One Great Leap (Backwards) for Womankind

Apparently, in the Democratic party, education, hard work, experience, and accomplishment in a long career of diplomacy do not qualify a woman to make diplomatic decisions--but having children does.

"Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, an appalling scold from California, wasted no time yesterday in dragging the debate over Iraq about as low as it can go - attacking Secre tary of State Condoleezza Rice for being a childless woman.

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush's tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."

Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family." NYP

I myself am a woman with no children, and I'm gosh darn lucky that I work for a company that overlooks that in order to let me help make critical marketing decisions.  Thank goodness I don't work for the Democratic party-- they might make me reproduce before I get to pitch in at meetings!

Comments

[james G]

Next time think before you post. I can't beleive people buy this political spindoctoring. Boxer was just making the point that neither her nor Rice pay much of a personal price for a mistaken war, because neither of them have children in the military. She was not making any kind of comment about women with no children. As anyone who has watched her senate hearings or Daily Show interviews knows, Boxer is certainly no anti-feminist.

From wikipedia:

"Boxer authored the Freedom of Choice Act of 2004 and participated in the floor fight for passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

As a member of the House of Representatives, Boxer authored the original Violence Against Women Act. Later in 1994, she co-sponsored, and the Senate passed, the Violence Against Women Act, which provided reforms to the criminal justice system to better prosecute violent crimes against women, and provided federal funding to local law enforcement agencies for training and equipment necessary for prosecution. Boxer has also authored the Violence Against Children Act, based on the successful VAWA.

Boxer is an original cosponsor of the Title X Family Planning Services Act of 2005, S.844, by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). This legislation aims to reduce unintended pregnancies, reduce the number of abortions, and improve access to women's health care. It authorizes funding for family planning services grants; allows states to provide such services to individuals who may not be eligible for Medicaid; prohibits health insurance providers from excluding contraceptive services, drugs or devices from benefits; establishes a program to disseminate information on emergency contraception; requires hospitals receiving federal funding to offer emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault; provides grants to public and private entities to establish or expand teen pregnancy prevention programs; and requires that federally funded education programs about contraception be medically accurate and include information about health benefits and failure rates.

Boxer does not support restrictions on the availability of abortion, such as late term ("partial-birth") abortion procedures, and parental notification requirements."

Kind of odd to be so pro-choice while being anti-"childless women" or whatever weird charge you are trying to make against her.

[SK]

May be Condi is gay and is too afraid to come out and damage her conservative credentials. Any reference to starting a family may be too close for comfort. Of course, she did call Bush her "husband" once so may be she is bi? Just wondering...

[nico]

Spindoctoring is RIGHT! But like any good lawyer (or law maker)does for a living, when the facts aren't supportive (neither Condi nor W have any skin in this bloody "game" of Iraq), tell a good story ("Boxer inappropriately insults Rice").

[mc]

Barbara Boxer was right to question Condi on the issue of motherhood. If it weren't for mothers none of us would be here today.

[Stunned]

The false outrage over this is a very familiar tactic from the Bush administration. The evident goal is to find something, anything, to distract from the unpopular and ill-conceived escalation strategy.

[Sport]

I read the transcript and feel your interpretation is wide of the mark. Boxer, in an apparently wasted attempt to spread some empathy, said the loss of life or severe damage to the body of a beloved relative was of great and permanent importance. The feminist angle on her remarks reeks of going with what you wish she would have said, rather than what she actually did say.

[Dan Chilcoat]

Secretary Rice has neither honor nor success on her side. She has lied to the American public (and the world) and has failed as a National Security Advisor and as a diplomat. She will be a footnote in history as just another example of incompetance in the failed Bush administration. She continues to damage the United States of America by mindlessly repeating Rovian "talking points" which attempt to obsure the reality of failure rather than participating in productive dialogue.

[Noah22]

Way to go! Don't let the facts get in the way of your story.

[Jim in Sai Gon]

Californians have accepted the fact that Boxer is a sanctimonious, hypocritical jackass. Pity any Republican who would utter the same insults as Boxer did! They'd be run out of office. The Dems are back in power and are behaving like the brat hippies they have always been. Way to go, America!

