This has not been a good week for Democratic women.
First, a New York Times op-ed penned by two progressive feminists noting two disturbing trends: 1) Democratic Leaders have been bargaining away our reproductive rights, and 2) the Democratic Party is not seeking out nor encouraging strong women leaders . Then, a Los Angeles Times story descrying that hopes for the "Year of the Women" are fading. Given the projected seat losses by incumbent Democratic women, women's representation in government will likely decrease in 2010 (for the first time since 1976).
Well, gosh golly gee. Let me gather up some faux shock and righteous indignation and say: "You mean the Democratic Party doesn't care about women?". There, that's better.
Why are Democratic women moving backwards? Because we've promised our vote to one party on the basis of one issue. We have no bargaining power or leverage. The old idiom: Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?, has a DNC version: If we pay lip service to the eggs, we'll get their vote for free!
To get women back on the path of advancement, we need a new strategy. It's time for women leaders to voyage beyond women's studies and take a lesson from the economics department. When business as usual stops working, it's time to restructure and reinvent.
The imperious assumption that reproductive rights is the litmus test for our vote is holding us back. United, women are a powerful voting block. Divided, we are essentially stalled. To move forward, women need to find common ground. Here's some tips on getting there:
1. Reproductive Rights should not be our centerpiece issue
I am pro-choice and reproductive rights are important to me. But so are other issues. A singular focus on reproductive rights is defeatist, myopic and exclusionary. How about post menopausal women? Or lesbian women? Or women who are not sexually active? Should one issue that impacts a slice of women and girls be our holy grail?
If we truly want to give women control of their bodies, women need economic freedom. Women compose the majority of small business owners and employees. We raise the vast majority of children. In a year where uncertainty on taxes, health care costs and regulations has paused economic expansion, it is women who lose. Women who are not financially secure are more likely to stay in abusive relationships (with their children), get foreclosed on, lose credit and so on.
We need to reformulate and update our list of what constitutes: "women's issue."
2. Republican Women are not the enemy
So sure that Republican women don't care about women's issues? Think again!
Without the support of the four female Republican Senators, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would not have passed. The Republican women were also instrumental in passing Al Franken's Anti-Rape Amendment, working with Democratic women to co-sponsor Mammogram Coverage Amendment, and speaking out for the women of Afghanistan.
Our daily lives are improved by having women leaders from both parties. My colleague Patricia Garrison, a registered Democrat, recalls having a difficult delivery of her daughter fifteen years ago. Nonetheless, her insurance company instructed her check out the next day. Then a light bulb went off. Pat remembered that her governor, Christine Todd Whitman (R), had just signed a bill mandating insurers to cover a second night in the hospital. Pat readily acknowledges that if "Christine" was instead "Christopher", from either party, Pat would have been shipped home 24 hours later.
3. Women's Groups' anti-women rhetoric sets us back
Women's groups should declare a moratorium on attacking Republican women. As Anne Kornblut's Notes from the Cracked Ceiling sadly documents, there is a large segment of women (and men) who will simply not vote for women because they presume we are not qualified. Feeding into this ignorance by demeaning women candidates only steepens the slope for all women candidates.
The video "Sarah Palin Doesn't Speak for Me" is unbecoming and a stain on the legacy of the important organization that produced it. So are the insidious op-ed's written by leaders of women's organizations attacking Republican women running for office. If you run an organization whose goal is to get more women elected, then get women elected. Send us a video of Democratic women candidates who DO speak for you and tell us how we can support them. Meet with the DNC and demand more support and funding for women running.
But don't shame our gender by telling us the best you can do is to demean other women - it's not only high school, it's junior high school. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are serious women who ran Fortune 500 companies (only 3% of F500 CEOs are women). Nikki Haley and Susana Martinez are minority women who made their own way to run as governors. These women are not "wingnuts" or any of the other verbal diarrhea being hurled their way. Even if we don't vote for these women, we can acknowledge and respect them. If your organization REALLY needs to make it a fight on policy, then make a video attacking some of the Republican men running against Democratic women.
4. "A Palin of Our Own" is not the solution
It would be misguided to presume that the solution for the Democratic Party is to find our Sarah Palin. The internalized sexism in our party is too systemic . For example, the two progressive feminists who penned the 'Palin of Our Own' op-ed were unequivocally brutal towards Hillary Clinton, a woman in our party, publishing sexist articles like this. Why didn't the women in our party speak out?
