Why Women Should Support President Obama

If it were the late 1960’s and we were existing in a time when Kings of the Universe, like the Don Draper type, reigned would we acknowledge the only jobs that would be considered respectable and acceptable for a woman outside of helping the war effort in times of dire need, would be either secretary, teacher, or nurse, but never the subversive desire to write barn-burning articles for the local newspaper about inequality between the sexes and how few really seem to care about the concerns of the so-called fairer sex. Mostly.

Not when it comes to our bodies where even saying the word abortion is tantamount to committing a sin, much less actually seeking one and trusting some suspect doctor who sets up shop on a kitchen table or in some other symbolic back alley. Or whether or not we really are able to “be anything we want to be” or if we’d have to settle for having our dreams deferred, like so many women of the era who were not expected to want to pursue higher education or seek a career. And if we do, let’s not even talk about the workforce and pay equal to our male counterparts. HA! Women were lucky to even have those jobs when society screeched that they should’ve been married with children, and even if wed, they better work hard to be home by 5pm to have dinner on the table.

During that time issues like these gave rise to the National Organization for Women (NOW) who pledged to fight tirelessly for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Something surprisingly President Nixon favored the ratification of. Oh, but other right wing factions including pot-stirrer Phyllis Schafly, who chiefly believed the ERA would bring about wanton abortions for all single women as if it were a menu item at a McDonald’s drive-thru, set about stopping the ERA at all costs. And she wasn’t the only one. Over the years up and through heralded Republican president and constant undead apparition massaged by any right-winger who could formulate a sentence in later years, Ronald Reagan, became the first U.S. President opposed to a constitutional amendment which provided equal rights for women. Ergo from then forth the ERA would be stopped by right-wing forces and diminished by right-leaning factions, take Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for example who said in reference to the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment, “Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that.”

So bringing it forward to today when we currently have a president who has fought for the rights of women by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of which his opponent, Mitt Romney is opposed, and who has fought for women’s issues, I would ask any woman who cares about rights for women, including the ability to protect the right to have choice over our bodies no matter the reason, the ability to obtain medical care, to not have rape qualified and excused, to have equal pay for equal work, to not be considered a second-class citizen, to be able to marry who you love, and not be dismissed as part of the irresponsible 47% or the even more demeaning gambit of being lumped into a category of women selected from a binder, or left stranded after a national disaster without government aid, or faced with seeing your job shipped overseas — why would you ever vote for someone who champions, flaunts, courts, or accepts any of these ideals? I’m sure that’s not what the 1960’s, 70’s and early 80’s, or our foremothers who lifted the veil of a woman’s right to vote, would want.

So, among various other reasons — but empirically for the right to freedom in all that it encompasses as a woman in this country — women should vote against going back to the days when we were limited in our measure, our bodies used as bargaining chips, and our voices diminished during the election cycle. Vote against back alley abortions and any administration that considers you lesser than. Vote for the clear choice and re-elect President Barack Obama.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it. — Eleanor Roosevelt

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