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Senate Women Fighting Back

The government shutdown was averted. A temporary agreement was reached by Democrats and Republicans. But several Senate Democratic women explain that the budget impasse by the Republicans and the Tea Party was not on fiscal issues but on social issues. WATCH:

This agreement will be short lived. It is a temporary fix. The Republicans will continue their fight to reduce health care for women, cut Pell grants, eliminate the EPA, reduce aid to the poor and cause extreme loss of jobs. The Senate women are right when they say that it's not about fiscal responsibility. It's really about fiscal irresponsibility!

If You Can't Blame Obama, Then Blame The Women

Is CNN contributor Erick Erickson a Rush Limbaugh wannabe? This is what he said on his radio show earlier this week (h/t Media Matters for America):

By the way, it's the women's fault. … It's, apparently, the women in the Obama administration who have decided we needed to go to war in Libya. … This is typical. This is so typ-- i'm mean, I'm going to bring my inner sexist out I'm afraid tonight, some of you are going to be very upset with me. But this is like women drivers. We're going to war in Libya, we have no plan, we have no map, even if we have a map of war, um, it wasn't going to get read, they were going to pull over and ask the French apparently for help, or at least make the guy pull over and ask the French for help. This is crazy....

This is just silly. I mean, back-seat driving by the women, and they're gonna get Barack Obama lost. What is it with Barack Obama caving to the women? I mean, now we know who rules his personal life. I guess Michelle is firmly in charge as well, if Barack Obama is going to cave that easy to three women in his administration over what to do with Libya....

It took the women to get him involved, and the women apparently went in without a clear plan. No shopping list.

(Added emphasis)

Listen to his comments during the March 21st broadcast of his radio show.

CNN's Erickson isn't the only man criticizing the women in Obama's administration. The Nation's Katha Pollitt critiqued the sexist rhetoric used by her fellow Nation blogger Robert Dreyfuss.

In a post originally titled "Obama's Women," Dreyfuss argued that Obama administration advisers Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and Hillary Clinton (to quote Pollitt) "are a 'troika,' a 'trio' who 'rode roughshod over the realists in the administration' (all men) and 'pushed Obama to war.'"

A number of the comments on Pollitt's piece made this basic argument: "Dreyfuss' post isn't evidence of widespread misogyny; he's just one misguided blogger who chose his words poorly." As much as all of us in the progressive sphere would love for that to be true -- for sexist language and attitudes to be outliers, rather than epidemic -- that just isn't the case. Pollitt was writing specifically about the prevalence of misogyny in left-leaning media outlets, but, of course, the problem is everywhere. And the women of the Obama Administration, in particular, have been frequent targets of that misogyny of late.

Feminist blogger Echidne finds this attitude to be prevalent.

[W]e now live in a post-feminist world? When honor killings exist? When the United States has never had a female president? When the Erick Ericksons of this world can proudly compare the US Secretary of State to bad women drivers? When work-life balance is just yet another women's issue? When I can watch a week of Japanese television about the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-disaster combination and not see one female expert or politician interviewed, when all those rooms of power are full of only men? When the US Republican Party has declared an all-out war on women, and few notice this?....

Gender equality is not something that is taken seriously, in general. That's why Erickson can present his contempt of women as a joke and that's why we don't all riot when we are told that women should cut back on higher education so as to leave more space for men which they then could marry. We are uncomfortable with taking the topic seriously because we are still living the neolithic era of gender relationships.

Being politically correct is a figment of the past. Talking heads, political pundits, Faux News and now CNN are taking the Howard Stern reins of the political scene.

Results of Increased Militarization within Society

Via CBS NEWS August 2, 2010

In an interview with Katie Couric today for @katiecouric, Time Magazine editor Rick Stengel addressed his magazine's controversial cover showing a mutilated woman and the headline "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan." The accompanying story discusses the Taliban's repressive treatment of women.

(Credit: Jodi Bieber / INSTITUTE for TIME)

Rethink Afghanistan has a video regarding the real effect of the war on women in Afghanistan.

WATCH:

Via act.ly:

You’ve probably heard of TIME Magazine’s outrageous, pro-Afghanistan-War propaganda cover art. As supporters of women’s rights, we were outraged by TIME’s gross distortion of this critical issue. But Couric compounded the distortion by giving TIME Magazine’s managing editor Rick Stengel an even bigger megaphone for his outrageous pro-war spin campaign in a recent online interview. Stengel made easily disprovable claims, including that the rights of women have been “modernized” and that women’s “lives have changed.”

Women’s rights in Afghanistan are under constant assault right now, often from within the U.S.-backed Kabul government. But Couric never once challenged TIME’s editor as he made his claims. She even called TIME “brave” for such a cheap caricature of the choice before the American people.

Couric’s viewers deserve better. Sign our act.ly petition that urges her to watch Rethink Afghanistan’s segment on the situation for Afghan women and to respond on Twitter.

Let’s make sure nobody gets away with the ridiculous claim that war helps women caught in the crossfire.

Watch Katie Couric's interview with Time's Rick Stengel.