Kansas: Women's Suffrage Opponent Seeks Office

[rainbow4321]

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0605/232796.html

A state senator who once said that giving women the vote was a symptom of weakness in the American family now wants to be Kansas' top elections official. Sen. Kay O'Connor announced Wednesday that she is seeking the GOP nomination for secretary of state next year. O'Connor, 63, has served in the Legislature since 1993. In 2001, O'Connor received national attention for her remarks about the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1920, which gave women the right to vote.

"I think the 19th Amendment, while it's not an evil in and of itself, is a symptom of something I don't approve of," she said at the time. "The 19th Amendment is around because men weren't doing their jobs, and I think that's sad. I believe the man should be the head of the family. The woman should be the heart of the family."

On Wednesday, she dismissed the controversy - which included an unsuccessful drive to recall her from office - as "silliness." She said she does not believe voters will consider it a significant issue.

"I am who I am. You don't have to agree with everything I say," O'Connor said. But Caroline McKnight, executive director of a group devoted to fighting conservatives in politics, said: "If she thinks it's going to go away because she's on a statewide ballot, she's living on another planet."

[MisterP]

1. that's precisely what Ann Coulter says

[Voltaire99]

13. I'm all for having right wing women abstain from voting.

Right wing men, too. ;-)

[Demeter]

20. They Sure as Hell Shouldn't Run For Office!

Isn't this just a little too bizarre for belief?

[beam me up scottie]

2. So why isn't she at home

in the kitchen where she belongs?

[rainbow4321]

11. Apparently she is blaming that on men..

From a blog I just googled:


http://ustoo.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_ustoo_archive.html

Feb 18th 2004 entry:


If the measure were up for ratification today, she said, she would not support it. Furtado said she was dumbfounded by those views.

"If O'Connor was just an ordinary citizen", Furtado said, "I'd say fine. But when she serves in the Senate, she represents many people. She is the beneficiary of a system she doesn't support."
<snip>

Beginning in the 1960s, O'Connor said in an interview, career doors began to open for women, bolstered by efforts of the earlier women's suffrage movement. The message to women, reinforced by books, television and magazines, O'Connor said, was to abandon more traditional homemaker roles and enter the workplace. And with the onset of higher taxes to finance social welfare programs, said O'Connor, a 15-year homemaker, a second household income was necessary to make ends meet.

Consequently, the 19th Amendment was the beginning of a societal shift that today erodes traditional family values, she said. O'Connor said that in her case, mounting medical bills to care for a sick daughter forced her into the workplace. Rules created by men did not allow her the opportunity to stay at home and care for her child, she said. Searching for something to do in retirement, O'Connor got into politics by accident when she was drafted by a neighborhood gathering to run for theHouse of Representatives in 1992.

[beam me up scottie]

12. So not only is she a traitor to her sex,

but she gets to play the victim card as well.

Modern feminism: Yes ladies, you CAN have it all.

[BlueIris]

17. Ah, yes, those "traditional homemaker roles,"

those were so great. The ones that mandated that women had to be mothers, the sole executors of any family-or-home responsibilities, (while the fathers or husbands or children those homes benefitted could shit all over them if they wanted to) were essentially tantamount to property, and not entitled to independent lives, identities or financial resources of their own. Those were so damn terrific! Plus, I love that part in which O'Conner (or the reporter, can't tell) condemns "books, television and magazines," for promoting that "messages." Shame on those women-folk, for reading, and booksellers and media programmers for having demanded women seek autonomy and freedom! Shame!

Okay, I get that your post also condemned her stupidity, but I just CAN'T let sexist, illogical claims like that go unaddressed anymore. (Yes, I did get a call from my asshole ex today, why do you ask? Yes, he was the one who, despite having two masters degrees, thinks it made sense to say something like, "I don't see what's so offensive to women about being asked to take their husband's last name--traditionally, that's how things are done." Intelligent people really do buy this sort of superficial, rhetorical "justification" for a workforce (or an electorate) that does not include women (ya know, because of tradition) if the non-sexist among us don't occasionally bother to try to sort out the bullshit for them.

[raccoon]

26. Exactly what I was thinking

"The woman should be the heart of the family."

So why isn't she home, busy being the heart of the family? What's she doing holding a political office?

I'm sick of these dippy right-wing women like this one and Phyllis Schafly who preach this nonsense about women staying home and having their lives center around their families, while THEY are out in the world doing EXACTLY the opposite of what they're preaching about.
Hello--don't they see the cognitive dissonance here??

[ovidsen]

29. This is bad.

She says women were forced to work because increased taxes caused by rising social (welfare) costs made it difficult for single income families to survive. NOT.

She says she was forced to go to work because "rules created by men did not allow her the opportunity to stay home and care for her child". So is she trying to change those rules? Nope.

I agree. Terminal cognitive dissonance.

[beam me up scottie]

31. Don't forget our favorite ann coulter

She doesn't think women should be allowed to vote.

[Dover]

3. I call it the Republican Retrograde.

Time seems to be moving backwards when the Reps are manning the controls.

