The Democrats like to bill themselves as the party that stands for women. That’s fine–except that white males are still the most crucial voting block in every U.S. election, and the Democratic Party has over the past 30 years been getting an ever-decreasing share of that 45 million-strong bloc. The Dems got a majority of the white male vote in 1976 with Jimmy Carter, then slid down to a mere 36 percent of white male votes with Al Gore in 2000. The reason? The Democrats’ incessant pandering to the radical feminist agenda, which simply turns off guys.
That’s the argument of Carey Roberts of iFeminists, star of this week’s XX Files, linked on the IWF’s home page. Militant feminism seems to give guys the creeps, says Roberts. She writes:
“A look at the Kerry website reveals that Kerry believes that women will fall for all manner of obsequious pandering. This is what John Kerry is telling American women:
“1. ‘We need a president who will put the American government and legal system back on the side of women.’
“The truth is, practically every federal government agency has an office devoted to women’s issues. But none — that’s right, none — has an office designated for men. The Congress and Supreme Court have enacted and upheld countless laws intended to help women, including the Violence Against Women Act, abortion rights, sexual harassment rules, and many others.
“2. ‘John Kerry will increase funding for breast and cervical cancer research.’
“The American Cancer Society reports that 230,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2004, compared to 216,000 women told they have breast cancer. But at the National Cancer Institute, funding for breast cancer outstrips prostate cancer by more than a 3:1 margin. Mr. Kerry, please help us to understand why any fair-minded woman would want to make that research disparity even worse?
“3. ‘We must ensure that women earn equal pay for equal work.’
“On average, men work 2,147 hours a year, compared to 1,675 hours for women. Men work in the more hazardous occupations such as construction and mining. And men have more work qualifications than women.
“The myth of gender wage discrimination has been debunked by the Women’s Freedom Network and the Independent Women’s Forum. Anyone who still claims that women are paid unfairly is being intellectually dishonest…or is a die-hard socialist.
“American women are arguably the most privileged of any group in history. But the Kerry-Edwards website makes it sound like women are on the verge of being shipped back to their suburban concentration camps: ‘But today, women are witnessing an unprecedented erosion of their basic rights.'”
Unprececedented erosion of their basic rights? You don’t have to be a guy to ask: What on earth can Kerry and Edwards mean? The answer rings loud and clear. The rad-fems want special government-administered privileges for women (outsize funding for breast-cancer research at the expense of prostate-cancer research is only the beginning). It’s not surprising that men are turned off by the Democratic platform in increasing numbers. And then there’s the prospect of having to pay for the tray of affirmative-action goodies from the pockets of fathers who would rather use the money to support their families.
No wonder men are deserting the Democratic Party in droves. Who among the Dems cares about their interests?
Update: Click here (today’s Washington Post) for a photo (another click) of Kerry with an all-too-typical Kerry consitutuent, Shirleen Martin, “job-training administrator.” A make-work position paid for with the hard-earned tax dollars of fathers (and mothers) who managed to train themselves to get jobs. That’ll get ya a lot of male votes, John.