We can, however, learn from Sarah Palin. Palin unapologetically supports women in her party. Even at times incurring her party faithful's wrath when her choices were not conservative enough.
We should, as a starting point, expect that of our women leaders. And, perhaps of ourselves. Can we support the women in our party and give them the benefit of the doubt until we make some inroads towards gender balance? Because there is no "perfect" woman candidate. If Mother Teresa were running as a Democrat, we'd obsess over what her hair looked like under the habit.
We don't necessarily need to vote for women of the Republican Party if we disagree with their policies. But as my dearly deceased mother used to say: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Supporting women. Finding common ground. These notions will get women moving forward once again!
Follow Amy Siskind on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AmyTheNewAgenda
Loading comments… 
I would love to find some common ground provided due respect is given to mothers and grandmothe
Also just because an "issue" is not relevant in one's life (your litmus test argument) - does not mean it is not important to the history and foundation of progress. Shame Shame Shame.
"Republica
"Women's Groups' anti-women rhetoric sets us back"
"A Palin of Our Own" is not the solution"
Hmm. Let me guess. The new strategy would be to vote for the Bible Spice rather than a "Palin of Our Own" because the meaningles
Gee Amy, are you going to pass that advice on to Palin as well? Or was the 'Cackle of Rads' comment suppose to be a compliment
My mom was a 60's feminist. One of those 'Rads', you know. She worked at a job all day at a time when my friends moms were stay at home. She never cooked or baked. Our house was always messy. Laundry was never put away. But my brother and I both graduated from college on her dimes. When it was her turn to bring the snack for the PTA meeting, she brought packaged Oreos. She got some snickers, smirks for that. She didn't care. She had a vice; smoking and we lost her way too early.
Through her example, I have a voice. And it's not going to sit back and be a silent voice when a woman or a man politician says something outrageous
When Palin used the cackle of rads comment, that was hardly a step in uniting women. It was more to protect her fragile ego than it was to promote the cause of women today. So don't ask me to sit on hands and close my mouth to protect the ego of some mean-spiri
Take for instance life vs. choice. Why do we consider only one of the choices a “feminist” issue? I cannot fault a woman for her intellectu
Yet, my feminist friends believe such a conclusion is for the intellectu
Unfortunat
After working for the Dems, I detest their true motives. (I'm now an Independen
As feminists, shouldn’t we desire to live in a country that instills strength, integrity, self-relia
You practicall
And then 5 minutes later they'll be touting the same old B.S. about "you dems not respecting our women leaders" when we just spend 5 minutes talking about how awesome their women leaders (the actual leaders, not cheerleade
Heck, I know more about the accomplish
"It's time for women leaders to voyage beyond women's studies and take a lesson from the economics department
As if women nationwide don't work as CPAs, Economists
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[I]t was astonishin
were fragile - and beautiful, and that the diamond band on the
wrist of her naked arm gave her the most feminine of all aspects:
the look of being chained.
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She stood as she always did, straight and taut, her head lifted
impatientl
her naked shoulder betrayed the fragility of the body under the
black dress, and the pose made her most truly a woman. The proud
strength became a challenge to someone's superior strength, and
the fragility a reminder that the challenge could be broken.
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The entire thing is the rape fantasy of a twisted soul terrified of success. But before you say, Oh, but that was fiction!" she wrote a non-fictio
"About a Woman President" ( Ayn Rand )
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properly
feminine woman does not treat men as if she were their pal,
sister, mother - or leader. ... To act as the superior, the
leader, virtually the ruler of all the man she deals with,
would be an excruciati
require a total depersonal
an incommunic
repress) every personal aspect of her own character and
attitude; she could not be herself, i.e., a
In her books "good" women always fit her rigid definition of feminine ... slim, frail, begging to be dominated by a man ... and "good" men are always macho. Meanwhile her male villains are effeminate and her female villains are like me ... big and strong.
She hared off at right angles to feminism the moment she defined strict roles and expectatio
And she wanders off into disgusting rape fantasy .. well when she got all horney over the guy who raped and dismembere
http://www
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Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him
“the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousn
She called him a "brilliant
Our interests are not opposed to the interests of men, as we live with and share responsibi
To paraphrase Shirley Sherrod, it isn't about sex, it's about class. The Republican
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Why?
Palin does not represent a strong or positive voice. Her constant use of sarcasm to make a point is unfortunat