Disrespect over governing..

Once again, Senate Republicans have blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act..evidently this makes the third time. Why can't these idiots understand that women deserve to be paid the same as a man for doing the same work? Oh, they'd have a hissy fit if it happened to any of them. But women aren't apparently worth the same in the workplace. Or any other place it seems.

It's sad that we need a law enacted to protect us from business owners who can't seem to do right by us. Equal pay should be a given. I remember when I was in high school and my mother was dealing with this crap. She did everything a male supervisor did and got half as much in her paycheck as the guy did. The company's attitude was that men were the breadwinners and women worked to bring in fun money to the family. Fun money..can you imagine that? My mother, at that time, was still married to my father and we needed both paychecks to make it each month. This inequality continued after they were divorced and she was a single mother. Women were second class citizens then, and if the Republicans have their way, we will be again.

Women work hard. We work hard at our respective jobs (many times minimum wage jobs) and then we have to come home and work hard there as well, taking care of our families. We put up with sexual harassment and if we speak up, we're denigrated even further. After all, it's just a compliment, right? We're too emotional, right? Wrong. We also want affordable health insurance for ourselves and our families. The Republicans have voted over fifty times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. What's wrong with them??? Why do they not want us to have health insurance that actually covers what we need it for? What are they afraid of?

Which brings up reproductive rights..you remember those..we dealt with this a long time ago. Abortion and birth control are legal. But you'd think the Republicans were absent that day because they are still sticking their noses in our constitutionally protected business. Leave us alone. Mind your own business. No one is going to tell me what I can do with my body..not now..not ever. And guess what..I don't know any women out there who feel any different about this than I do. Except those empty headed idiots on FOX. Where on earth did they find these women? They're beyond clueless and only serve to further on the ridiculous Republican male obsession with our vaginas. 

Michael Hayden, former Director of the NSA, thinks that Senator Dianne Feinstein is too emotional when talking about the report on torture. I love it when men go there. She put him in his place..fussy baby that he is. Emotional? Just listen to my husband talk about torture. Emotional doesn't even begin to describe how he feels about it. He's a disabled Vietnam Veteran. He wants the entire Bush Administration put in prison for, well, everything. It doesn't matter if it's torture or the financial crisis, he wants all of them in jail. Here's the thing about torture. It's illegal. Any service member who was given the order to torture has the responsibility to refuse that order. To participate in such atrocities is a war crime in his belief. He goes completely ballistic (emotional) when he hears Cheney or Rummy defend what they did. And for President Bush to say now that he's concerned about the soldiers that served is too appalling for words. He should have thought about that before instituting stop-loss. He can save his concern for someone who buys into his crap, because no one is listening anymore.

I would like to see all of them lose in the next election because that's what they deserve. We have to get our country back on track. We need lawmakers who understand the constitution and have a genuine desire to make life better for the American people. We need Congress to behave like adults and remember why they were elected. We need compassion and respect that clearly doesn't exist now. Unfortunately, that doesn't exist in the Republican Party or their Tea Party subset. When conservatism devolves into the radical destruction of our country, we cannot afford to have them in government any longer.

Besides..the sisterhood is weary of it all. So, either learn to play nice or go away. Or we'll make your lives a living hell..you know, by voting.

Well now, isn't that convenient?

There's a movement afoot that requires women to be subservient to their husbands. Yeah, like that's going to happen. I'm so glad I raised my two boys to respect women and view them as equals. I can't imagine either of them ever behaving this way toward their wives. If they did, they'd have to face me, and that won't end well.

Yes, it's that important. Shared responsibility is what we modeled for our boys. Subservience was anathema. I knew women who lived that way and I didn't understand it then and I surely don't understand it now. It's one thing to defer to someone who knows more than you about something. It's another to do so simply because of gender and family position. The other thing we did was to respect their views. Ultimately, we made the final decisions, but they had a voice in their lives. Of course, that's not how we were raised. We both grew up in the "be seen and not heard" era of child rearing. Having experienced patriarchy that was abusive, we made the choice to break that cycle. My husband has never viewed women as less than, so he naturally set a positive example for the boys.

Patriarchy breeds abuse. Women and children lose. Every time. The feminist movement has tried to suggest a more balanced approach to relationships, but apparently it fell on some pretty deaf ears, because we're seeing the effects of this attitude everywhere. Conservative governors are signing into law policies that not only promote inequality, but are also found later to be unconstitutional in some cases. It's evident in committee hearings on women's issues when no women are at the table testifying. Apparently Congressional committees believe only old, white men have the answers when women's issues come up. It's governmental patriarchy at its most disgusting.

The Mayor of Hoboken, New Jersey, and her staff, are talking to the feds right now about a conversation she had with the Lt. Governor of her state. The nasty comments from other political officials that ensued were demeaning..referring to her as the lady mayor, and questioning her motivations. She's a Democrat, so evidently it's open season on her gender instead of on what she's saying. Most of the comments I heard indicated that no one seemed to even know her. How do they not know the Mayor of Hoboken? It's not like it's some out of the way little town. 

It's bad enough when we have men in our lives that oppress and abuse us, but when it gets codified into law, we have no redress save the courts, and they're a mess. A woman defends herself against a violent husband she had a restraining order on, and she gets 20 years. She's out on bail now after already serving time and nearly went back to jail for going shopping after receiving permission to do so. They've calmed down, but what else are they going to do to her? How much dignity is she supposed to lose for defending herself?

Abortion is a constitutional right, but you'd never know it in some states. Conservative governors again sign into law bills that are only going to ultimately be overturned in some higher court. Of course we have no idea what SCOTUS will do about all of it, and given the conservative activist mentality on the Court today, we may be in for some real trouble on abortion rights. Or they may just surprise us and simply do their jobs and interpret existing law. It didn't happen with the Citizen's United decision, so many of us are worried.

This week, Mike Huckabee made a ridiculous comment about women's libidos.This, from a former pastor. He essentially believes that we're all Democrats so that someone called Uncle Sugar will support us while our libidos run amok. He needs to get his mind out of the gutter and remember God. Others in the last election cycle had idiotic things to say about rape and pregnancy that does result no matter what delusions are rattling around their empty heads. Why don't they all come out and say what they're thinking: women are sluts. Sluts because we dare to question. Sluts because we dare to say no. Sluts because we dare to believe that we can be someone. Sluts because we want to equal pay. Sluts because we dare to decide WHEN we have children. Sluts because we want respect. Sluts because we dare to want more than you will give us. This is why you cannot be in control. You can't handle the responsibility. 

I've known some pretty intelligent men in my life, but I've also known real idiots. Same is true for women I've known. We need to respect individual differences and not claim ownership on others. Women and children aren't objects for your amusement. We're here and we matter. We move forward in life together; otherwise, we go nowhere. You have to stop being afraid of that fact.

And blessings to my husband and sons who already understand this..