[Shirley]

Babs Boxer made a fool of herself. So have the not-so-bright liberal whiners above who are rushing to her defense like lemmings to the sea by claiming that her vicious anti-feminist remarks to Condi were not what they plainly are.

[Wesley Dumont]

I love how any comment in the media between women - and in this case spun 180-degrees - becomes a 'great leap' in feminism.

Boxer's remark wasn't about feminism. It was about facts - neither one of them have kids in the war.

THIS JUST IN - CONDI RICE DOESN'T HAVE KIDS! CONDI RICE'S NON-EXISTENT KIDS ARE NOT GOING TO DIE IN THE IRAQ WAR!

It's so easy to be anti-feminist. All I had to do was state a fact.

Who's the idiot????

[Ryan]

Attention: the Intelligencia is made up of Liberals. The Democrats are not swayed by religious nonsense, nor are they motivated by political agendas. 90% of college professors are Democrat. Why is this? Because the smartest of us are liberal-minded.

The great thing about Condi not having any children: she won't have any offspring to infect the U.S. Government in 40 years. Darwinism at it's finest.

[Ryan]

Oh, and Shirely (as well as the owner of this crappy blog): 100 years of anti-woman legislation trumps any passing, off-handed remark said by a Senator from California.

You're choosing to ignore Republican doctrine: Down with women.

[Ali]

You made a comment about your position in your work overlooking the fact that you don't have children - perhaps you haven't noticed that NINETY-NINE PERCENT of jobs in this country could give a s**t about your family unless they get in the way of doing your job. This society we live in is geared toward people "unencumbered by children" - jobs don't offer insurance for families, don't provide any sort of child care and don't afford extra time off to care for illnesses or emergencies for children. Be happy that for now the world caters to you! Senator Boxer brought up a good point - how many rich folks up on the hill are sacrificing their children for this war? How many of these important decisions are being affected by the deciders' lives being directly involved? I'll trust the decisions Bush makes when he puts his daughters into the military; I can't say that much for Rice. Which is Boxer's point entirely. As an active feminist mom I have no problem with Boxer making the statements - she would have said the same damn thing if it was Ashcroft, Rumsfeld or even Colin Powell in front of her - the people who are keeping the war machine going have a responsibility to consider the people that will be dying there, as well as their families, and there's nothing sexist about having children.

[David King]

Boxer should shut up and concentrate on Rice's duplicity in the killing of over 3000 members of the armed service and the wounding of many others. She is a horrific human being who would sell her soul for power.

[Tony V]

All the apologists for Barbara Boxer here are hypocrites, what annoys me is that they think they're taking the high ground by doing it.

The "Hey you don't pay the price" and "why don't you rich folks send your kids to the war" arguments were used quite effectively by Michael Moore, Al Sharpton, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and a laundry list of others, to stir you people up.

EVERYONE knew what Boxer meant, that's why this hasn't died. It wasn't a play on empathy, an attempt to find common ground, certainly not a way build a bipartisan bridge...IT WAS AN EMOTIONALLY CHARGED SWIPE AT RICE (AND THE PRESIDENT) TO FURTHER GRIPE ABOUT THE WAR. Will everyone just admit it?

The fact is, this garbage happens on both the left and the right, the only difference is, a majority of today's journalists justify the one, and mercilessly slam the other.

Can you imagine the ABSOLUTE FIRESTORM THAT WOULD ERUPT if Dennis Hastert had said THE EXACT SAME COMMENT to female secretary of state in the exact same situation?

[Noah22]

Tony, that's crap. No "firestorm" would have erupted if the roles were reversed. Why should a "firestorm" erupt when someone says neither one of us has family members fighting in the war? It's a fact not a slam.

I heard all day long yesterday conservative talk show hosts, commentators, and White House representatives talking about how Boxer said Rice isn't married and doesn't have children so she can't understand. When i finally saw the actual interchange I couldn't believe it. The only reason a firestorm erupted here was because certain people deliberately misrepresented what she said.

[Tony V]

Noah, come on, let's not be naive, you know how this works. "Facts" IN CONTEXT are used as swipes all the time. (eg. "George Bush comes from a rich family and 'served' in the National Guard during the Vietnam war" stated in the context of his fitness and moral compass when making decisions to send "our sons and daughters" into combat).

