Precinct 333: Democrats View Women As Incapable, Inferior

Mary Katharine Hamm perfectly illustrates the liberal view that women are incapable of caring for themselves without the help of liberal men. Such paternalism, we thought, was the hallmark of a bygone age, and certainly outside of the realm of "good liberals" who see women as equal. But scratch the surface and you will find it there.

Hamm, a Heritage Foundation staffer, was introduced to a former DNC staffer while out with friends. during the course of the conversation, the following exchange occurred.

“All right,” I said, “as a young person working on Capitol Hill, making a modest sum of money, what do you and the Democratic Party have to offer me? What are you gonna do to help me move from one class to another?”

Brad looked at me as if the answer were self-evident. I raised my eyebrows and waited for his answer.

“Well, you know, as a female…”

He must have noticed the wicked smile spread across my face. If I were a better actress, I would have gone for outrage, but I asked:

“As a female… what?”

He mumbled something about women’s and minorities’ rights and “leveling the playing field.” Check mate, DNC Brad. Just to make sure I understood correctly, I ran over his points. I need the Democratic Party to help me move up in life. I can’t be expected to do it all by my little lonesome. And why not? Because I’m a girl.

DNC Brad had a slightly sheepish look on his face. He had just let slip one of the most blatantly sexist things I’d ever heard in person, and before I repeated it, had apparently been secure in the fact that he occupied the moral high ground.

I explained to Brad that I simply don’t believe I need the help of men like him and the government to make it in life, nor am I up for forking over my tax dollars to cheapen my achievements with a special set of girly rules. And so our conversation ended, a polite parting of ways. I picked up my lukewarm beer and moved on.

Had the story stopped there, one might be excused for thinking that Hamm had stumbled across one of the few remaining unenlightened individuals remaining in the Democrat Party. But her examination of the contents of the 2004 Democrat Party Platform is devastating. She repeatedly shows how the Democrats view her as incapable of fending for herself because of her sex.

First, “we support affirmative action to redress discrimination.”

That must have been what DNC Brad was talking about! The DNC is going to force people to give me all kinds of goodies I may not deserve simply because I’m incapable of earning them on my own. And why can’t I do it? Because I’m a girl!

Looks like this DNC thing really is the next train out of Oppressionville. Here’s another way they’re going to help me: “We believe a day's work is worth a day's pay, and at a time when women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, we need stronger equal pay laws and stronger enforcement of them.”

Now, I can understand that because I’m just a girl, the DNC would figure I’d take this statistic from them without question, but it turns out I can Google with the best of them, men or women. This figure comes from a 2002 census survey, which compared the yearly median earnings figure of full-time working women to the median figure for men. So the census folks took two lists that include everything from burger-flippers to CEOs, stuck a pin in the middle of each list, compared them, and that’s supposed to determine equal pay for equal work? If women really do offer equal work for 23 cents less on the dollar, why does anyone bother hiring men?

The point being that there may be sexual discrimination in pay, but there are also plenty of other possible reasons for discrepancies. The DNC would force employers to ignore those other reasons and pay me a certain salary simply based on my gender.

And last, “because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a woman's right to choose… regardless of her ability to pay.”

Clearly, I cannot be expected to protect myself from an unwanted pregnancy, and should I decide to have an abortion, I can’t be expected to take responsibility for even paying for it. Why not? You guessed it—Because I’m a girl.

No wonder all the liberal women I’ve ever known felt like someone was keeping them down. I never imagined there were so many things I can’t do because I’m a woman until I read the DNC platform. But isn’t this the party for women? I hear time and time again that I can’t be a self-respecting woman without being a Democrat.

I beg to differ. It is precisely because I’m a self-respecting woman that I don’t need Brad’s condescension cloaked in kindness. I want to earn what I get, deserve what I earn, and decide exactly what I do with my earnings instead of handing that responsibility off to a political party. I am capable of that and much more, because I’m a girl.