats are the obstacle to changing the overtime law. Organized labor likes the 40-hour-week law, and union leaders prefer to be the ones to arrange any flex-time agreements on behalf of their members. So in 1997, when Republican Sen. John Ashcroft put forward legislation to allow flexible scheduling in the private workforce, it was Democrats, at the beck of unions, who killed it.
Sure, these issues are important to me, at least the second one is. Women who marry up economically should have to pay taxes at the higher rate. The same goes for men who marry up economically. And as women make up more and more of college populations and make more of a drive into the workforce, we’re going to see those inequalities even out.
Unless, of course Republicans remain in power with the same anti-reproductive rights stand that they’ve been taking for the last 34 years. Unintended pregnancies and unwanted babies severely curtain women’s ability to get ahead in the workforce, flex-time or no.
Im curious, why do you think women who marry up should pay the tax? If I marry my boyfriend, that will happen to me, and it bums me out! Why should I have more money taken away just because I’m married?
My mom has a friend who quite her job becuase of that, and it just doesnt seem right, that she had to give up what makes her happy, what she went to school for.
When you marry, you merge and protect assets. From a legal standpoint, the people who marry up economically speaking enter an economic relationship that gives them legal access to assets they did not have before. They become wealthier. If they file taxes jointly with their spouse, they should pay taxes like other people at their socioeconomic level.
I think it’s a fair system and one that will affect men and women equally as women increase their earning potential.
You make a valid point. I’ll explain what happened to my mom’s friend, becuase her situation is a really strange catch-22. If she is unemployed, her husband does not make enough to be pushed into the higher tax bracket. When she does work, it pushes him up to that bracket. The extra taxes taken out of his income is more than what she makes after taxes! So, they actually lose money when she works. Its so odd.
Birth control is not the responsibility of the government. It is the individual who must take steps to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Freedom of choice should mean you have the freedom to use whatever device or practice is available to avoid becoming pregnant - not the freedom to rob the unborn child of his/her future. The way it is now, the law allows ignorant women to “erase their mistakes” by allowing the brutal practice of abortion.
I think it would be a grave mistake for the Republican party to reverse their stance on abortion. I dare say that more women would be lost than would be gained.
Trista:
That is also one of the reasons young people are marrying later. By living together and filing separately, they actually keep more money than if they were married.
Marrying later means that you earn more due to promotions and experience, so the marriage doesn’t impact your finances as much.
Oh, I forgot to add: this is one of the ways you know that the current tax law is hopelessly broken. When you have to subvert what it means to live a ‘normal life’ in order to get by simply to pay your taxes, you can be sure there’s someone taking WAY WAY too much off the top.
Teresa:
I completely agree with you on this issue. I’ve spoken to several hard-core Republicans who would call you the epitome of evil for merely wanting what men have taken for granted for 1000 years. It’s YOU who’s responsible for the destruction of society and your ‘expansive personal liberties’, at least in their limited minds.
Luckily very, very few people ever take people like that seriously. Unfortunately, enough people take them seriously that they still have some political clout, as the “Religious Right” that got Bush elected demonstrates.
I don’t expect to see issues like this resolved.. ever. There are just too many who are invested in keeping things the way they are. Personally I think the age of social upheaval for the purpose of spreading freedom and equality is over, and until the next revolution, we’ll just enter periods of various factions milking the power structure for all its worth.
Couldn’t agree more. But thanks to abstinence-only education and cutbacks on public health initiatives that instruct poor women about reproductive health and supply them with birth control, we’re seeing more unwanted pregnancies not less. Preventing abortion is a noble goal, but it can only be done morally when we as a society make providing women with other options a priority.
Teresa:
Well put. You can’t deny people information about how to prevent pregnancies (through abstinence only education) and then complain when they don’t use options they don’t have information about. Has the religious right considering that maybe they are encouraging unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortion through denying young people, especially women, information about birth control?
Trista: I can’t say that I think we should throw the baby out with the bath water but this is really absurd. In cases like this, perhaps we should be revisiting the tax code.
Anyway, the point of this post is that unequal income, not weird taxation laws, is the real issue for women.
Mark: I’m sure they have considered it. The problem is that they don’t really care. They’re more interested in curtailing a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body: when and whether to have sex, with whom, and for what purpose. They’ll do it by withholding birth control and allowing unwanted pregnancy to be the result.
Women, after all, deserve punishment for being sluts and making any decisions for ourselves that relate to our own pleasure or happiness.
“They’re more interested in curtailing a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body: when and whether to have sex, with whom, and for what purpose. They’ll do it by withholding birth control and allowing unwanted pregnancy to be the result.”
This is not a “religious right” issue, rather it is an issue for all Americans. It is sad that it is an issue at all. To the deep thinkers in this nation, abortion is absurd when you consider that birth-control is available and effective. It should be the number one consideration for women who do not wish to become pregnant. Abortion is the result of a womans failure to take the appropriate steps to prevent pregnancy (excluding cases of rape and incest).
As for the argument that “abstinence only” policies promote unwanted pregnancies - while I agree that this policy is ineffective, I don’t believe it is responsible for the “dumbing down” of women. You would be hard pressed to find a handful of women who are not aware of birth-control pills, implants, and/or condoms because of “Abstinence Only” teaching. Closer to the truth, in my opinion, would be the woman’s preference for not having to take a pill once a day, not enjoying sex with a condom, or not wanting to have a device implanted that would prevent pregnancies. I suggest that the abortion procedure is far more intrusive to a woman than any of the remedies available.
