Eager political candidates all over the country are now preparing their campaigns for public office. As they select their campaign issues and labor over their position papers, at some point their staff may raise the question, “How can we get the women’s vote?”
If you ask the wrong questions, you will get the wrong answers; and that’s the wrong question. There isn’t any “women’s vote” any more than there is a “men’s vote.” The candidate whose staff asks such silly questions is on the road to defeat.
The notion that candidates can “get the women’s vote” by pandering to the so-called “women’s issues” went down the drain in the 1984 election. In early 1984, National Organization for Women president and pro-abortion activist Eleanor Smeal wrote a book called “Why and How Women Will Elect the Next President.” Well, women DID elect the next President, and his name is Ronald Reagan.
Such false concepts as “the women’s vote” and “the women’s movement” are based on the 1984 media myth called the “Gender Gap.” This was a boogeywoman created by the feminists and the media in order to defeat targeted candidates by generating diversionary news stories which forced them to talk about non-issues instead of real campaign issues.
Like the Wizard of Oz, the Gender Gap was a phony, and was buried (along with most feminist candidates) under the 1984 Reagan landslide.
The first thing any candidate must learn is the semantics of the subject. Feminist is an antonym for feminine, not a synonym. Feminine is an adjective that can be applied to pro-family women of any age or party, but not to those who call themselves feminists.
A feminist will hiss and boo you if you use the terms “girl” or “lady”; a lady will not. In fact, a lady probably will never hiss or boo at all.
To the feminists, “women’s rights” is defined as a woman’s right to tax-paid abortion on demand, any sexual activity in or out of marriage, easy divorce, government subsidies for the cost of child-care, affirmative action (i.e., the government forcing an employer to hire a quota of women in preference to better qualified men), and Comparable Worth (i.e., the government raising some women’s wages so they will equal the pay of entirely different traditionally male jobs for which women never even applied).
To the feminine or pro-family woman, “women’s rights” means equal opportunity in education and employment, an end to the discriminations against the full-time homemaker that exist today in the income tax system and the IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts), and the opportunity to live in a free American economy made prosperous by lower taxes and a growing number of private-sector jobs.
Here is a list of dos and don’ts for candidates who want to win.
1. Don’t talk about “women’s issues” and “women’s concerns” unless you know what you are talking about and have cleansed your statement of words that may have a different meaning to you and to your audience (such as “women’s rights” or “Comparable Worth”).
2. Don’t be cute, funny, personal, patronizing, or sarcastic in referring to women. You might be offensive to some women. Even if you aren’t, feminists might take offense because they have no sense of humor.
3. Don’t flatter women’s appearance. That offends feminists.
4. Don’t use profanity or tell off-color jokes. That offends feminine women.
5. Don’t think you can please both kinds of women by offering some advantage or pledge to both. Both sides will conclude you can be manipulated by pressure.
6. Don’t appoint a “women’s committee” to advise you. This simply provides a platform for feminists to stage media events and make unreasonable demands.
7. Don’t respond to attacks by feminists. This only gives them a chance to have public tantrums and attract more media by attacking you again.
8. Don’t use “Ms.” to address any woman, orally or on paper, unless you know that the individual woman prefers that salutation. Married women work hard for the “R” in their “Mrs.” and they don’t appreciate your taking it away.
9. Don’t use expressions which some women find obnoxious. Don’t call anyone a “women’s libber”; call her a feminist. Don’t call any woman a “nonworking wife”; call her a full-time homemaker or career homemaker. Don’t call any woman a “working wife” because that implies that other wives are not working; call her an employed wife.
10. Don’t ask women to “get together and decide what they want.” Have you asked Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale to “get together and decide what they want”?
