Women form the majority of the electorate in the United States. You wouldn’t know that from looking at the number of female politicians there are, nor from the majority of the talking points on the campaign trail during this year’s presidential election. But there have been some trends, including the publicizing of the so-dubbed “war on women,” referring to the GOP’s platform that is harmful to women’s rights. During the second presidential debate this week, the issue came up again.
Women are really in a bind
Obama has long been keen on women’s issues, which is to say equality in the workplace, equal pay, supporting programs that help to develop careers, create opportunities, and supporting women’s reproductive rights and freedoms. Romney has been rightfully trying to play to the economic side of women, saying that the economy is the most important issue to them. He is correct, and it’s helping to improve his standing. But when the actual issue of women’s equality came up, Romney gaffed again.
As governor of Massachusetts, Romney was troubled at the lack of women in his cabinet. He racked his brain saying, “golly, I dont know any women who are qualified to be in these positions.” Of course, he has been saying that his whole life. He has always operated at the top of businesses, where he surrounded himself with other rich white men. That was just how things worked.
If Romney had worked with more talented women his entire career, and cared about seeing a true level of equality in the business world, he would’ve acknowledged that conditions were tough for women and that hiring and promotion opportunities needed to be made with this in mind. So to address his sudden urge to make up for a career of institutionalizing inequality, he got his team to put together binders of qualified female candidates that they could interview and identify as potential cabinet members.
The world has jumped on this comment in a way that’s unfair and hard to understand. Social media now affects the news after the news reports on something, and very random things can start to trend. One could argue that everything on the internet is random to the majority of internet users, but either way people started to use it to show how out of touch Romney is. Or proffer their own conclusions as to why exactly it’s funny. Yet while people jump on the comment, it is really the hypocrisy that hurts the most: if there were binders full of capable women, why didn’t Romney know any of them?
Romney’s father was the governor of Michigan, and unsuccessfully ran for President. Mitt Romney was an investment banker, business leader, and had close connections to Washington and Wall Street. He’s a well-connected guy. Why would Romney not know any qualified women? Because there are so few of them there in the first place!
The vicious circle is only exaggerated when Romney uses the excuse, “we wanted women, the men were just all better! It’s not our fault that we wanted to make money!” The problem is, the cycle will never be broken unless people like Romney truly value equality from the beginning of their careers, and show it by making sure that their workplaces are equal opportunity for their entire lives, not just when they need to win votes.