Were I a woman, I would use the election in November as a blunt political tool: In one fell swoop, millions upon millions of women could send an unvarnished message to right-wing Republicans, the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court and gasbags like Rush Limbaugh to shut the heck up. What prompted this blog posting – okay, this is downright rant – is that, among other things, I have a niece, recently graduated from college, who is beginning to start building a professional career and, hopefully, a successful life.
If her life is as challenging as mine was after I graduated – and it will be, given the state of the economy – the last thing she needs is for some ideologue like Rick Santorum, some clueless archbishop like, well, any archbishop, an errant Supreme Court the like of which we have not seen since Dred Scott, or a buffoon like Limbaugh to spring obstacles in her path. An overwhelming vote by women is called for – anything less will encourage the jihad that has burst upon women from out of nowhere.
Who would have guessed that just four years after a woman almost became the Democratic nominee for President – and most likely would have been elected – that open season has been declared on women. But there is a remedy. I remember when Ann Richards ran for governor in Texas in 1990. Richards was battling the Republican nominee, Clayton Williams, an antediluvian oilman from West Texas who had made a number of remarks, including a joke about rape. Williams had offended women from one end of the state to the other. At the time, too, concern was mounting about the composition of the Supreme Court that was already moving rightward. Women were anxious about any judge that George H. W. Bush would name to the court.
By all accounts, Richards should have lost the contest. Texas was already becoming a state redder than crimson. The polls were said to be close and the election tight. But the state’s women had not been heard from – but they soon would be. I saw the moment when it began coming together. I was a journalist then and went to observe her finishing rally up at the state capitol.
I had been sitting on the front steps leading out of the building watching Richards’ volunteers – mostly women – put together placards and signs for the rally. A sound, more muted than loud, began to be heard from behind the Capitol. Richards’ volunteers and onlookers like me started to look up to see what was causing the growing commotion. Soon enough it was obvious. Hundreds of young women from the University of Texas five blocks away marched around the capitol in densely packed ranks, flooding the grounds and bringing tears to the eyes of the older Richards workers.
Some of the young women were very well dressed – sorority types, presumably from the well-heeled sections of Dallas and Houston. “I’ll never say anything bad about those little kids again,” I heard one top Richards campaign official say. With the strong support of hundreds of thousands of women across the state, many of them Republican and many more of them HispanicLatino, she won the election and went on to become a national, unyielding and humorous voice for women’s rights. Oh, that we had Ann today to lead the movement so needed – again – to take on the likes of Limbaugh, silly bishops, disturbed presidential candidates and confused justices.
Yet the moment might not need a Richards. All it needs is for each woman to form a part of an angry wave that sweeps away the nonsense that has cropped out of nowhere and perhaps puts it away forever.
I cannot but imagine that my niece will be among them.
Feel free to forward these blogs adapted from previous writings, with additional thoughts published invariably in between.