“Women, after all, deserve punishment for being sluts and making any decisions for ourselves that relate to our own pleasure or happiness.”
Maybe this is true for a minority of people who believe that Pat Buchanan and Jerry Falwell would make good congressmen, but the majority of American’s, I submit, would say that women has every right to be as promiscuous as she pleases. The anti-abortion people are not interested in curtailing the right of women to have happiness or pleasure, but then when did having an abortion become related to a woman’s right to pleasure and happiness? Is the procedure itself pleasurable? Does it release endorphin’s that give feelings of uphoria? I doubt it.
The answer is simple and it is very frustrating when the Liberal Left refuse to see it; Unwanted pregnancy should be prevented! Abortion is a failure to prevent. As the saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of remedy”.
Why does the “religious right” push “abstinence only” instead of “safe sex”? In my opinion, it should promote neither since this is certainly an issue that is best discussed in the home. I for one do not want the government telling my children that premarital sex is a good thing, especially when I am trying to instill a sense of honor in them that would encourage them to save themselves for their husband or wife. This, to me, is another example of the government intruding in my right to raise my children my own way. But I degress…..
Abortion is a failure. For teenagers, it is a failure on the part of the parents to instill a sense of honor and self respect in their children. For adults, it is a failure to take the necessary steps to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Contrary to popular leftist thinking, Anti-Abortionist are not against a woman’s “reproductive rights”. This is an absurd rally-cry that was concocted by the militant pro-choicers to demonize those that do not support their views and ideology. What woman can say with certainty that she has been denied the right to reproduce? Maybe that is true in China, but not here in the USA. Pro-lifers believe that if a woman has not taken the necessary steps to prevent the pregnancy, then she should have to face the consequences of those actions. If she does not want the child, then adoption should be the alternative. This may sound harsh and cold but the fact is if a woman becomes pregnant when she did not want to, it is a mistake, and mistakes carry consequences. If you are not prepared for these consequences then I suggest taking the proverbial “ounce of prevention”.
Thank you
They are indeed aware of birth control methods. The problem is that in many cases abstinence-based programs tell them that these methods are completely ineffective. One popular misconception propagated by these programs is that, “Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.”
[Source]
If condoms are so ineffective — people reason — why use them at all. Unwanted pregnancy is the result.
Another popular misconception, from the same source, is that, “touching a person’s genitals can result in pregnancy.”
The reasoning on the part of the kids: “I already touched Billy’s penis so I might get pregnant anyway. Why not have all-out sex?”
In short, never underestimate the ways that horny people can rely on stupid things they have been taught to allow them to have sex in the heat of the moment without thinking clearly about the consequences.
What about condom failure? What about the 1% failure rate of hormonal birth control methods even when they are used correctly?
And why is the onus completely on the woman? Men’s lives, livelihoods and right to pursue happiness are at stake here, too. They should take responsibility for preventing pregnancy as well. Why are women the only ones at fault when unwanted pregnancy happens?
So any sex between teenagers is a failure of honor and self-respect? I know plenty of honorable, self-respecting people who started having sex at 16 or 17. They used birth control precisely because their parents taught them to honor and respect their bodies by preventing premature pregnancy and STDs.
What about the right not to reproduce? That’s part of reproductive rights. Choosing when, how, and with whom to have your children. Not before you’re ready and not because of someone else’s moral judgment.
So once again you say that if a woman makes a poorly-informed choice — say, because she never got accurate information about sexual health in school — she should be punished for that choice by having an unwanted kid? Sounds like the same old anti-woman argument to me.
Keep in mind that a lot of people are not as well-informed about sex as you or I. We have deeply entrenched sex-negative mores in this country that often prevent sensible, medically accurate conversations from happening between parents and children. I do believe that it’s the responsibility of the state to provide basic, medically accurate sex education in schools because the resulting public health crisis — rampant STDs, back-alley abortions and HIV/AIDS — if we do not is catastrophic.
“In my opinion, [the religious right] should promote neither [abstinence only nor "safe sex"] since this is certainly an issue that is best discussed in the home. I for one do not want the government telling my children that premarital sex is a good thing, especially when I am trying to instill a sense of honor in them that would encourage them to save themselves for their husband or wife. This, to me, is another example of the government intruding in my right to raise my children my own way.”
Davey:
I also do not want the government telling my children that premarital sex is a good thing. But I also don’t want them telling my children that it’s a bad thing. I would want my kids (when I have some) to get accurate information about sex and birth control without a value judgement in either direction. If you are actually doing a good job instilling a sense of honor and self-respect in your children (although it is your opinion, not mine, that those necessarily mean not having premarital sex) then they will be able to make that decision themselves based on the values you have taught them.
Abolishing abstinence only education is not about encouraging teenagers to have sex, or telling them that premarital sex is a good thing. It is about giving teenagers accurate information about sex, birth control, and their options and letting them make their own decisions. Besides, even teenagers who will wait for marriage to have sex will benefit from information about birth control, especially if they don’t want to have kids immediately after getting married.