By Sara Elizabeth Walter
When I walked into the ballroom of the Pennsylvania College Republican State Convention Dinner last spring, I had prepared myself to be a woman in a sea of men. I was pleasantly surprised to see that about 40% of the attendees at the convention were female-and many of them holding important positions within their College Republicans chapters. I have been told by feminist professors and teachers for years that women were incredibly underrepresented in politics, and that this was because the system was inherently chauvinistic (particularly on the conservative side). Was I, along with the rest of the women present, merely succumbing to this misogynist view? I tend to differ in this viewpoint. Women shouldn't be treated any different than men (which is what I thought the entire goal of the feminist movement was in the first place), and this applies to politics too. I have never been looked upon as "revolutionary" or "different" because I am a woman in Republican politics-unless it's a Democrat who is doing the looking, in which case I am a rare bird who must be insane to put up with the constant misogyny which they believe is so prevalent within the conservative movement.
In this election cycle, with Hillary Clinton and so much emphasis on women as a powerful bloc of voters, I question whether women should have separate issues. If feminism is succeeding, then shouldn't the left recognize that women as a whole most often prioritize the same issues as men when deciding whom they will vote for? The news media often report how Clinton will sweep the female vote because she is female. The left cries that if you don't vote for Hillary, you don't want to give a woman the chance to be president. Such claims are pure hogwash, designed to make women not empowered, but ignorant and apathetic. By using scare tactics to make women think that they can only support a fellow woman for president, the Democrats are making a dangerous assumption-that women feel alienated by men. However, by and large, women won't vote for a woman merely because of a hatred of men-a myth that the feminist movement has trusted for far too long.
"Women's issues" is quite a vague term unto itself, although almost every Democratic presidential candidate has hired staff for just this topic. Generally, included in this category are abortion, health care, welfare (particularly for single mothers). But what Democrats aren't saying, and what Republicans haven't quite cashed in on yet, is that these are not uniquely women's issues-men care just as much. And even more so, the conservative capitalist, free market economic policies would benefit women (particularly married women-a demographic oft-ignored by feminist groups as traitors) and give them more freedom and opportunity through financial independence based on tax breaks. Also, since many health care decisions are made by women, the health care plans proposed by Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani should be lauded as another way to place more power in the hands of women in determining how they would like their health care plan. Instead, conservative candidates thus far seem to be focusing on exactly what you would think the feminists (in theory) would love-there are no women's issues, only issues which affect women as well as men.
In the movie "Little Women," Jo March says of women's suffrage, "I find it poor logic to say that women should vote because they are good. Men do not vote because they are good; they vote because they are male, and women should vote, not because we are angels and men are animals, but because we are human beings and citizens of this country." Thus, women should not vote for Hillary (or for any other candidate, for that matter) because they represent "women's issues." In truth, there are no "women's issues"-no more than there are "men's issues." There are only American issues-and these are the issues we should be focusing on in this election cycle. By alleging that candidates should have staff to deal with "women's issues," they are only perpetuating the myth that women should be treated separately and differently than men. Perhaps if the Democratic candidates focused on the real issues this election cycle, we would have a much better dialogue and better-developed policy proposals.