Orange Juice, Anyone?

The War On Women

Taking a break from the mosaic travelogue – it will continue soon.

I had an interesting discussion a while back with a woman friend of mine about women and the Republican party. I declared that, along with the GOP being anti-worker, anti-science, anti-blahblahblah, that they have also been anti-women. She was as surprised at that (and believed it was not the case) as I was surprised by her response. Yeah, I know, politics are soooo boring, and divisive, too! But read on, as it gets interesting.

Remember Anita Bryant? She was a former Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, and a brand ambassador from 1969 to 1980 for the Florida Citrus Commission. She was infamous for spewing "As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters."

Beginning in the 70s and 80s female anti-feminists became a crucial part of the conservative movement and Republican politics. Along with Anita Bryant was Phyllis Schlafly who worked against equal rights for women, and Louisa Day Hicks who lobbied against the racial integration of schools in Boston, leading massive grassroots political campaigns. Then, In the 1990s, anti-feminists like Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham took the baton from Schlafly’s ilk, and white evangelical women became a crucial part of the GOP coalition (comprising most of the 53 per cent of white women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016).

Oddly enough, it was Republicans who originally supported an organization in the early 1900s that was an affiliate of the American Birth Control League, which would eventually become Planned Parenthood. The Goldwaters and the Bush family all were supporters of the program. In a 1968 address to Congress, then-Congressman George H.W. Bush advocates for government support of family planning programs, citing statistics from a Planned Parenthood clinic. Then in 1972 Roe vs Wade legalizes abortion.

According to Karissa Haugeberg, an assistant professor of history at Tulane University, "During the 1970s, a faction within the GOP sought to re-energize the Republican Party by courting religiously conservative evangelical Christians, many of whom were deeply uncomfortable with the sexual revolution and civil rights movement. These Republican strategists developed the GOP’s anti-abortion plank (the Democratic Party later followed suit with a platform that affirmed a woman’s right to abortion).”

An illustrious list of Republican men have also been publicly anti-choice, but privately have supported women in their lives having abortions. Hypocrisy, anyone? Take Scott Lloyd, once the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement but worked for the Trump administration. Lloyd made it his mission to ensure refugee women, including unaccompanied minors, don’t get abortions. He even blocked a 17-year-old-girl who had been raped from having an abortion. Another was Elliot Broidy, the former RNC deputy finance chairman. He paid $1.6m to a Playboy Playmate he had an affair with, after she aborted his child. And Tennessee congressman Scott DesJarlais who pressured a 24-year-old patient he was having an affair with to get an abortion, then had the gall to vote for anti-abortion bills and boast of having a “100% pro-life voting record."

As documented by César Chelala for Common Dreams, he reported, ‘The term “war on women,” was originally used by feminist author Andrea Dworkin in 1989. In a 1996 memoir entitled The Republican War Against Women: An Insider’s Report from Behind the Lines, Tanya Melich, a former Republican political consultant, wrote about the incorporation of the pro-life movement and the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment by Republicans as diverging from feminist causes and concerns.

In February 2011, New York Representative Jerrold (Jerry) Nadler, stated that the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would have allowed only victims of “forcible rape” or child sex abuse to qualify for Medicaid funding for abortion, was “an entirely new front in the war on women and their families.” The words “war on women” gained increasing acceptance and were afterward more widely used since they accurately reflect mostly Republican legislators’ actions regarding women rights.’

That same month House Republicans passed legislation to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, an amendment introduced by then Representative Mike Pence. Then, in 2012, the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides funds for community prevention programs and battered women’s shelters, was strongly opposed by conservative Republicans. Former Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, who had previously voted against renewal of the act, said that the bill was a “distraction” from a small business bill.

According to Huffpost, in 2019 the House (Democrats) passed legislation to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, despite the vast majority of Republicans opposing it amid pressure from the National Rifle Association. Democrats were seeking to expand additional financial aid for women who’ve experienced domestic violence to stay in their homes and ramping up punishment for cyberbullying. But the one that irked the NRA at the time was a tenet banning all intimate partners who’ve been convicted with abuse and stalking from purchasing a firearm.

The most recent version of the bill passed by the House last year intended to close the “boyfriend loophole,” which proved to be a large point of contention for many Republicans. Previous versions of the act barred those convicted of domestic violence or abuse from purchasing and owning a gun if they were married to, lived with or had a child with the victim. But the 2019 amendment hoped to extend that provision to include dating partners and stalkers. Though it had support from all Democrats who voted but one, only 33 Republicans voted to move the legislation forward, and the GOP has been accused of giving into the National Rifle Association, which has opposed the change.

All of this above is just covering women’s health rights. I’ll briefly mention that also in 2019, the House of Representatives passed the Paycheck Fairness Act by a vote of 242-187. Every single Democratic member voted for the measure but every single "no" vote came from Republicans, and only seven GOP representatives voted for the bill. The bill fixes loopholes in the 1963 Equal Pay Act, in part by making it easier for workers to challenge pay discrimination and strengthen the remedies for employees who face discrimination.

Photo of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - AP Photo, Scott Applewhite

I personally am encouraged by the younger generation of progressive women in Congress who are pushing back hard against the patriarchy. Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and now joined by Cori Bush of Missouri, have championed causes including Medicare for All, drastic action against climate change, and racial justice. I guess I’m just an ol’ softy idealist at heart.

I’ve included some more sources (besides the links in the essay) below for further reading.

And now, have some philosophy. Cheers!

Other Sources: Politico, History, Think Progress, American Independent

Shortly after sketching out this post I learned of the death of Shirley Domer on January 30th. I only got to meet her somewhat recently as she and her husband Dennis visited Tucson frequently, and were music lovers. She was the founding director of KU Info (University of Kansas in Lawrence) and the university’s first director of Affirmative Action. And, in 2018 the Emily Taylor Center at KU gave Shirley its Pioneer Woman award. She was a lovely and amazing woman.