As a woman, I felt the need to respond to Pat Ross’ piece in last week’s issue ironically commenting on the role of men in making women’s decisions. First, I want to say that I am pro-woman. I interned with a feminist organization over the summer, and I do not tolerate sexist comments.
Furthermore, I agree with part of his premise that representatives should more accurately reflect the population; there should be more women in congress. The issues I have with Pat’s opinion piece are these: he assumes gender similarities equate to adequate representation, and he oversimplifies complicated issues to discredit half of the American population.
The first issue is one of representation. He assumes that a woman in congress can represent all women. That’s not necessarily true. I, for example, am a pro-life feminist. He assumes that it’s a male-dominated culture that’s destroying the freedom of women, when I would argue that it’s a male-dominated culture that’s denying women adequate resources and accommodation to choose life for their children.
The second flaw in Pat’s premises is his oversimplification of the Planned Parenthood debacle. I have personally seen extensive footage of Planned Parenthood employees in clinics telling people posing as pimps—who talk about their “girls” who aren’t “quite legal” but need to “get back to work”— that there are ways around the legal precautions. The employees did not know the “pimp” was lying; they didn’t even flinch in volunteering to go around the law.
This should be something that other women find outrageous, yet it’s spun in political vernacular. The humans in the middle are lost. This, along with many other reasons, explains why Planned Parenthood was being investigated by the federal government.
The mingling of funds—a main reason given by pro-lifers to de-funded PP—is a reason cited by the Supreme Court to prevent federal money from going to religious schools, even to cover the costs of teaching secular subjects such as math. If the money covered “secular” costs, it would free up other funding for religious subjects, the Court said. Apply this to Planned Parenthood, and, well, you get what I’m saying since most Americans do not want to federally fund abortions.
I am not defending Rush Limbaugh or Rick Santorum, and I am not saying Planned Parenthood is incapable of ever helping women. I am saying that an opinion titled “The repeal of women” does more damage than good, that a society always pitting women against children will someday tear itself apart and that a man criticizing men for not understanding shouldn’t be the first one to assume all women are the same.
For the original article, “The repeal of women,” please click here.
Yes!!!