While I don't believe Boxer is anti-woman, she was using "the fact" as a personal attack to win political points, (and paint Rice with the "callous war-monger" paint brush) when she should have been just talking about issues. It was the same thing when John Kerry brought up the fact that Mary Cheney was a lesbian to win points presidential debate. (Although it was more to discredit them to conservatives, "the fact" was used as a swipe)

And Noah, if you don't think a white Republican saying the same thing would not get absolutely crucified by 90% of the media today, you're letting partisanship cloud your thinking. I mean Dick Cheney's hunting accident--a HUNTING ACCIDENT for crying out loud--was blown up into two-week wall-to-wall media character profile on the Machiavellian Secrecy of the Bush administration?

A majority of the media is liberal and these days, it's fashionable to wrap opinion up as news (on both sides mind you). It is what it is, but I don't have to like, and certainly, I don't have to swallow it or play along.

[Stunned]

Tony V,

Bringing up Mary C's alleged lesbianism in your post was gratuitous and outrageous.

Just kidding. I just wanted to see how it feels to pretend to find this kind of thing offensive.

[Susie]

Ha ha ha-- I think the funniest thing about reading these posts is that "Ryan" thinks that college professors are college professors because they are "smart minded".

[Playin Possum]

You are a bunch of damned hypocrites, IMO... If you really follow politics, you realize men are routinely passed over for not being "family men." It's true in industry, it's true in politics. Sure, queers like Mark Foley get a pass... But most men need the whole family / church / right school shtick as well as connections to get to where Rice is...

Furthermore, she's an incompetent boob. Her tenure in White House positions has been a disaster. Again IMO, Rice gets a pass on justifiable criticism because 1) she's black and 2) she's a she. In a single yardstick environment, she would be a laughingstock.

[labeau]

Funny how liberals who hate someone alway throw out the "gay" card.
Ever met a liberal, the most bitter non-giving, do nothing bunch of boobs you'll ever met.
Remember halfbright toasting the little dictator, while he build bombs.
The clintion's killed more a american people then any president in history,, , waco, ruby ridge, all led to tim mcveigh okie bombing.
Nice one liberals.
Good to see you crawled out from under your beds.
bunch of punk-ass cowards.

[MB]

It was an invalidating remark.

The people who are qualified to tell you this, are the ones who (as myself) are unable to have a child, and also lost a family member in Iraq...

One should not have to resort to reducing the value of another's participation, just to make their point.

These were the same tactics used, when we fought so hard for the ability to vote...
-Good post.

[Alex Williams]

I have trouble understanding why someone like yourself feels qualified or important enough to have a blog. Your reaction is so knee jerk, and by the talking points. The advantage of blogs is that you can cut through the talking points and spin, not reiterate them. If you want to talk about setting feminism back a few years, I would evaluate what you are you doing before attacking someone like Barbara Boxer, an icon in the realm of women's rights and feminism. This news story is manufactured on so many levels. For starters, it was Laura Bush who recently made the marriage status of Sec. Rice an issue, saying in a recent interview with People magazine: “Dr. Rice, who I think would be a really good candidate, is not interested. Probably because she is single, her parents are no longer living, she’s an only child. You need a very supportive family and supportive friends to have this job.”

You have to do your homework, otherwise your blog is nothing more than a speaker for the talking heads.

Alex

[Les]

As Barbara Boxer railed on Condi Rice,Secretary Of State, for not having kids and therefore being unable to relate to the loss of a loved one....she forgot to mention these childless women!

Baroness White, Former UK Labour Government Minister

Sally Ride, First American Female Astronaut

Judith Resnick, Astronaut

Janet Reno, Former U.S. Attorney-General

Jeanette Rankin, 1st Female US Representative

Florence Nightingale, Nurse

Queen Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii

Joan of Arc, Christian Saint

Patricia Ireland, President of the National Organization for Women/ NOW

Emma Goldman, Activist, Feminist

Elizabeth I, Queen of England

Maureen Dowd, Columnist

Elizabeth Dole, Reagan's Secretary of Transportation

Charlotte Curtis, First woman on the masthead of The New York Times

Helen Clark, New Zealand Prime Minister

Helen Gurley Brown, Feminist, Editor

Susan B. Anthony, Womans' Suffragist

Rosa Parks,activist.