Daughter of No Comment -- April 2007

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In what promises to be a very long presidential lottery it will be important to see who is supportive of the newly introduced Equal Rights Amendment and what they actually do. Remember, talk is not a way to implement action so DO is the operative concept. Reporter Sue Shellenberger who considered herself tuned-in to the gender politics of the Chore Wars, the household battles between husbands and wives over who does what at home. She writes "imagine my surprise when I realized I'm guilty of perpetuating this conflict into the next generation. While reporting on the topic, I saw that I myself expect different things of my son, 16, and my daughter, 18: I want him to handle more fix-it jobs, while my daughter does more cleaning. A study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research shows that boys ages 10 through 18 are more likely (10 to 15%) than girls to be getting paid for doing housework-even though boys spend an average of 30% less time doing chores. The poster boy for the talk is cheap school of politics is Mitt Romney who ran as a pro-choice candidate in his 1994 Senate race against Ted Kennedy and again in his 2002 gubernatorial campaign. In 1994 he revealed that a relative had died of a botched abortion in the 1960's and said, "It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but that we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter, and you will not see me wavering on that." In 2002 he assured Planned Parenthood and NARAL that he supported "the substance of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade": he also said, "Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not mine and not the government's." Three years later he vetoed an emergency contraception bill and an embryonic-stem-cell research bill and explained on the EC bill that "the bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception."..."I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape and to save the life of the mother." When questioned about his flip-flop he said " I had this issue wrong in the past." Easy for him to say. Since flip-flopping is so common we need to try and keep politicians we are unsure of out of office so they don't get in at any level to rise higher later and renege on their pro-choice positions. Writer Florence King crows that Phyllis Schafly single-handedly defeated the ERA because "The feminists, especially her counterpart, the ur-feminist Betty Friedan, whose face would stop a clock and whose voice would inspire recruits for the French Foreign Legion. Schafly's triumph in the battle over the ERA came about through her command of pristine classical logic and her Ciceronian debating style, but the average citizen doesn't pay much attention to arguments. It was the stark difference between the women themselves that put Schafly over the top and stopped ERA. Like it or not, star power is everything, and for a woman, that means looks and femininity." Schafly's debate style and ability is open to question but if Florence King is even partly right and people don't want to hear or understand the reasons for the amendment and if looks trump substance, we who support ERA need to consider our best strategy and have speakers and events that the public at large can relate to. We need to be aware of what went wrong so that our community of all ages understands the past and we don't repeat it. Daughter would like to see Florence King eat crow. Some good news from Florida...The number of women owned companies in Florida surged 84 % from 1997 to 2006--a faster growth rate than any other state in the country and almost twice the national average, according to a report from the Washington based Center for Women's Business Research. Florida's population boom may be helping as well as less gender discrimination according to Sharon Hadary, executive director of the center. Service sector, tourism and communications are growth areas and ones that women excel in. Author, Susan Seligson, 52, who is petite and naturally endowed with large breasts has written "Stacked: A 32DDD Reports From the Front" which is about why men and women have an obsession with breasts. She says "It is an erotically charged part of the body that you get a good look at. If boobs excite you, you can look at them, at least in this culture. How they became so erotically charged, I really don't know." All one has to do is to think back to the ink and video wasted on the famous "wardrobe malfunction" incident and the billions spent annually on plastic surgery for breast augmentation to know she has a topic to interest even the marginal readers. Keep a sharp lookout for the anti ERA missiles being lobbed our way and be ready to write letters to editors, and speak up if you don't want non participating legislators ( How many have children in Iraq?. One?) making laws that they can't understand on a personal basis. Daughter always corrects anyone who says or writes about pro- abortion. How about fewer unwanted pregnancies with more men participating in these decisions? Share your ideas with us all.