Look at what are traditionally classified as “women’s issues:” Birth control. Abortion. Child care. Breast cancer treatment. As though all we are in the public sphere is boobies and babies. It’s insulting. As though in a time when women are earning more than ever before, fiscal policy isn’t of interest to us. As though in a time when more single women are owning homes, issues of taxation aren’t “women’s issues.”
Family and medical leave, when more women (and men) are caring for their elderly parents than ever before, are critical to us now. Labor laws, as women are staying longer in the work force, matter deeply to everyone who works for a living. The entire arena of foreign policy, for heaven’s sakes, is a woman’s issue. Last time I checked there were more than a few female members of our armed forces, but no, when we talk security, it’s “moms” we talk about, at home with their kids and their chocolate Lab, not deterrence and isolationism and Wilsonianism and the dispersement of our resources abroad. Resources which include female soldiers and sailors and spies.
A.