Democrats see women as sex objects redux

I posted about this way back in March in, "Women's health care and the sexual objectification of women." No need to click the link, I'm just pasting the post below. Here's why - the tawdry, sex-innuendo ad by the Obama campaign aimed to convince first-time female voters that they should lose their political virginity by getting into bed (so to speak) with Barack Obama.



Personally, I expect the ad to be pulled because of the uproar that has resulted from the insulting, degrading implications that the number one thing on women's minds as they go to vote will be sex, free condoms, sex, free contraceptive prescriptions, sex, free abortions, sex ... well, you get the idea.

And so from last March, which was prompted by former DNC communications director Karen Finney's appearance on MSNBC talking about the women's vote and "basic health care."

What are the fallacies? I can hardly count the ways. But I'll try.

1. Finney, like the rest of the left-wing Democrat party (but I repeat myself), can think only in terms of identity politics. Women, in her view, must vote in ways that Finney approves of because she knows the (only) authentic women's position. In her groupthink mind, not to vote in ways she wants is to betray all other women. That's why she said "it's a little painful" for her: she personally feels betrayed. The only thing she can ponder is that Santorum's women voters just didn't understand what was at stake: "i'm wondering if those women really heard the full message." This is of course the usual Democrat trope that the stupid voters just don't get it and that if only "the message" could get through, then Democrats would triumph all the time.

2. Thus neither she nor Thompson can conceive of any woman who is actually thinking for herself - and of herself - as an independent thinker, untied to pure gender politics. Finney and Thompson simply cannot make room in their world view for women who want economic freedom and lower taxes and less onerous federal regulation. In other words, Democrats can no more understand independently-thinking women who approach politics primarily as American citizens rather than as "women" than a chimpanzee can understand Einstein's theory of general relativity. Women who voice such concerns have, once again - wait for it! - not gotten the message!

3. "Basic health care" for women, in Democrat lexicon, means nothing at all but being given free contraceptives and abortifacients or abortions. That's it. In their mind, American women should not think of health care primarily in other terms. And if women can't get sexually-related prescriptions and abortions, then they will be so decimated that, as Finney put it, "how are you then going to be able to do what you need to do in terms of having a job, paying your rent, taking care of your kids?"

In the Democrat mind, sex without sex's consequences are the only thing that women should think about when they approach a voting booth. Finney and Thompson, et. al., actually think that unless the government makes sure that women's sex lives are unencumbered, then a woman simply cannot manage her job, housing or children. Sex rules all else.

The Democrat party truly cannot comprehend a woman going to vote who is more concerned about the dent in her paycheck caused by $5-per-gallon gasoline than finding free condoms, or who worries about the future impoverishment of her children and grandchildren because of Obama's borrow and spend binges more than she worries about buying the Pill, or whose most pressing concern is not sexual liberty, but a college-graduate son or daughter who has moved back to live with mom because s/he can't find a job and therefore can't make student loan payments and rent at the same time.

Not in the Dems' world view is a woman who pays her mortgage every month but who knows that her home's market value is less than the mortgage principal remaining, and stupidly thinks that this is more important to her future (and thus her voting) than getting morning-after pills. There is no room in Democrat gender-identity politics for a woman who has been married to one man for 35 years and so never thinks about getting free contraceptives or an abortion (that is, what Dems say is "basic health care") but who is intensely concerned with her elderly parents' net worth falling as inflation rises.

No, these women simply do not authentically exist in the Democrat universe. Such women simply have not heard the full message that there should be nothing more important to a woman than sex, sex, sex.

To the Democrat party, women are simply sex objects, though with political and statist rather than fleshly purposes. But objects is all they are. That's the real message that countless women get very well and strongly reject.

Update: This seems right, too: "Women's health" is,

... that peculiar branch of medicine which has determined that every naturally occurring happening in an adult woman’s life, from menstruation to ovulation to childbearing to menopause, is a medical problem to be managed with the appropriate drugs or surgical procedure. That so many “feminist” women sign on to essentially declaring their gender a malady to be treated has always struck me as peculiar but that is a story for a different day.

Remember the old 1960s leftist slogan "The issue isn't the issue." The real issue of gender politics and "women's health" is neither women nor their health. It is increasing their dependency on statist bureaucrats and increasing control over evermore of the way we live.

The Atlantic cites and then dismisses protests against the tastelessness and seaminess of the ad that is far inappropriate coming from a presidential contender, especially an incumbent.

The outrage is ridiculous. The ad is aimed at people who are between 18 and 22 years old, people who are young enough to have not voted in the last election but who are eligible now. People who probably know who Lena Dunham is, because she's basically the voice of every Millennial ever, didn't you know? But these men, these old, grey-haired men, are upset because sex and voting are not the same thing, and, and think of the children! (Note: some of these men may still have perfectly normal colored heads of hair.)

Hard to believe that Josh Marshall understands the other side of the coin for this ad, but he (almost) does"

Set aside, if you can, Marshall's inherent racism that ethnic minorities are of such sexual habits or low intellect that only "whiteguys" can be offended by the ad. He does seem to understand that regardless of the ad's "intended" audience, it's going to be seen by a huge number of other voters, upon whom it will have an unintended effect.

And they are not all "55 and over whiteguys." For example, Erica, commenting on The Atlantic site:

I find it hilarious that you've 'randomly selected' these supposedly only 55 + old men who are outraged. Most women I've seen are just as outraged, including yours truly. I find it rephrehensible [sic], but what do I know, I'm only 32 years young, oh and female.

Or commenter Scott Harris,

Here's the thing that those who think this is a good ad just don't get. I have two daughters, ages 18 and 20 who are voting for the first time in a Presidential Election this year. Both of them are horrified and disgusted by this ad. It is not even close. They were creeped out by the ad, and the idea of them having sex with someone as old as Obama - which the ad insinuates - just disgusts them. 

I have a daughter who will turn 19 next week. She's already voted. I haven't asked her what she thinks about this ad, but believe me, I know her a lot better than Lena Dunham does. And especially better than Barack Obama does.

Update: Brilliant: