#22 WOMEN WAGING WAR ON WOMEN

           

 Yes, there is a war on women, but it’s not being waged by Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Socialists, or Aliens.  It’s a war women are waging against themselves.  Some do so unwittingly; others for perceived personal gains… while many more contribute to the war by remaining silent, rather than standing up and being counted.    

These warring women come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  There are those in political circles who command a wide audience and use that podium to malign other women.  Take, for example, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema who has publicly attacked women who choose to be stay-at-home moms: “These women are leeching off their husbands, or boyfriends, and just cashing the checks … that’s bullshit.  I mean, what the fuck are we really talking about here?” says Sinema.  Political strategist Hillary Rosen condemned Ann Romney for being a stay-at-home mom.  Did anyone cross the aisle in order to support a cause larger than oneself?  And when presidential candidate Barak Obama said in 2007 that “…staying at home to raise children isn’t real work,” did you hear a public outcry?  (By the way, raising children is the hardest work I’ve ever done.)  

When Michelle Malkin was viscously attacked with racial slurs for her political views and threatened to the point that she had to move, where were her supporters?  Who came to Ann Coulter’s defense when she was called a transvestite?   Who confronted Whoopi Goldberg when, on national TV, she described Roman Polanski’s drugging and raping of an unconscious thirteen year old girl as “not rape-rape but something else,” In other words, “something else” not so serious.      

Another group of women waging a war against their own are the self-serving “good wives,” those camp followers who publicly support husbands who have trashed their public posts, violated their marriages, and humiliated their families.  To name just a few: Huma Abedin (wife of Anthony Weiner)

 ……Hillary Clinton (Bill), Silda Spitzer (Eliot, who had the hubris to violate a law HE had passed making payment for sex a Class E felony), and Bronwyn Ingram, fiancee of ex-mayor of San  Diego, Bob Filner (found guilty of sexually harassing eighteen women),

           Sociopaths like the above view such public support as a “green light,” which leads, inevitably, to more of the same.  What this country needs are more Jenny Sanfords, (ex-wife of Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina) and Lorena Bobbitts.     

           In 2012 Carlos Henriquez, a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, was found guilty of beating and kidnapping his girlfriend.  He was sent to prison for 2 ½ years but served only six months.  Only this year did the Massachusetts House of Representatives decide to deal with Henriquez’ status: to vote him out of office…or keep him in.  The NAACP (with a half a million members) sent a letter to the House, requesting that Henriquez be kept in office. The NAACP president, Juan Cofield said:  “He was convicted of two misdemeanors – not felonies… every day people commit misdemeanors – like jaywalking.”  Beating and kidnapping is likened to “jaywalking”?  Hello women members of the NAACP!  Where were you?  In the kitchen making coffee?

           Politically ambitious women wage another kind of war against women. Take Sandra Fluke, for example, the law school student who just “happened” onto the scene when President Obama was being criticized for his contraceptive mandate.  She wailed like a baby that buying her own birth control pills would “financially tax’ her.  She wanted me (and you) to pay for her to play. 

This is the same Sandra Fluke who is currently traveling through Italy and Spain on spring break with her fiancé, Adam, the son of William Mutterperl, a “one-percenter”  who has contributed to more than fifty political campaigns.   I feel confident that if Adam would ask his father nicely, very very nicely, Mr. Mutterperl would give his little boy $9 to buy a pack of condoms down at the corner drugstore.      

        So thanks heaps, Sandra, for helping to promote an image of women as helpless and irresponsible little girls, so incapable of making life decisions for themselves that they need the Government’s intervention.  The Flukes of this country are not solving any Sisterhood problems.  They are the problem!

Another front on women’s war against women is being fought by the mothers of the 250,000 little girls entered into beauty competitions each year.  What these children learn early on in life is that what’s between their ears isn’t important.  What is … is how they look.   According to the American Psychological Association, “girls who are sexualized early will – when adults -- tend to measure their self-worth on their appearance.” 

        

            Another warring group against women includes those who use their public platforms for personal gain – rather than for the public good.  Regrettably, one such woman is first lady Michelle Obama.  Note her recent statement to the Chinese press on her trip to China in March of this year: “It’s very rare that I have the opportunity to travel outside of the United States, and it’s even more rare to have the opportunity to travel with three generations – with my daughters and my mother…” 

Seriously?  This from the woman who has established the record for the most vacations taken while in public office, which include numerous trips outside the U.S and  -- most often -- with her mother and children. While in China, Michelle stayed in a 3,400 square foot hotel room that cost $8,350 per night.  This is the same hotel that Vice-President Joe Biden chose NOT to stay in earlier in the year because “It was too expensive.” (Thanks, Joe).  The Obama administration has refused to talk about the price tag for this China trip, but, when hard-pressed by reporters, the White House spokesperson replied: “We got a great bang for the buck.” 

The total “buck” has been estimated to be several million taxpayers’ dollars.  As for the “bangs”

... Michelle played ping-pong, took Chinese calligraphy  

and Tai Chi classes,  took pictures, visited the Great Wall, and operated a robot. 

           Michelle’s other recent and rare trips include her June, 2013 trip to Ireland  (I thought  Ireland was a foreign country, but what do I know?), where she stayed in a $3,000 a night room. This trip is estimated to have cost the American taxpayers $5 million. (Washington Times).  

Two months later, two generations of the Obama family took another rare vacation – this one to Martha’s Vineyard (estimated to have cost $1.2 million.) I hate to sound petty, but by my calculation, if Michelle hadn’t “needed” to return to D.C. all by herself on a private jet – although the president and their daughters were leaving on the same day – 30% of the bill (approximately $364,000 of the taxpayers’ money) could have been saved.       

Other recent but rare foreign-family vacations include Spain, a number of South American countries, and Africa, The three African trips alone are estimated to have cost the taxpayers over one million dollars.  Then there are Michelle’s skiing vacations in 2012 and 2013, which totaled $1,092,000, and the rare family Christmas vacation to Hawaii this year, where they stayed in a 7,000 square foot house and left the taxpayers with a bill of about $4 million. (Daily Mail, United Kingdom).  But seventeen days wasn’t enough for the first lady so she remained in Hawaii for another week after the family left.  This necessitated a not-so-rare need for a second Air Force jet to return her to D.C

 White House dossier, Keith Koffler, estimates that costs of the Obamas four rare vacations to Hawaii have cost taxpayers in the neighborhood of $20 million. 

First ladies can make a difference.  Many have, and although no one ever expected Michelle Obama to be another Eleanor Roosevelt, she’s demonstrated just how frivolous, entitled, and self-serving a woman can be.  Rather than setting a positive image for hundreds of thousands of young women – African American women in particular – she will be remembered as a “vacation junkie,” a first lady who misused the public trust (and treasury) to fill her private bucket list. 

        

           THE BOTTOM WHINE:  The next time someone tries to sell you a bill of goods about how this or that political party is waging a war against women, please tell them for me that this particular war is one women are waging against themselves.

                                                                 Whiningly yours, Carol