Category Archives: November 2012

Lisen: Voting Pro-Woman Means You Are Voting for The Economy

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I have been accused of being a one issue voter. My one issue? Women.

We Are Women, Watch Us Vote

Why? Well, it is quite simple. I believe (and research shows) when women are empowered, society wins. What does empowerment mean to me? It means access to education, job opportunities, pay equity, and control of our reproduction in order to take advantage of said education and those, hopefully, well-paying jobs.

So, when my friends tell me that we have to look beyond “women’s issues” to focus on the economy, well I get so mad, I see green. I’d thought for my good health I would take a few breaths and explain how women’s issues are economic issues.

We already know that 47% of the workforce is women. We also know that women make only 83% of what men make (for equal jobs with equal education, schooling, and life situations). We also know that 40% of married women are the primary breadwinners in their families. We also know that stay-at-home moms are not the Ann Romney’s of the world, but are in fact more likely to be poor, foreign born, and non-white. And, we also know women consumers control 85% of all purchase decisions and are responsible for $7 trillion in spending. Given all of this, what part of the economy is not about women?

Consider these facts:

  • Women-owned firms represent 30% of all U.S and home-based businesses owned by women provide full- or part-time employment for 14 million people.
  • And women aren’t just good at buying things, they help the bottom line. According to Catalyst  (a think tank that focuses on women in the workforce), companies with the highest representation of women board members attain significantly higher financial performance than those with the lowest representation: 53% higher Return on Equity; 42% higher Return on Sales; and 66% higher Return on Invested Capital.
  • A recent study on the greying of America shows two key trends. The first reveals how the growth in our economy these last fifty years can be linked to the rise of women in the workforce – more workers mean more consumers and more tax payers. The second trend shows with the aging of our society, we lose workers (and consumers and tax payers) so we will need every worker we can get. That means helping women get into the workforce and stay in the workforce is good for our economy.

So, if in fact it is economy, then why are women’s issues called social issues? Consider these supposedly women’s issues:

  •  According to the Brookings Institue, for every $1 spent on birth control, the tax payer saves $6;
  • Guttmacher Institute reports that 47% of pregnancies are unplanned and those unplanned pregnancies cost the tax payers $11 billion (you read that right) a year.
  • It costs between $10,000 and $14,000 a year to find care for a child under the age of five. According to MomsRising, the prohibitive cost and lack of availability of child care is the number one reason women do not go back into the workforce after giving birth.

We can race down a rabbit hole indicting the current Republican party and its candidates for their anti-women stance (heck I don’t need to do this, just read this great article by one of their own in Newsweek that asks “What the *#@% is wrong with Republicans; How the GOP Men are Ruining the Party”). Rather than do that, it is time to understand that voting pro-women is voting for the financial future of our country.

On Tuesday, I’ll be voting for the pro-woman candidate. For the health of our economy, you should too.

My Candidate

 

 

Aimee: Rosen, Akin, Mourdock, Dunham, Election 2012 from Lady Parts to Voters’ Hearts

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What ever happened to Hilary Rosen? 

You remember Rosen. The Democratic strategist who said Ann Romney never “worked a day in her life.”

Yep. But that was way back last April. Can’t we just let bygones be bygones? So much has happened since then. Barack Obama respects all women. The Democratic party is THE party for all women. Really? Tell that to Lena Dunham.

If you would have voters believe Rosen misspoke or we misunderstood her, then you must concede so did Todd Akin misspeak. So did we misunderstand Richard Mourdock. Dunham, however, did not misspeak, nor did we misunderstand her.

Dunham was very clear and intentional when she starred in a full-fledged ad denigrating young women. An ad bought and paid for by the Obama campaign. The best thing to come out of Dunham’s ad comparing voting for the first time to losing her virginity was Steven Crowder’s parody of it (the parody by Token Libertarian Girl is pretty good, too).

What were Democrats thinking?

“First we take out the stodgy, old stay-at-home moms who don’t ‘work’ and are probably illiterate anyway. Then we go in for the kill by sexualizing the bootie-licious twenty-somethings. And those bra-burning feminists? We’ll lure them to vote with their lady parts!”

That’s a winning strategy? That’s a party who speaks for women? That’s a president who cares about the dignity of all people? The Democratic party can no more profess to be the party of all women than the Republican party can. Both camps have logged successes and failures in dealing with women this election. Maybe because women aren’t just one, big, homogenous voting block.

Abortion is an important issue. I repeat: abortion is an important issue, maybe the most important social issue of our lifetimes. But it’s not the only issue, and it’s not exclusively a women’s issue. Some of us are pro-life, some of us are pro-choice, and a bunch are somewhere in between. Of course we care about Our Bodies Ourselves as women. We also care about our spouses, our daughters and sons, our work in and outside of our homes, our churches, our economy, our foreign policy, and an array of other issues as well.

ann romney bio image

Ann raised-five-sons-but-never-worked Romney, image from www.MittRomney.com

All women work hard.

We work hard at working things out. We listen. We think. We weigh the options. We prioritize. We discuss. We blog. We visit neutral sites like I Side With to compare the candidates. What’s the most urgent thing that needs to be addressed first? Who is most likely to address that issue best?

For me and millions of American women and men, the most urgent issue for our country at this time is our struggling economy. When people can’t work, they can’t eat. Economic unrest jeopardizes our freedoms and dreams. The way I see it, Obama has had four years to begin to turn the economy around, and he’s failed. It’s time to give someone else a shot. Mitt Romney was successful in the private sector. He worked with a Democratic congress as Governor of Massachusetts to close a $3 billion budget deficit…

Ah, but there I go again. Silly me. Talking about an issue SAHMs are unqualified to discuss. Right, Rosen? Maybe I should just pick up my lady parts and go vote.

That’s exactly what I plan to do Tuesday, November 6th. It won’t be my first time or, God willing, my last.