The Republican Party has steadily advanced a campaign to drive women out of positions of power in public and corporate life. But have they, really?
From Phyllis Schlafly onward, the trend has tilted to dump women back into dependent, subservient roles in which their only power comes from their ability to manipulate their heterosexual husbands. Some factions of the party now openly seek to reduce the ability of women to register to vote. A few even talk about repealing the right altogether.
A snippet in a summary of Mitch McConnell's career caught my eye. A woman named Janet Mullens, who worked on his senate campaign in 1984, was quoted as saying, "He intuitively knew that women worked harder to prove themselves. He was woke before woke, I guess."
That's not woke. That's exploitation. Republicans have kept it so that many women would be discouraged from trying, but the few who do try will be so incredibly motivated that they will do four times as much for two-thirds the pay, provided you start them off at half pay first so that two-thirds looks like significant progress.
Sexism being rampant in the male, regardless of party affiliation, Democrats have been slow to inch in the direction of full parity and respect. That said, they've advanced a bit further than the right wing on this, because their definition of liberty encompasses a more realistically diverse population. But the sentiment will remain in the male psyche. Guard against it always. "Not all men" think that way, but the attitude has centuries of cultural reinforcement.
The question boils down to whether allowing all roles eliminates some by default, and how the women filling those roles will be fairly compensated. A woman who chooses to remain childless or delay reproduction to pursue a career or other interests should not devalue one who chooses stay at home with the kids. The reverse is also true. But it keeps getting framed as a war between two monolithic positions. That's without even factoring in sex and gender diversity that further complicates the binary choices so beloved of simple minds.
Compensation extends beyond a paycheck. We've lost sight of that in this world where billionaires strive to become trillionaires while we all watch from below, some in admiration, some in horror. The very fact that no amount of money or power seems to be enough shows that what they devour is almost instantly digested, leaving them craving more. If it was just drugs or sugar, they wouldn't be hurting as many people, but its the lifeblood of economies they're guzzling with vampirish lust.
There's more than one way to play the game. Women seeking power or proximity to power work their way into the existing system as hardworking servants or bejeweled decorations. Many of them you see today on the right have themselves made into caricatures of femininity, to the extent that's medically possible. Sorry, Marge. You'll have to get by on CrossFit and crazy. But the others go for the boob jobs and hair extensions along with their semiautomatic weapons and flamethrowers. They leave behind a trail of dead dogs and goats, sticky puddles in theater seats, and other attention seeking behavior to prove that they are no shrinking violets. Will there always be a place for them in this and every future conservative administration? Or are they energetically building their own prison? And are they secretly looking forward to that?
No woman could stay in the Trump administration without deferring to Big Daddy. As feisty as they act, it's still in the framework of what makes a girl attractive to the menfolk. "Hell, she can shoot a gun, change the oil in her pickup truck, cook supper, and still fck my brains out that night and tell me I was great!" Yeah, then she spends a suspiciously long time shut in the bathroom with her "electric toothbrush," but let's not pick at it too much.
From the women's side, flirtatious behavior is the dangerous game they use to make the men feel generous. Occasionally they'll get too close and have to put up with sexual assault, but that's just part of being a large-animal trainer. You're going to get stomped, or kicked, or bitten sometimes. Maybe some of you die. It's a small price to pay for keeping men manly.
The tyranny of normality demands that women be that way and support men being locked into the hierarchical world view that has framed every power structure among religions, nations, and corporations throughout history. You're either climbing the ladder or you're one of the rungs being stepped on. It remains true as long as we decide that it must be that way. Perhaps it is genetically inescapable, as conservatives have long asserted. I wonder, however, what some of the shrimpier members of the alpha male booster club would do if they were trapped naked in a locker room with a handful of larger assailants bent on power-raping them to assert dominance. Just you and whatever you were born with, against them. No weapons, only strength and whatever skill you have chosen to cultivate for your physical defense. This is the world you chose.