...Believe we’re gliding down the highway, when in fact we’re slip sliding away

[BlueIris]

15. Interesting.

Especially considering my crazy fear that time really IS speeding up, it's not just me.

[DeaconBlues]

22. pretty soon certain republican officials will come out and say that the

13th, 14th, and 15th amendments that freed the slaves and gave them civil liberties were unconstitutional, and no one will bat and eye. We are that far down the rabbit hole.

[Warpy]

4. That should be reason enough to disqualify the stupid bitch

Womens' suffrage supplied the votes needed to end child labor and to restrict the hours adults were forced to work. It also resulted in the failed experiment of Prohibition, but that was eventually corrected.

I think all these ladies who hate women need to live what they preach, put on frilly aprons, high heeled shoes, and pearls and go mop the kitchen floor in that getup and pretend to be June Cleaver.

They certainly don't belong outside that role.

[BlueIris]

16. I agree. I don't need candidates who display the highest intelligence,

but I do want them to demonstrate a passing familiarity with REALITY and SANITY.

[Book Lover]

5. Liar. Just plain, old-fashioned liar.

If she truly believed it, she would live it (Horribly, I know women who do just that). In any event, the original reason why our right to vote was not recognized (and in fact, for women from New Jersey, was taken away with ratification of the federal constitution) was that the original idea was "one household, one vote"; it is a safe and easy step to allowing women heads of households to vote if she wants to go back to this model.

But all that is intellectual speculation, and as such, is of no interest to O'Connor. I am sure many if not most of the other women in the Kansas GOP are as unhappy with this as we are. It'll be an interesting thing to see develop.

[bpilgrim]

6. a reTHUG no doubt

and then she has the nerve to run for office... what is this country coming to :crazy:

peace

[robertarctor]

7. Easy solution ...

Just tell all wingnut Christianist women to stop voting.

[Gemini Cat]

8. Damn. Why does she hate herself?

Is she stupid?

[anotherdrew]

9. She _can't think_ and doesn't want anyone else to either

sad really, but a sad sign of the times that these types can be elected to anything anywhere.

[Kurovski]

10. Oh, HER again.

The "do as I say, not as I do" candidate. :eyes:

[BlueIris]

14. "I am who I am. You don't have to agree with everything I say,"

as if that insane position represents some minor "disagreement" that senator is having with one or two of her detractors. MY GOD. I am SO TIRED of that. The people with the most offensive, illogical, fucked up prejudices, especially when they intend to or would vote them into LAW if they could simply "explaining" them away as their "difference of opinion" with those who "don't agree." Sometimes, I don't agree with a person because that person's opinion about an issue, cause or subject is vile, or wrong. It's inaccurate. It calls for unjustly oppressing others or other things normal humans in polite, ostensibly democratic society agree are illegal. Sometimes, when those disagreements occur, the most important thing really is the other person's racism, bigotry, misogyny and lack of education or understanding about the topic, NOT THE FACT THAT WE'RE HAVING A DISAGREEMENT.

[no_hypocrisy]

18. Can't imagine why she's bitchin'. Security Moms put * back in the WH.

Soccer Moms in 2000.

Plus she wouldn't be able to vote herself into office if her suggestion were actually enacted.

[BlueIris]

21. I take your point, but I'm pretty sure fraud put Bush in the WH.

Both times.

[cap]

19. Dear, please go back into the kitchen where you belong

and leave running elections to 'real women'.

[bleedingheart]

23. She should take up knitting and sewing and stop running for office

what a dipshit...

[leesa]

24. So how can she be a state senator or a secretary of state?

What a twit!

[renaissanceguy]

25. Good point!!!

Like any fundie, she's a fucking hypocrite.


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/466053

[wallwriter]

27. Yeah, but why don't more people realize how hilariously

self-contradictory this is? People who deserve to be laughed off the public stage end up achieving high elective office.

[bling bling]

28. This woman's attitude is unpatriotic and un-American.

She would be much more at home in a theocratic dictatorship, but instead of leaving she's joining the right-wing in their crussade to just change America into a theocratic dictatorship.

The real enemy of America and freedom and liberty is the right-wing. And not only are we allowing them to destroy us, we're friggen electing them and paying them to do it.

The irony is fascinating, humiliating, and frustrating all at the same time.

[David__77]

30. I wish the other rightists were so honest.

The agenda of unvarnished patriarchy will certainly reignite women to fight for freedom. This is the flip side of the Promise Keepers, who tell men to stop "being weak" and enforce a male supremacy to "support women."

[JerseygirlCT]

32. What IS it with these women?

They think it's fine to deprive other women of basic human rights, but they gladly take all the opportunities those rights have presented?

The hubris, not to mention cognitive dissonance, required to pull this off is amazing.

[Brooklyn Michael]

33. This Message Brought to You by....

....The Promise Keepers of America. Trying to set the calendar back two centuries since 1990.

[supernova]

34. So, Why the hell is O'Connor seeking ELECTIVE office?

Talk about screwy! :crazy:

According to her own logic, she shouldn't be encouraging men to vote for her, much less women.