Fighting for women

With the "women's vote" becoming the new holy grail of this election, much attention is being paid to "women's issues." A lot of posturing going on, but this Equal Pay Act is a solid move for women's rights being undertaken by Democratic women Senators:

Five female Democratic senators talked up the bill Wednesday afternoon during a Capitol briefing — and made clear they intend to hammer Republicans as anti-women if they stand in its way. “As I look at the record of Republicans on women, it is not good,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). “Personally I say it’s a war on women, and the more they protest it the more I say it. Because I really, truly believe it. They filibustered the Paycheck Fairness Act before. They left millions of women out of the Violence Against Women Act. They launched repeated attacks on women’s health including denying affordable access to birth control. They want to criminalize a woman’s right to choose. And they tried to repeal health reform, which prohibits discrimination because of gender — not to mention, makes investments in prevention.”

All kinds of stats being floated around the internets about equal pay today. Most striking being the disparity in pay for equal work over a woman's lifetime is enough to feed a family of four for 37 years or something like that.

Contrast that to the Republican women in the House, who put together a video featuring all 24 GOP Congresswoman this week, for the express purpose of countering the claims that Republicans are waging a War on Women's Rights.

This is to mark the formation of GOP Women’s Policy Committee and no, I'm not linking to the video, you can watch it at the embedded link, but it's hardly worth the time. They offer no policy prescriptions, only the usual tired platitudes:

“As mothers, grandmothers, daughters, wives and sister, women often see things in a different context,” said the caucus’s chairwoman, Mary Bono Mack of California. “As Republican women, we have some really unique ideas for moving our nation forward, and we’re excited about working together to find solutions.”

It ends with Crazy Eyes Bachmann telling us that GOP women are mothers, small businesswoman and important politicians, who know how to balance a household budget and collectively have a deep concern for women's rights. They all have a burning desire to “make America great again.” Conspicuously missing is a tally of their votes on the bills addressing women's rights that have come before them so far. If memory serves, they have almost unanimously voted against every bill that would protect or advance them. Would have been helpful if someone mentioned that in the coverage of the video launch. But if anyone did, I didn't see it.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]