Diary of a Mad Voter: Using oppression message on young voters a mistake

Maybe it’s my western heritage—my great-great-grandmother was born on the Oregon Trail and competed against men in Nevada saddle bronc competitions. Women in my family don’t turn to the government in the search for equality. We take such matters into our own hands.

It’s a freedom never realized by today’s liberal female leaders. According to Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, one of six female state senate presidents nationally, women are still oppressed. “There is still an old-boys network and it’s real,” she recently lamented to reporters.

Oh, really, Madam President, because last time I checked, a girl is running the show.

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Activists lament that women account for only 35 percent of Colorado lawmakers—despite comprising 50 percent of the state’s population. But such statistics fail to tell the real story about equality in America.

Fitz-Gerald and her cohorts spread the myth that America is plagued with sexism when, in fact, it is not. A recent Newsweek survey bears out the effects of such a message. In a national poll of both men and women, 85 percent of all respondents said they would vote for a woman presidential candidate, while just 5 percent said they would not (the remaining 10 percent said they were unsure). Interestingly, just 58 percent of these same respondents said America would vote for a woman presidential candidate. The response was clear: We’re not sexist but we’ve been lead to believe that others are.

The strong argument can also be made that current support for a female candidate is artificially suppressed by the strong negative identification many voters have with Democrat frontrunner and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. In other words, conservatives and many moderates want a woman president but they don’t want Hillary.

Jessica Peck Corry

When women do run—they’ve got a terrific shot at winning. Study after study demonstrates that female candidates of either party have a better chance of winning than their male competitors. Surprising, as I’ve noted in previous columns, and much to the surprise of many liberals, female Republican candidates are more likely to be elected than Democrat women.

The two major parties encourage women to run—I can speak as a former candidate myself. While I came up short running as the Republican candidate for a Colorado state Senate seat in 2004, my party couldn’t have been more supportive of my candidacy as a female. Top universities, including Yale, and top political consulting firms are today designing campaign plans specifically geared toward female candidates.

Despite these facts, Fitz-Gerald and her allies continue to preach to women that we need the government to enforce equality. Every spring, they stand atop the steps of the State Capitol calling on Congress to pass the misguided Equal Rights Amendment. Fitz-Gerald believes that discrimination runs rampant in the workplace and that we need the government to help us fight back. She wants voters to believe that women working in the same jobs as men earn just three-fourths of what their male peers bring home. It’s a scare tactic of a myth that just doesn’t bear out in reality.

In past columns, I’ve also written (vented) extensively about the so-called gender wage gap. The truth is that women make less than men because they work less hours, are more likely to take time out of the workforce to raise children, spend less time commuting, and choose less dangerous jobs. When women take on the same jobs and work the same hours as men, the statistics are clear that all but 3 or 4 percent of the wage gap disappears.

That is where being tough comes in. Women need to be aggressive in salary negotiations. We need to play hardball. In other words, we need to act like my great-great-grandmother did nearly a century ago.

It’s not to say she had an easy time of it. After all, it was only during her lifetime that women gained the right to vote. Two generations later, my grandmother was tormented by her peers for working full-time. During my mother’s young adult life, her peers were turned away from top colleges because of their gender.

Countless women who have gone before me worked endlessly so that I could realize an existence without discrimination. I’ll happily partake in the equality they fought hard to—and did—achieve. In my household, in my career, and my life, every aspect runneth over with equality. I know it hasn’t been by accident.

Liberal politicians need women to feel victimized because this is how they succeed. They convince women that they need the government to ensure success in a man’s world. While sending female voters a message of oppression may sound appealing, it’s one that will fail in the long run. Women today are happy—and grateful—to be thriving in a fair world our mothers and grandmothers (and fathers and grandfathers) created.

The oppression message is based not only on spreading the gender wage gap myth but also by perpetuating a belief in the existence of the so-called “women’s issue.” You’ve heard the term before—think abortion, childcare, breast cancer, etc. It’s as if men are unaffected or uninvolved in such social problems. I look at my own family, where my husband has probably changed more dirty diapers than I have, to realize what a foolish notion this is.

This November, or any November after that, I won’t vote for a candidate based on gender. I’m not a bigot after all. I will, however, vote for a candidate that understands that I don’t need to be spoon-fed my public policy and handheld through the workforce.

Women are going to get their bumps and bruises. But it’s time we all get back up on that horse and stop being victims of problems that don’t exist. After all, we’ve come a far way baby.

Editor’s note: Jessica Peck Corry's weekly blogs are part of a new feature on The Denver Post's PoliticsWest.com site called "Diary of a Mad Voter." The group blog, published in partnership with NewWest.Net/Politics, is intended to give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the '08 election cycle. Check back regularly at www.politicswest.com for "Diary of a Mad Voter."

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